Game Name

BRRRAAAAIIINNNNSSSSS!!!!!!

Development Team

Garon Clements (garonc@wpi.edu)
Chris Ivory (cjivory@wpi.edu)

Game Description

This is an adventure game where the player is a zombie.  Just like every other zombie the player must feast upon brains to sustain his/her existence.  The freshest source of brains is of course the random survivors wandering around what ever remains of the world.  Some of the survivors have armed themselves though.  Players will gain special abilities and bonuses for eating certain humans’ brains.  These will lead to finally quenching the hunger for brains.  The game will take place in a laboratory underground.  The player will start as an average zombie, who upon eating the brain of a scientist, gains the ability to reason and think.  The player now has to try to get out of the laboratory to the wasteland above.  To do this he must solve puzzles and fight his way through the levels of the lab.  As he goes he will encounter certain “boss” like character from which he will gain new abilities to help solve puzzles.  Because he is a zombie he must constantly feed on brains to sustain his existence.  The player will have a health meter and a hunger meter.  If the players hunger meter is empty he will constantly lose health unless he consumes brains which will fill his hunger meter.  His hunger meter will become depleted through the use of certain actions as well as the passage of time.  To win the player must find the cure for the unending hunger and then escape the laboratory to start life anew in the remaining barren wasteland.

Game Features

• Single Player Adventure
• Player Gains new abilities through beating certain enemies
• Beautiful Post Apocalyptic setting in a ruined lab
• Intricate and complex puzzles that must be solved using gained abilities

Technical Features

• Third-Person View
• Varying AI dependant upon enemy type
• Game area split into separate sections
• Player will lose health over time
• New abilities will become unlocked as game progresses

Implementation Plan

We will use the 3D StudioMax, as well as tools from the C4 Web site to build all the models for this project. We will write code for our game that integrates into the C4 Game Engine, creating the game in an iterative fashion.  We will use Photoshop for creating the game textures to be placed on the in game models.

Distribution of Work

Chris will do the modeling and texturing of the game assets, as well as some of the game coding.
Garon will be the lead designer, be in charge of the testing, and handle some of the coding as well.  The specific coding jobs will be handed out upon receiving the code and decision of what exactly needs to be done.

Schedule

The BRRRAAAAIIINNNNSSSSS!!!!!! project will begin at the beginning of February 2007, and is planned to be completed in 4 weeks to meet a February 26, 2007 rollout. The major milestones of the project are the following:

02 Feb: Project kickoff meeting.
05 Feb: Web page set up to show your progress.
09 Feb: Characters and World in place, collisions and interactions coding underway
12 Feb: Milestone 1: Playable game prototype presented in class. Zombie, Enemies
13 Feb: Implement special abilities acquisition and functionality.  Begin final testing
19 Feb: Milestone 2: "Feature-complete" game, all major functionality in place. No new ideas! Time to finish up and test, test, test!
25 Feb: Game complete. Go home and get some sleep before launch day.