AUTUMNHOLD G AME D ESIGN D OCUMENT Joel Cabaco 1 Contents High Level Vision ................................ ................................ ................................ ...................... 2 Elevator pitch ................................ ................................ ................................ ......................... 2 Examples ................................ ................................ ................................ ................................ 2 Title ................................ ................................ ................................ ................................ ........ 2 Platform ................................ ................................ ................................ ................................ .. 2 Business model ................................ ................................ ................................ ....................... 3 Art Style and Theme ................................ ................................ ................................ .................. 3 Level of quality and visual style ................................ ................................ ............................ 3 UI ................................ ................................ ................................ ................................ ............ 5 Environments ................................ ................................ ................................ ......................... 8 Characters ................................ ................................ ................................ ............................. 11 Character Creation ................................ ................................ ................................ ........... 14 Rendering style ................................ ................................ ................................ ..................... 14 Narrative ................................ ................................ ................................ ................................ .. 14 World ................................ ................................ ................................ ................................ .... 14 Main story quests ................................ ................................ ................................ ................. 16 Sub - quests ................................ ................................ ................................ ............................ 18 Gameplay ................................ ................................ ................................ ................................ 19 Core gameplay and loop ................................ ................................ ................................ ....... 19 Exploration ................................ ................................ ................................ ....................... 19 Combat ................................ ................................ ................................ ............................. 19 Dialogue ................................ ................................ ................................ ........................... 20 Character stats ................................ ................................ ................................ ...................... 21 Narrative gameplay ................................ ................................ ................................ .............. 21 Motivation and Morality Guided Quests (MMGQ) ................................ ......................... 21 UI and UX ................................ ................................ ................................ ................................ 23 Level Schema and Sample Design ................................ ................................ ........................... 26 Overview ................................ ................................ ................................ .............................. 26 NPCs ................................ ................................ ................................ ................................ ..... 29 Stat blocks ................................ ................................ ................................ ........................ 29 2 High L evel V ision Elevator pitch The game is a fantasy RPG which attempts to bring the tabletop experience of creating and developing a character, making them evolve through the story not only in power and ability, but also in personality, motivation and morality. The game allows players to create a story arc for the characters they make, giving them the freedom to explore, ch ange and affect the way their character thinks and acts alongside the world they will perform those actions on. Examples Baldur’s Gate 3 : allows players to create characters using the Dungeons & Dragons 5 th Edition ruleset, and is set in the Forgotten Real ms. The game gives freedom to affect the world through player actions, has an interesting world to explore, and boasts the tactical RPG combat that tabletop D&D uses as well as its most famous setting. Pillars of Eternity: has a deep character customizatio n menu where choices not only influence how the character will be used mechanically, but also establish their background. Wakfu : has tactical combat akin to what was established by other Tactical RPGs like Fire Emblem or Shining Force , but better focused a round small skirmishes where the player usually only controls one character. Title The game’s title will be Autumnhold , because the main narrative of the game will centre around the homonymous city in the game’s world. This is also a subtle nod to one of t he inspirations of this game (and the genre as a whole), Baldur’s Gate , where the main city of the game shares the same name. Platform The game will accommodate both keyboard and mouse gameplay, as well as playing with a standard dual