Game Vision Statement

 Escape Run

In this blog I will be writing my game vision statement, The name of the game will be 'Escape Run' and the genre of the game will be an endless runner game. This game idea was inspired by other infinite runner games such as temple run or subway surfers.

What is an endless runner?

An endless runner game is characterized as an action game, designed in a linear way with no end, without any pauses or breaks to rest, the game usually has no stages or changing levels. It has one continuous level, the game difficulty starts slow and easy, but the further the player gets the difficulty increases

Description:

The game will start off with a simple menu scene with an image in the background of a bridge leading to an entryway with some stairs, (shown in the image below) a high score on the top left and the start button at the centre of the bottom of the screen. 

The point of the game is for the player to get as far as possible in the game without crashing into any of the obstacles ahead of them. The game will be fun for the player but also challenging.

When the player clicks 'play' the game starts off with a short camera animation at the beginning and then we can see our character running forward towards the obstacles, the game scene looks pretty simple.

As you can see in the image below the player gains points as he/she dodges the obstacles in the way, by adding a points system into the game it challenges the player and gives the player motivation to increase the high score each time they play.

 

Key Feature:

The difficulty of the game increases as the player gets further and the high score increases.

Target Platform:

The target platform for the game is Windows and macOS, but could also be built for Android, iOS and the web. 

Concept Art:

The concept art/ theme of the game is fantasy/ action. The game will be in 3D. Fantastic art is a broad and loosely defined art genre, it can be characterized as non-realistic, mystical, mythical or folkloric subjects or events.

Here is a link to the tutorials I will be using to create my endless runner game:

Link here

 I will download the assets for the game from the asset store, here is a link to the assets that will be used:

Assets

- 4096x4096 Hand-painted atlas texture

- 12 big modules
- Over 120 prefabs to make your own modules
- 1 Mecanim Character to explore your maps
- Particles of fog, fire, smoke, bats, etc.
- Dynamic Flags
- 3 Demo scenes

Player Character:

I will start by creating a character controller that tells the character to move forward and I will also set up a player prefab.

Gravity and Strafe:

Next, I will focus on creating gravity and allow the player to move left and right by reading inputs from the Horizontal axis, by adding gravity the character will fall if he leaves the plane.

Follow Camera:

I will create a camera that will follow the player around the scene by assuming the position of the player and then I will add an offset to the vector3 position. 

Camera Animation & Restrictions:

I will be restricting the camera on the x and y axis, and will also be creating a little animation at the beginning of the scene.

Gameplay Prefabs (Tiles):

Next, I will move onto creating gameplay prefabs and then place them into a list of prefabs that will spawn while the game is running

Spawning Infinite Tiles:

I will start coding the tile manager which will handle all the tile creation and removing which I will create after a certain threshold is passed.

Random and Remove:

I will remove the old tiles behind us and I will also fix the spawn so it now supports all the different tiles we have in the array.

Game UI, Score & Difficulty:

I will implement a score class that keeps track of the players score which in return will modify the difficulty of the game as time passes by. I will also create a UI that will display said score.

Death Condition:

 I will implement a death condition based on the point of collision of the capsule collider (character controller). Once the death condition is triggered we stop the player from moving and we also get a reference to the score component and stop it as well. 

Death Menu:

I will implement a death menu that is triggered after the death condition.

 

Game Menu:

I will implement a game menu containing a button that redirects us to the game scene, we also add few assets to the game menu so it looks great.

High Score and Saving:

I will implement a simple save to registry, save the high-score and load it back up when the game launches the game menu scene.

Lights and Collision:

Lastly, I will fix a bug with the collision and the death condition, I will then remove the directional light to give the game a dark feeling and put a point light on the player.

While writing this post I came across some helpful articles and resources to do with endless runner games:

Endless Runner Games: Evolution and Future

Why Your Game Needs a Vision Statement