Desert Defenders
Game Proposal
COSC 469
Jillian Walker
Brandon Belman
Clayton Brown
Sharmarke Alisalad
Kai Wu
INTRO
Desert Defenders will be a 2D platforming action adventure game with RPG elements created by Jillian Walker, Brandon Belman, Clayton Brown, Kai Wu, and Sharmarke Alisalad. In Desert Defenders, players will take control of Haroun and Rana, two guards of Sakaduuba village with unique powers and abilities, to push back the strange and hostile creatures unleashed by the dreaded Sand Witch. Desert Defenders will be developed for Windows PC in the Unity game engine using the C# programming language.
BACKGROUND STORY
Many years ago, Sakaduuba village was a prosperous and peaceful place to live, for it drew in many travelers from all over the Great Desert. One day, a rather mysterious traveler came to the village. She brought with her a very strange inborn magic—the abilities to control the sand around her and to create and command mirages. At first, the villagers of Sakaduuba were intrigued by this woman’s power, but soon they soon grew to fear it. They began to call her the Sand Witch. The Sand Witch did not want to use her powers for good, but rather, she wanted to use them for her own nefarious reasons. She sought to utilize her powers to start wars and increase the territorial strength of Sakaduuba, but the rest of the village wanted to continue living their peaceful lives.
Fearing the Sand Witch’s growing power, the village Chief passed a law, which forbade her from using her abilities. The Sand Witch refused to comply with the new law, so the Chief exiled her to the Pyramids of the Forgotten for the rest of her days. Enraged by her banishment, the Sand Witch began to send plague after plague upon Sakaduuba in hopes of wiping the village out of existence. As the threats to Sakaduuba grew in strength and frequency over the years, two brave warriors arose to protect the village and vanquish the evil once and for all. Their names were Haroun and Rana, the Defenders.
OBJECTIVE/GOAL
The main goal of this game is to defeat the Sand Witch. In order to reach the Sand Witch, who is at the end of the final level, you must first go through four levels. Each level varies in difficulty and has different enemies throughout. During the gameplay your objective will be to defeat the enemies in order to make it towards the end of the stage. In order to complete this goal the player will have to use his/her combat skills to defeat the enemies. Another step in order to complete the goal is to use the different skills of the two characters to complete specific tasks in order to help you progress through the level. The player has a certain amount of health and lives to accomplish the objective.
GAMEPLAY ELEMENTS
As the player controls both Haroun and Rana, he/she must fight their way towards the end of the level. Each level takes place in the outskirts of the desert with different obstacles in the game. The enemies are the Sand Witch’s minions and the player will have a boss fight with the Sand Witch herself. For every enemy killed in the game, players will receive points and redeem for upgrades and lives at the end of the level.
Haroun and Rana specialize different abilities in the game, Haroun specializes in close combat while Rana specializes in ranged attacks. The game includes puzzle solving features because the player must switch characters in certain situations in order to proceed to the next level. Sometimes the player may have to figure out alternate routes to avoid enemies or any other dangerous obstacles to safely reach towards the destination.
Desert Defenders does not have multiplayer mode because this is a solo game meaning that only one player is required to play. Choosing a level of difficulty is not included, however the difficulty for each level will increase as the player progress through the game.
Each level will have combat and platforming aspects. The levels will get progressively more difficult as the game goes on, and the direction of the level design will reflect that. Platforms will get smaller and disappear at a higher frequency, enemies will appear and attack at a higher rate.
The bar, at the upper left of the screen, indicates the player’s health status with three different colors. Green indicates that the player is in good condition, yellow indicates that the player is slightly injured, and red indicates that the player is going to lose a live, and must find a health pack which restores a portion of the player’s health.
The icon below the health bar indicates the amount of lives the player has in the game. If the health bar is empty then the player will lose a live. Another method on losing a live is sinking into quicksand as well as falling into empty gaps. If all lives are gone then the game will be over and the player will spawn back to the beginning of the level. At some point in the game, there will be a small flagpole in the middle of a level which indicates a checkpoint. Anytime the player touches the pole, a flag will appear declaring a spawn point. The player will spawn back to the checkpoint each time a live is lost.
GAME CONTROLS
Though Desert Defenders will be published for the Windows PC, we do plan on developing controls that will also support the Xbox 360 gamepad. The game will have a setting in the options menu that will allow for the player to toggle the type of controller used for gameplay. The planned control list is as follows:
CHARACTER ACTION
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PC CONTROLS
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XBOX 360 GAMEPAD
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Move Left
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A
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Left Joystick
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Move Right
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D
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Left Joystick
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Jump
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W
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A
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Block
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S
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B
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Primary Attack
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Left Mouse Button
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X
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Secondary Attack
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Right Mouse Button
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Y
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Power Attack
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Shift (Hold) + Left Mouse
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Right Trigger (Hold) + X
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Switch Characters
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Spacebar
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Left Trigger
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Pause
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Tab
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Start
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ART SPECIFICATIONS
The overall aesthetic of Desert Defenders is playful and cartoony. The characters and main objects will be drawn with thick outlines and thinner sketchy inner lines for shading. The general color palette will include warm, muted color schemes to match the whole desert theme. Sakaduuba Village, the Outskirts, and the Pyramids of the Forgotten will be painted with these schemes.
A few levels, such as the Night and Oasis levels, will have different color schemes to reflect the environment. The Night level will likely have hues of blues and violets, while the Oasis level will have turquoises and greens. If it is possible, there will be animations to add to the background of the level to make it seem more realistic. For example, in the desert there will be gusts of sand blowing in the air.
The two main protagonists of Desert Defenders are Haroun and Rana. Their overall appearance can be likened to “desert samurai.” Haroun’s primary colors are red and copper. He is depicted as wearing lighter armor--only having his midsection, arms and legs armored. Haroun also dons a torn red poncho and sash around his waist. His hair is tied back and bound with a red cloth, as well. His weapons of choice include two Kanabo, war clubs that were often wielded by Oni (ogre demons) in Japanese folklore.
Rana’s primary colors are gold and orange. Unlike Haroun, she is depicted as wearing heavy armor, minus a helmet. Rana has shoulder-length hair that she keeps underneath a white headscarf. On her headscarf, she wears a desert flower and falcon feathers. Her primary weapon is an over-sized, and stylized Scimitar sword. Her secondary weapon is her magic ability to control fire. She uses this ability as a projectile type of attack.
AUDIO SPECIFICATIONS
The style of music we will be aiming for is an middle eastern arabic mixed with some metal. Some instruments that you will be expecting to hear are electric guitar and the oud, which is a stringed instrumental in the middle east, drums, and tambourine.
The music will mostly be upbeat and energetic to match the style of the gameplay. During a game over and the sadder moments in the story, the music will become sombre and more subdued than the regular gameplay music. The levels will have their own unique tracks to give them more flair and to help differentiate them from each other.
MARKETING ANALYSIS
Desert Defenders will be developed for Windows PC. Our target audience will be consumers of 2D platformer games that have little experience with RPG elements, most likely video gamers in the 8 – 15 age range, though gamers in an older age group may find the game’s strategic elements appealing. Similar games targeted at the same group include Ori and the Blind Forest, Scott Pilgrim vs. The World, and Bastion. Desert Defenders will have two main protagonists that, unlike these titles, will be able to be interchanged at any time during gameplay.