stick controller. This will make the game available for all of the major platforms: PC and Linux, PS4 and PS5, Xbox One and Xbox Series, and Nintendo Switch 3 The main focus target of the game are RPG players, who traditionally have always played in PC. However, in recent years there has been an effort to port many RPGs to console to broaden the potential audience of the games. Support for mobile devices will be considered for a later release, after the main release of the game in consoles and computers. While mobile is a huge market with many potential customers, we are aware that the game pertains to a niche genre which wouldn’t make it that appealing for the general public. Business model The business model of the game will be Retail, through physical stores (e.g., GameStop) and Digital Distribution, through online platforms ( e.g. , Steam, Epic Games Store or GOG). The game will have a price of 24,99 USD and be a single purchase, with no Subscription or Microtransaction models included. Art S tyle and T heme Level of quality and visual style The visual style of the game will use 2D sprites to represent characters and entities, with 2D backgrounds using a combina tion of tiles and handmade backgrounds to represent environments. The 2D art will use the “pixel art” technique, rendering pixels bigger than their actual screen fit size. 4 Figure 1 - Kynseed (PixelCount Studios, 2018) Figure 2 - Golden Sun: The Lost Age (Camelot So ftware Planning, 2002). 5 Figure 3 - Stardew Valley (Eric Barone, 2016). Figure 4 - Wargroove (Chucklefish, 2019) UI The user interface should be non - intrusive and minimalistic when out of combat, but useful and extensive in battles. The style of buttons, text and other elements should have natural 6 designs, akin to those of a medieval fantasy, using textures, materials a nd symbols from the world. The designs can include symbols from the game’s worldbuilding. Figure 5 - Baldur's Gate II: Enhanced Edition (Beamdog, 2013). 7 Figure 6 - Icewind Dale: Enhanced Edition (Beamdog, 2014). Figure 7 - Pillars of Eternity (Obsidian Entertainment, 2016). 8 Figure 8 - Nebulosa (AntyGraphics, TBD). Figure 9 - Blasphemous (The Game Kitchen, 2 019). Environments Environments of the game will combine handmade backgrounds with tiles. Specific areas of the game will be drawn specifically tailored to that area, but tiles for specific objects, clutter, 9 etc, can be tiles that repeat. However, many different versions of each tile should be made so that repetitiousness is avoided as much as possible. Dungeons will have fog of war, covering unexplored areas in black while explored areas will be covered by mist 1 and have reduced saturation. Areas that are seen by the player have full colour and are displayed normally. Settlements should be fu lly revealed once the player enters the designated area for the settlement. Outdoor areas should have important paths, landmarks or areas revealed, but other parts of the map should be covered. The environments should convey the theme of the area they are representing. Open areas like forests and fields should be vibrant and colourful if they’re on a prosperous region, with elements that pop up and catch player attention. Towns vary depending on their intended mood, for example a trading hub with lots of ac tivity should pop out and invite exploring and interacting, but the creepy, thief - ridden streets of a city’s dock ward should be eerie and instil nervousness and uneasiness, like most dungeons should. Many CRPGs like Baldur’s Gate , Planescape: Torment and Pillars of Eternity convey the themes of their areas really well. The work that should be done is translating that mood from the pre - rendered backgrounds of those games to pixel art. Figure 10 - Tileset by Nauris Amatnieks 2 1 It is important that the mist can be deactivated through a graphic options menu, so that players who want to see locations with full colour or clarity are able to. 2 https://www.artstation.com/aamatni ekss 10 Figure 11 - Art by jnkboy 3 on DeviantArt. Figure 12 - Pillars of Eternity (Obsidian Entertainment, 2013) fog of war example 3 https://www.deviantart.com/jnkboy 11 Figure 13 - Planescape: Torment du ngeon example. Figure 14 - Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition dungeon example. Characters Characters will have a sprite sheet for their world appearance, which will be used in exploration, general movement and battles, and a mugshot or portrait, that will be used for dialogues and menus. The mugshot will be created simultaneously with the world sprite. In the 12 character creation screen, the player will have options to choose the character’s facial features (eyes, nose, mouth, eyebrows, ears, jawline and facial hair), hair, and body type. While modifying the facial features won’t have an effect on the world sprite (except for the eyes and facial hair which are highly visible), they will affect the mugshot. Modifying the character’s hair, eyes and facial hair will be visible in the mugshot and the world sprite. Finally, the body type will only be se en on the world sprite. Body types will have neutral labels like 1 and 2 instead of “masculine” and “feminine” to avoid associating any of them with a particular gender, which can offend or alienate some players. The sprites for humanoids will use a charac ter template and apply modifications on top, depending on race, equipment, status, and other visual alterations. Slightly different templates should be used for different races, like elves or halflings having different statures or half - orcs and dwarves bei ng more muscular. Different skin colours should be available for each race, depending on sub - race or ethnicity. The player can choose the body type of their character independently from the gender. Clothing should have variants depending on stature. The in spiration for the character art both in the world and for dialogues will draw heavily on isometric Tactical RPGs such as Final Fantasy Tactics (Squaresoft, 1997), Pr oject Triangle Strategy (Artdink, 2022) and the Disgaea (Nippon Ichi Software, 2003). Figure 15 - Example of 2D character template. 