XEN PROJECT
Gamedesign documentation
This game design document is an introduction to the Xen project modification. It’s not exhaustive, it has been made to give you an idea of the gameplay and the main components of the game.
If you are interested by the project, there is a more detailed game design documentation with all the details that we use to plan the production of this project.
Introduction
The mod is based upon cooperation. Based on a well know sci-fi universe, we are trying to create a 100% coop game. Each player has to work closely with his team mates in order to survive. Every component of the game is here to encourage interactions between the players and their immersion. The opposition between the strenght feeling due to the heavy weaponry and the weakness feeling which force you to play as a team is one of the main objectives in this game.
Gameplay Basis
Universe
The mod will feature 5 unique environments :
- LU-626 : rocky, rainy and windy unfriendly planet.
- The terraforming complex
- A swamp area around a second complex (a place where scientists tried to work on terraformation and botanic implantation)
- The cristal area with the third complex (which has blown up before the player(s) arrival)
- Xenoform Ship
Movement and actions
When the player moves, he feels the weight of his body, he does not slip on the floor. (Crysis / Riddick EFFB / Darkness feeling).
When facing a wall, he put his weapon on a vertical state so it does not collide with the environment.
The player can jump, but as a marine with a lot of equipement, he can’t jump around without being exhausted. So, the jump isn’t too high and the player needs to recover after several jumps : this is based on a stamina jauge. Used as well for the sprint.
The player has two stances, active and passive stance :
- The active stance allows the player to move quicker but lower his accuracy when shooting.
- The passive stance makes the player walk slower but has better accuracy
The cooperative gameplay will be influenced by a single button used for every actions (with a contextual menu like the nanosuit in crysis) : lifting a character on a higher place, healing a character, giving him ammunitions.
When you encounter an obstacle or a “system”, you can use this button to jump over the object, grab a railing and lift you up, open a door, fuse / weld a door, hack a security panel...
Some of the actions like hacking or fusing / welding a door will be performed with quicktime events (as seen in Shenmue or Mass effect).
How you shoot
Switching weapons can be slow or quick depending on the weapon you are switching to. Equiping/unequiping the smart gun is the longest, equiping the gun or the knife is very quick. Other than that, shooting works pretty much like shooting ;)
The smart gun can jam if not manually reloaded as described in the colonial marines manual.
Besides that, there is no secondary fire mode for the guns. The only exception is the grenade launcher for the M42, but it’s still considered like a weapon not a secondary fire mode. The switch between M42 and M42 grenade mode will be really quick.
What you see
The FOV is controlled the same way as in ARMA or OFP except the crosshair stays around the middle of the screen. It can also be compared to FEAR. Moving the mouse slightly on the sides will move the head of the character and the aim of his weapon, not his body.
When the head has rotated at 40° on one side or another, the body starts turning too. There is no HUD. You can see your ammo on your weapon, your health through post effects on the screen.
The player can see his body, we want to introduce a full body awareness who will be used for the motion sensor for instance : the player can watch his hips to see the motion detector.
Characters and Classes
There are four player classes :
- Marine
- Support
- Tech
- Smartgunner
The marine is the base class, he is acurate with guns and has no special ability besides the motion sensor and healing his teammates.
The Support is the flamethrower guy, who is pretty good at covering his buddies with his specific anti-acid armor. He can also supply the other players with ammunitions.
The tech is weak but has some gadgets, he can fuse / weld the doors, hack into electronic devices and use some specific equipements : proximity mines, laser mines, grenades.
The Smartgunner is the deadliest character for the aliens, but is a little slower than his mates. He wears an improved armor.
Weapons and items
Here is all the weapons and items that the mod should have in its final version :
- M42a
- Shotgun
- Handgun
- Smartgun
- Flamethrower
- Mines : proximity, laser.
- Grenades
- Motion Sensor
- Fuse tools
- Hacking device
- Medicine box
- Ammunitions packs
Respawn and “life system” of the players
The players spawn together (the four players) at the start of the game.
After this spawn, in “scenario mode”, there are several check points who allow the players to spawn further in the map. So that they haven’t to redo the whole path to their mates.
A player who dies ingame stay on the floor, and a teammate can revive him (something similar to left for dead for instance).
The player on the floor can still shoot with his handgun and receive damages. If he receive too much damages, he dies.
When a player dies (totally dies =) ) he has to wait for a respawn. The living players can drop beacons in the map to allow the dead players to respawn. The respawn time has a global duration... for instance : 10 secs.
Depending of the way the player died, the spawn time can differ. If the player is ripped apart by an alien, the spawn time is twice the global time. If he dies from a chestburster, the spawn time is three time the global spawn time... etc... (the multiplier is still on the work).
HUD
We HATE hud. So the mod will have no hud. Just the crosshair for those who wants to activate it.
The only hud you’ll have is when you activate the IR camera you got on your helmet, your heartbeat will be displayed on the bottom of the screen with you name, just like what you can see in aliens on the control screen of the tank.
Hand to Hand combat
Some events in the game will trigger a hand-to-hand sequence.
Alien sequence : the alien can jump on the player... then the player tries to keep it away from his head, so that it doesn’t blow his head of. A little animated sequence starts with the alien trying to blow the player head with his little “secound mouth” ... during this time the player has to shake the mouse (or movement buttons) in every directions to free himself and give a punch to the xenomorph.
Face-eater sequence : this creature can jump on the player... then the player tries to keep it away from his mouth so that it doesn’t put a chestburster egg in him. A little animated sequence starts with the face eater right on the face of the player trying to grab the player head... during this time the player has to tap as fast as he can the use button to free himself and throw away the face eater.
Those sequence are only triggered when the player is above 50% of his total health. If he’s not, the death animated sequence is played directly.
Otherwise there are three possibilities :
- the player succeeds in avoiding the creature attack -> playing the freeing animation
- the player fails to avoid the creature attack -> playing the death animation
- the player is rescued by one of his mates -> playing a blow up animation of the creature, the player receive damages (acid spread, if he is not a support class).
FaceEater fertilization
The thing who differs from the alien with the faceeater is that, the player doesn’t dies if he is fertilized. There’s a time before the fertilization, if a teammate shoot the faceeater on the head of the player, he is saved. During this time the player can move and scream (as long as the player scream he can be saved) with the face hugger on his head... after a few sec... the player fall on the ground, stop screaming and the screen goes black and after 5/6sec, the player wakes up.
The player has a chestburster in his stomac. At the start, the player has no sideeffects of having a chestburster in him. After a random time between 1 and 2 minutes, the player starts to have some visual troubles and energy loss. The chestburster kills the player between 2 and 5 minutes after the fertilization.
The teammates of the fertilized player can kill him before the chestburster rip his chest open. The only purpose of this team kill is that the spawn time will be quicker than if he was dying from chest from implosion. (see the spawn chapter for further details).
This is just a question of choice, the infected player can still help his teammate and will certainly suffer from a longer spawn time, his teammates can kill him but might have difficulties to contain the incoming xenomorphs.
Alien races
List of the xenomorph races in the game :
- Warrior Xenoform
- Drone Xenoform
- Mother Xenoform
- Praetorian
- BodyHatcher
- Faceeater
- Eggs
- And more...
END OF THE COMMUNITY GAMEDESIGN DOCUMENTATION
