Master's degree studies
Story of Two: Extinction
Short Summary:
Story of Two: Extinction is an action-adventure oriented first-person shooter with realistic stealth, survival and physics-based puzzle gameplay elements. The story of two heroes happens during an expedition into the Jurassic age with many dangers to overcome!
PLATFORM: PC, PS4, Xbox One
GENRE: FPS/Adventure
MONETIZATION MODEL: Full Price + DLC
CREATIVE DIRECTOR: Henrich Achberger
Summary for client:
Story of Two: Extinction is an action-adventure about two characters Kate and Jason, who are part of a time travel expedition in the Jurassic Age. Story starts inside expedition explaining its simple reason, find and locate last undrawn sources of oil based on Jurassic fauna and flora and get oil sources in future where expedition came from. During the story throughout the game many things go wrong, resulting in very dangerous situations. Player gets into control of two main characters male security soldier and female scientist, with non-linear story and dialogues, between them, able to change relationship between them and between other characters. FPS gameplay has very deep stealth elements and immersive enemy AI allowing the player to outsmart NPCs rather than giving the player an unfair, irrational advantage. Action gameplay can offer a huge variety of enemies to fight with, such as people from expedition, many breeds of dinosaurs, ai/robots brought with expedition. Story location provides excellent environments such as lush jungles, sunny beaches, old overgrown concrete structures or depressive underground tunnels to promote amazing graphics and lift curiosity to explore for players.
Target audience:
Target group is mainstream audience, mostly for 17-25y who like interesting sci-fi time travel concepts and are interested in story of two characters, however considerable revenue is expected from 13-16y category for lots of action scenes, scary dinosaurs and good graphics
Key gameplay features:
Common enemy combat:
Player has weapons and many tools to defeat enemies usually located near the mission goal or on the path to the goal. The main difference from other FPS genre games is very realistic player strength and health of the player character, with different traits depending on who the player plays for. With female character game encourages player to outsmart enemies using clever tools like mirrors to see behind corners, hiding in bushes or shadows, setting up traps, or avoiding contact altogether. For male players, the opposite approach to conflict situations is encouraged to show. Dinosaurs will add a sense of danger, however outsmarting enemies will be even more pronounced while fighting dinosaurs.
The main goal of these combat features is to make the player feel smart and powerful.
Skill progression features:
Skill progression tree wouldn't have any shape at the beginning, it would be only two nodes for both characters and players would have available few types of node links and skill nodes to build their own node tree. Shape of tree would be important strategic decision since skill nodes can be connected with links including fusion nodes which combine both nodes information to form special skill. Each skill node would show all possible special skills to give options to get immediate skill that player wants opposed to later more powerful special skill possibility. Skill network is rebuildable without any penalty, so players are encouraged to rebuild it to a more suitable shape for newly gained skill nodes. Skill nodes themselves once bought can't be replaced, however at the end of the game, if all items are found all nodes can be unlocked. Progression is level based, so in each level there is a certain amount of items to be found and characters don't get over-skilled in the next level. Levels can be replayed to get missing items if the player is under-skilled in the new level. Each Character would have "talent areas" and "block areas" to make network building even more interesting. Visual style of network would be neurons to mimic making connections in brains of character to promote idea that characters actually learn new skills. Items to unlock look like skill books, manuals, crafting recipes. Each character has different talent zones, which makes skill nodes more effective and mind blocks that are removed or added as characters go through mental stages during the game.
Physic-based puzzles/world exploration:
The game world is populated with many physics enabled props to give the world a higher degree of immersion. Utilizing the physics engine, many creative logic puzzles can be created to give the player a sense of interaction with the game world, encourage them to explore hidden areas and approach environmental obstacles playfully. Difficulty should be high at the beginning, player has ability to collect clues to solution if gets stuck, after certain time player being stuck automated clues for solution are given in non intrusive way, to assure player doesn't have to search for solution on internet. For proper functionality, an extra level of QA in game-dev is required.
famous physics-based puzzle in half-life 2 for illustration
Story gameplay elements:
Non-linear narrative ensures players get involved in story, game world events and relationship between characters. While the player controls one character during the dialogue, the other one is dynamically responding to player choices. Huge emphasis is given to experimentation guessing other characters' reaction, while upon switching characters the player can correct some mistakes and make characters care for each other, or make the situation even worse. Be able to change the outcome of dialogues to a high degree is important for the satisfactory feeling of players as they need their choice to matter. Outcome of story is change not only story but game world and gameplay of last fifth of game, with smaller branching out.
Multiplayer:
Multiplayer will be coop for two people to play for both characters at once for custom scenarios and missions as well as 16 players to play pvp on corridor based half open half interior areas, where point of conflict moves from one side of map to another so players don't exploit one part of map, but are encouraged to use whole gameplay area of pvp maps. Some actions on the way to win a match require coordination of multiple players to help players start communicating with each other and increase the social value of multiplayer.
Another mode for multiplayer is called extinction, which is hardcore survival style, where players can cooperate or fight each other. Each round takes about 15 minutes. Best and most interesting part of this mode is dead players get control over dinosaurs and they don't have to wait for new game round, possibly get payback on players that killed them if they are still alive.