13 Figure 16 - Project Triangle Strategy (Artdink, 2022). Figure 17 - Final Fantasy Tactics (Squaresoft, 1997) set of generic charac ter sprites, both mugshots and battle sprites. 14 Character Creation The game will need a system to create a character’s appearance and stats, but the development team will also need to use this tool to create NPCs for the game. The system that will be used is the one used ubiquitously in many video games (not only RPGs), which is having the player choose from different pre - sets of body parts. Some (most commonly 3D) RPGs, like Fallout 4 (Bethesda Softworks, 2015) and Dark Souls (FromSoftware, 2011) use slide rs for facial and body features , but in a 2D game with low - fidelity sprites, those minor changes will not be perceptible enough to take into account when developing the creator. Characters will have different areas where pre - sets can be chosen. The first o ne, which is chosen before the character appearance, is their race, which will set the base appearance of the character before any modification. Rendering style The rendering style of the game will be a ¾ top - down perspective. The character will be able t o move in any direction in the world, so the sprites will need to represent at least 8 directional movement, so the transition between directions isn’t stiff. Narrative World The world of the game is called Enneron , though the story takes place in a small region of the continent of Klusias, called the Resting Lands. The area is mostly a peaceful region, pertaining to no specific country. People are organized in city - states, with some of them occupied with the protec tion of small villages nearby. 15 Figure 18 - Map of the Resting Lands. The major gods of Enneron are Denemis , the god of power, Veohr , the god of courage and Okvian, the god of wisdom . The three combined are called the Triceum, and the subsequent religion is named triceism . Even though they are called gods, they actually don’t have any specific gender. While veneration of these gods is not required, many people do so out of tradition o r peer pressure. No god is seen as superior to the others, so the triceist churches or altars present in every settlement are dedicated to all three. Any of the gods can grant any domain they choose to a cleric. The two city - states of the Resting Lands are Autumnhold to the northwest and Riverrock to the southeast. Both cities are placed by contiguous currents of water, so trade between the two is commonplace. Autumnhold connects the Resting Lands to the north of the Corithan Empire to the west, with which it trades with in weapons and armour , because of the Empire’s property of abundant mines, and fabrics and meat, since cattle raising is not commonplace in the region because of a lack of space to do so efficiently. In turn, Corithan merchants buy exotic fr uits and nuts from the region’s forests, fish from the Susfail Stream and magic items enchanted in 16 the Resting Lands’ only arcane school, the Lunis Academy of Autumnhold. The military of the city is called the Oakguard, named after the vast oak forests aro und the settlement. They patrol both the city itself, and the roads leading to Antilon and the Cathedral of Veohr. The town of Antilon (the first town the player visits) is a small farming community with a number of shops taking profit of the town’s placem ent near Autumnhold. Most of the town’s produce is sent to the city - state to either be consumed there or sold to the Empire. Since the town is also located a few miles away from the Cathedral of Veohr, many of the townspeople are believers of courage The easternmost settlement in the Resting Lands is Riverrock, a riverside city founded years ago to work as a bastion in the Old War, when the Corithan Empire was in its early days and other races allied against the nomadic inhabitants of the Ravaged Wasteland . Much has changed since then, and while not on very good terms, both civilizations have come to an agreement and coexist near one another. The small towns of Wolfburgh and Arkset are gathering settlements where most inhabitants live of orchards planted ar ound or, in the case of Arkset, inside the towns. Arkset is usually described as a very beautiful town where many druids enjoy staying, because of its intertwining with nature. On the other side, Wolfburgh is a rougher settlement with a few houses scattere d about, and acts as a place of rest to travelers. The closest settlement in the Ravaged Wasteland is Obokh Dhur, a city run primarily by orcs, drow, and members of the nomadic human tribes that roam the desert. Many inhabitants of Obokh Dhur trade in poke epu (an animal resembling a cross between an alpaca and a camel) meat and skin, but the most value they offer to the Resting Lands are as explorers or mercenaries, accustomed to the harsh climates and violent creatures of the Wasteland. Lastly, there are r umours around the region that talk of a group of people acting as defenders of the Resting Lands, performing small actions from the shadows in favour of the area’s inhabitants’ wellbeing. This group is supposedly called the Shadowgather. Main story quests The main story quests of the game will take the player around the region and relate to the main narrative of the story, since we want the player to experience as much content as possible. However, the main quests should always be thought of as highly inte ractive in the sense that 17 they could develop in different ways depending on player decision, their performance, luck , and the time of day they take place at. Thus, we ensure that while the player is guided