Pizzocalypse - The GDD, art bible, player movement and level layout {May 26 to June 25, 2023}

This is a devlog entry for the game Pizzocalypse and covers the duration of May 26 to June 25, 2023.  The game is currently in pre-production and is being developed as a part of the Gamer2Maker Game Design and Production mentorship program under the guidance of mentor Rahul Sehgal. 

After the four questions exercise helped us define the core of Pizzocalypse, we expanded on it in the GDD, we decided to go with a cartoony-specific character as the player avatar, as that would help give him a specific personality according to the unique treatment of the game and the character could possibly serve as the game's mascot in the future. The absurd premise of the game was described as follows -

You play as Harry [Temporary name]. The world is overrun by pizza-craving zombies {Dubbed Pizzombies}, but hungry people stuck at home need their pizza. It’s your job to deliver Pizza from the Pizza outlet to the Customer on time. Harry's ultimate goal is to get a promotion on the job - to become a manager of the pizza chain he works for.  

The treatment and tonal design of the game were described as follows, based on the absurd premise -

The player character is a cartoony-specific character. He is quippy and quirky. He has a catchphrase whenever he gets a kill.  The game will parody the post-apocalyptic stories/games genre, much in the same vein as the film Zombieland. 

The core mechanics/ core design pillars for the game were shooting and hiding/avoiding zombies. Alternating between these would provide the player's variety and choice in gameplay, resulting in more extended engagement. Combining these core mechanics along with ammo, health, and time management would add a tactical element to the game.

The moment-to-moment gameplay was described as follows - 

When the player starts a level, they will have a gun with a limited number of bullets in the gun and a ticking timer. The player character’s default speed will be slow run/jog. 

As the player follows a linear path, the player encounters a zombie or enters a zombie-infested area. The area/path will have some obstacles and/ or hiding spots {such as walls, dumpsters, debris, and abandoned vehicles} The zombies will have vision cones and they’ll be roaming around in randomized paths.  If they see the player {detected by their vision cone}/ hear gunshots, they will get alerted and attack the player. 

The player can aim at the zombie and shoot at it, killing it after ‘n’ number of bullet hits {depending on the zombie type and gun type}. With n number of bullets/ammo spent, the player can then move forward.

Another possibility is that the player can also choose not to engage with/avoid alerting the zombies, and instead use the obstacles/hiding spots in the path as cover to move forward. {players can opt for this if they are low on ammo or would like to conserve ammo, but it may cost them more time}  

*The above possibilities will serve as the core gameplay loop of the game. 

Sometimes killing zombies will drop rewards {cash/ ammo}or players may even find ammo pick-ups at random spots in the level. Sometimes the zombies might be blocking the only passage and you might have but no choice to engage with them. {costing you ammo}

If the player runs out of ammo, they have to traverse the levels without engaging zombies, until they find an ammo pick-up or till the end of the level. This will result in replayability with harder gameplay. 

Sometimes the player can face path choices - 

On one path they will get extra ammo drops and zombies to massacre {intense gameplay}, another path can be obstacles filled exploration or with fewer zombies and rewards like extra time bonus, etc.    

As the gamer2Maker course required us to create a game with maximum gameplay of 20 mins, we decided to make 5 levels of the following lengths - 2,3,4,5,6 mins each. The increasing level lengths would give the game a nice rising difficulty curve from casual to mid-core. The game would also have 3 types of zombie enemies, in addition to a boss zombie.

During this time, we realized that our team lacked enough experience and skill to make the game in 2D. So after some internal discussions and consulting with mentors, we decided to use 3D assets for the game, while still keeping the spatiality of gameplay limited to two planes, X and Y axes (No depth/ Z Axis). This would effectively make the game 2.5D.

Coming to the art bible, we decided to use cartoony low poly art, keeping in mind the treatment we were going for.

References collected for art were gathered from existing games (Zombero Archero Hero, Brawl Stars, Space Marshals 2, etc.) and other sources. 

The brief for art direction was decided to be - whimsical approach, with a lighter, vibrant, and goofier look for the zombies and post-apocalyptic world. {reference used for the same - Plants vs Zombies} 

For the look and feel of the setting of the levels, we decided on American small towns as reference {smaller, one-story buildings instead of taller buildings.} 

References for character models for the main character and zombies were selected from mixamo.  

Following the iterative method prescribed by the project management mentor, the first thing programmers undertook was building the player movement and shooting mechanic. References for shooting mechanics and player movement were Brawl Stars, and Space Marshals 2. 

The next assignment for Everyone was working on level design, using Miro for sketching and brainstorming and unity pro builder for prototyping the levels. 

A few team members sketched one level each and we discussed them in terms of the completion time it would take etc. But it was observed that team members seemed to have different ideas about how a level would be and thus we decided to work on a single level first. This would allow the team to be on the same page. The resulting level sketch {attached with the post} had better chances of producing the intended gameplay of tactical shooting, as it was described in the GDD. 

{Key for the layout sketch  -

Green/EZ - Easy Difficulty Zombie

Blue/MZ - Medium Difficulty Zombie

White Character - Player at the start of the level

X - end of level}

Stay tuned for more updates!