Replayability:
Replayability is huge factor for singleplayer-based game, which is ensured by giving player ability to play again to achieve another ending which difference matters, as well as starting game with better equipment to be able to toy around with enemies, experiment on them without first games difficulty pressure and experiment with physics engine embedded into game.
Game environment:
Game world will mostly consist of Industrial facilities from unsuccessful expeditions in the past taken over by nature, overgrown and decayed. Other game areas are underground tunnels, sci-fi corridors inside modular expedition structures, modern laboratories, beautiful beaches and dark depressive jungles.
Story:
In near future oil resources are low, so expeditions are sent to Jurassic age to locate yet undiscovered oil sources by monitoring vegetation oil originated from. Part of a particular expedition are two characters, Kate and Jason. After a brief introduction to the Jurassic age, many unsettling things become apparent. Decayed ruins of older expeditions are discovered, as well as crew from the current expedition seems to have their own motivation or is bribed. In this situation, dinosaur danger becomes more relevant. To top off the conflict, private corporations also made a choice to hunt for oil in the past. Our two heroes need to fight with enemies from every angle and precious allies between them. After going through outer conflicts and even conflicts between main characters themselves, danger from private corporation escalates and only way to stop is to plant extremely powerful nuclear bomb into its headquarters. Its detonation is huge, as huge that its primary reason for dinosaurs to go extinct, leaving a crater we now think is from a meteor. Ending can branch out in many directions, either two heroes survive up to this point and get back in the future safely, or they may not get to the time machine leaving them to suffer in the wasteland they created with nowhere to go and slowly die.
DLC content will have a short alternate story where heroes could join a private corporation and change its actions leading to actually solving energy problems in the future where they came from.
Game engine, Platform:
Game will run on id Tech 6 or Dunia 2 engine, ensuring all PBR features with custom written physics engine to give predictable and controllable results. These engines handle very well large open areas, as well as tight detailed corridors and are primarily developed for FPS game genre with already solid AI to start modifying advanced AI functions required for gameplay.
Platform is PC, PS4, Xbox One to ensure the widest market reach to be able to pay development costs.
Marketing
Typical marketing strategy chosen for a big AAA game, taking up a big part of the whole game budget.
Main marketing tools are cinematic trailers, gameplay trailers, advertisement on TV and internet, advertisement on energy drinks and fast food, streamers, contests and conferences and other gaming events. The goal is to create massive hype, and keep promises to ensure further expansion of the franchise.
Short Summary:
Story of Two: Extinction is an action-adventure oriented first-person shooter with realistic stealth, survival and physics-based puzzle gameplay elements. The story of two heroes happens during an expedition into the Jurassic age with many dangers to overcome!
PLATFORM: PC, PS4, Xbox One
GENRE: FPS/Adventure
MONETIZATION MODEL: Full Price + DLC
CREATIVE DIRECTOR: Henrich Achberger
Summary for client:
Story of Two: Extinction is an action-adventure about two characters Kate and Jason, who are part of a time travel expedition in the Jurassic Age. Story starts inside expedition explaining its simple reason, find and locate last undrawn sources of oil based on Jurassic fauna and flora and get oil sources in future where expedition came from. During the story throughout the game many things go wrong, resulting in very dangerous situations. Player gets into control of two main characters male security soldier and female scientist, with non-linear story and dialogues, between them, able to change relationship between them and between other characters. FPS gameplay has very deep stealth elements and immersive enemy AI allowing the player to outsmart NPCs rather than giving the player an unfair, irrational advantage. Action gameplay can offer a huge variety of enemies to fight with, such as people from expedition, many breeds of dinosaurs, ai/robots brought with expedition. Story location provides excellent environments such as lush jungles, sunny beaches, old overgrown concrete structures or depressive underground tunnels to promote amazing graphics and lift curiosity to explore for players.
Target audience:
Target group is mainstream audience, mostly for 17-25y who like interesting sci-fi time travel concepts and are interested in story of two characters, however considerable revenue is expected from 13-16y category for lots of action scenes, scary dinosaurs and good graphics
Key gameplay features:
Common enemy combat:
Player has weapons and many tools to defeat enemies usually located near the mission goal or on the path to the goal. The main difference from other FPS genre games is very realistic player strength and health of the player character, with different traits depending on who the player plays for. With female character game encourages player to outsmart enemies using clever tools like mirrors to see behind corners, hiding in bushes or shadows, setting up traps, or avoiding contact altogether. For male players, the opposite approach to conflict situations is encouraged to show. Dinosaurs will add a sense of danger, however outsmarting enemies will be even more pronounced while fighting dinosaurs.
The main goal of these combat features is to make the player feel smart and powerful.