along a main narrative, the flow of that narrative is somewhat controlled by them , giving the sense that they are creating their own story with how they play. This means that the quests should have lots of content that some players are not going to experience, but one of the pillars of this game is giving a true RPG experience, which a linear narrative is much weaker at. So, even if the content is not going to be played by all players, we ensure that every player gets two things: a sense of agency by having the game react to their own actions, and a sense of existing in a believable, constant world that exists beyond the player. The main story quest will start with the player character traveling from Autumnhold to Antilon in a caravan, which has camped in the forest for the night. While on their watch, the guards of the caravan are attacked by a strange monster that no one in the caravan has heard of before. The player character escapes the camping site and arrives at a small cavern on a hill, hiding from the monster. By morning, the player character finds t heir way to Antilon. The player’s decisions in the town start to shape the different narrative options of the story. They can choose to stay quiet and investigate on their own, returning to the place of the attack by daylight and trying to gather any hints as to what happened. They can talk to the authorities and if the player convinces the mayor of the town, they will send a missive to Autumnhold and order the Oakguard to investigate the site. If the player fails to convince the mayor, this option will be unavailable unless the player’s reputation in town increases (by doing sub - quests in favour of the town). Other options are finding a shadowy figure on the town’s inn that gives the player a hint of where to look for hints (a member of the Shadowgather) . T he player can thus interact with the story through different means and on their own terms, depending on how they play. Following the introduction, many more main story quests will have to be developed revolving around the main narrative of the game. The Co rithan Empire has been looking to annex the independent region of the Resting Lands for many decades, and faction of its government is secretly taking action in progress of that goal. That faction has started a conspiracy where creating monsters that threa ten the peaceful countryside of the Resting Lands will overwhelm the Oakguard and the other authorities of the area, so dealing with the threat proves an excuse with which they’ll be able to move troops into the region. Once the Corithan army has dealt wit h the monsters, the Empire will be able to use the attack as an example of the weakness of 18 the Resting Lands’ authorities, and many people will want them to fully annex the region to be better protected. The player can take quests that move the narrative f orward from different perspectives, by either allying with the authorities of the region, by working with the Shadowgather, by investigating themselves or by ignoring the conflict altogether (however, events will take place independently from the player, s o even ignoring them will have an impact on the player’s experience). This all moves in an in - game clock that gives deadlines for quests/events, similar to that of the main quest in the original Fallout Which quests the player takes part in, and how they execute them, is affected by the MMGQ system, so that the player can develop an arc for their character even if they only play through main story quests. Sub - quests The sub - quests of the game will be side content that will not directly advance the main nar rative, but some of them can be complimentary to it. As sub - quests in many other RPGs, in the game they will provide extra content for the player to engage with between main story quests, as well as interesting side narratives, locations, and rewards. A m ain focus for sub - quest design in this game will be leaving many options open for player expression. Simple linear sub - quests will be kept at minimum, and the vast majority of them will have different outcomes with the same dependencies that main story que sts have: player choice, performance, luck, and timing. As an example of a sub - quest (which will be expanded upon in the Level Schema and Sample Design section of the document) the player finds a visibly worried Oakguard when visiting the Antilon town hall to communicate the events of the introduction (the monster ambush) to the mayor. After learning about the attack, the guard is paranoid because he has to meet with someone in a cave to the west (close to the ambush site). He asks the player character if t hey can check the cave in advance to make sure its safe before he goes. Usually, sub - quests will be where the MMGQ system will be used the most, but it won’t have as heavy an impact , since it would demean the dramatism that it has in main story quests. 19 Gameplay Core gameplay and loop Exploration The player moves around the scenario by clicking on the desired destination tiles. Since the world will be comprised of tiles on an orthogonal grid, a simple pathfinding algorithm like A* will serve the purpose, and also allow for different terrain costs. Combat Combat in the game will play very similarly to how it plays in tabletop Dungeons & Dragons, using a grid system where every square represents 5 feet. Characters can only occupy set spaces in the grid, not half - points between squares. The game will make use of the alternative rules for diagonal movement where every odd diagonal square move spends 5ft and even ones spend 10ft. Players will be able to use most spells in the tabletop game, barring the ones that have very specific, non - quantifiable effects such as Divination. The area of effect of spells will be calculated using the guidelines in Fig. 19. Figure 19 - Area of Effect guidelines.