Skill progression features:
Skill progression tree wouldn't have any shape at the beginning, it would be only two nodes for both characters and players would have available few types of node links and skill nodes to build their own node tree. Shape of tree would be important strategic decision since skill nodes can be connected with links including fusion nodes which combine both nodes information to form special skill. Each skill node would show all possible special skills to give options to get immediate skill that player wants opposed to later more powerful special skill possibility. Skill network is rebuildable without any penalty, so players are encouraged to rebuild it to a more suitable shape for newly gained skill nodes. Skill nodes themselves once bought can't be replaced, however at the end of the game, if all items are found all nodes can be unlocked. Progression is level based, so in each level there is a certain amount of items to be found and characters don't get over-skilled in the next level. Levels can be replayed to get missing items if the player is under-skilled in the new level. Each Character would have "talent areas" and "block areas" to make network building even more interesting. Visual style of network would be neurons to mimic making connections in brains of character to promote idea that characters actually learn new skills. Items to unlock look like skill books, manuals, crafting recipes. Each character has different talent zones, which makes skill nodes more effective and mind blocks that are removed or added as characters go through mental stages during the game.
Physic-based puzzles/world exploration:
The game world is populated with many physics enabled props to give the world a higher degree of immersion. Utilizing the physics engine, many creative logic puzzles can be created to give the player a sense of interaction with the game world, encourage them to explore hidden areas and approach environmental obstacles playfully. Difficulty should be high at the beginning, player has ability to collect clues to solution if gets stuck, after certain time player being stuck automated clues for solution are given in non intrusive way, to assure player doesn't have to search for solution on internet. For proper functionality, an extra level of QA in game-dev is required.
famous physics-based puzzle in half-life 2 for illustration
Story gameplay elements:
Non-linear narrative ensures players get involved in story, game world events and relationship between characters. While the player controls one character during the dialogue, the other one is dynamically responding to player choices. Huge emphasis is given to experimentation guessing other characters' reaction, while upon switching characters the player can correct some mistakes and make characters care for each other, or make the situation even worse. Be able to change the outcome of dialogues to a high degree is important for the satisfactory feeling of players as they need their choice to matter. Outcome of story is change not only story but game world and gameplay of last fifth of game, with smaller branching out.
Multiplayer:
Multiplayer will be coop for two people to play for both characters at once for custom scenarios and missions as well as 16 players to play pvp on corridor based half open half interior areas, where point of conflict moves from one side of map to another so players don't exploit one part of map, but are encouraged to use whole gameplay area of pvp maps. Some actions on the way to win a match require coordination of multiple players to help players start communicating with each other and increase the social value of multiplayer.
Another mode for multiplayer is called extinction, which is hardcore survival style, where players can cooperate or fight each other. Each round takes about 15 minutes. Best and most interesting part of this mode is dead players get control over dinosaurs and they don't have to wait for new game round, possibly get payback on players that killed them if they are still alive.
Replayability:
Replayability is huge factor for singleplayer-based game, which is ensured by giving player ability to play again to achieve another ending which difference matters, as well as starting game with better equipment to be able to toy around with enemies, experiment on them without first games difficulty pressure and experiment with physics engine embedded into game.
Game environment:
Game world will mostly consist of Industrial facilities from unsuccessful expeditions in the past taken over by nature, overgrown and decayed. Other game areas are underground tunnels, sci-fi corridors inside modular expedition structures, modern laboratories, beautiful beaches and dark depressive jungles.
Story:
In near future oil resources are low, so expeditions are sent to Jurassic age to locate yet undiscovered oil sources by monitoring vegetation oil originated from. Part of a particular expedition are two characters, Kate and Jason. After a brief introduction to the Jurassic age, many unsettling things become apparent. Decayed ruins of older expeditions are discovered, as well as crew from the current expedition seems to have their own motivation or is bribed. In this situation, dinosaur danger becomes more relevant. To top off the conflict, private corporations also made a choice to hunt for oil in the past. Our two heroes need to fight with enemies from every angle and precious allies between them. After going through outer conflicts and even conflicts between main characters themselves, danger from private corporation escalates and only way to stop is to plant extremely powerful nuclear bomb into its headquarters. Its detonation is huge, as huge that its primary reason for dinosaurs to go extinct, leaving a crater we now think is from a meteor. Ending can branch out in many directions, either two heroes survive up to this point and get back in the future safely, or they may not get to the time machine leaving them to suffer in the wasteland they created with nowhere to go and slowly die.
DLC content will have a short alternate story where heroes could join a private corporation and change its actions leading to actually solving energy problems in the future where they came from.
Game engine, Platform:
Game will run on id Tech 6 or Dunia 2 engine, ensuring all PBR features with custom written physics engine to give predictable and controllable results. These engines handle very well large open areas, as well as tight detailed corridors and are primarily developed for FPS game genre with already solid AI to start modifying advanced AI functions required for gameplay.
Platform is PC, PS4, Xbox One to ensure the widest market reach to be able to pay development costs.
Marketing
Typical marketing strategy chosen for a big AAA game, taking up a big part of the whole game budget.
Main marketing tools are cinematic trailers, gameplay trailers, advertisement on TV and internet, advertisement on energy drinks and fast food, streamers, contests and conferences and other gaming events. The goal is to create massive hype, and keep promises to ensure further expansion of the franchise.
Photo documentation
Type of exercise
