Game Design

(Elliott) #1

  • Rate of Fire:Single-shot and continuous-fire weapons will all vary their rate of fire
    — the maximum speed at which they can fire projectiles.

  • Number of Shots Fired:Some weapons will be able to fire more than one shot at a
    single time.

  • Accuracy/Range:Weapons will vary their accuracy by firing each bullet within a
    random angle (cone) from their “dead-on” trajectory. This will mean that the player
    can unload a weapon into an enemy and see the projectiles hit randomly around
    that creature and, if at a great enough distance, the player may actually miss the
    target even though he may be target-locked on to it. By varying the accuracy of the
    projectiles, the weapons also vary the range at which they are effective at hitting
    targets.

  • Stunning:Different weapons will have different stopping power. This affects how
    much a given projectile will slow the approach of an adversary: some will have no
    effect, some will slow the creature down, and some will actually knock the creature
    over.

  • Type of Ammunition:Each weapon will use a unique type of ammunition that the
    player must collect.

  • Maximum Loaded Ammunition:Weapons will also vary how many shots they hold
    at once. This translates into how many shots the weapon can fire before the player
    must reload.

  • Reload Time:Weapons will fire a number of shots in a “clip” (their Maximum
    Loaded Ammunition size) before the player must reload them. This will be quite
    quick for most weapons, but will still be a break in the player’s firing.


Each type of projectile weapon uses a type of ammunition unique to it. The player must
have some of the appropriate type of ammunition in his inventory for the player to fire a
weapon. When the player finds a weapon it comes with a certain amount of ammunition
loaded in it, and the player can supplement this by finding more ammunition in the
game-world or by finding additional instances of that type of weapon (with the player
able to remove the ammunition from that weapon on picking it up). Each time the
player shoots a given weapon, the amount of ammunition the player has for that weapon
decreases by one, and the rates of fire for the different weapons will cause the player to
be able to more quickly use up the ammunition for different weapons. The amount of
ammunition available for the current weapon is displayed in the in-game HUD. This
HUD is visible only when the player is in Aimed Weapon Mode. Since the player is
automatically placed into Aimed Weapon Mode after attacking, the player will always
see the amount of ammunition he has when it is being depleted. The player will also be
able to see how much ammunition they have for all of their weapons in the weapon
inventory, as described in the Weapon section of this document.
InUnspeakable, ammunition will be provided such that the player will run out of
ammunition for certain weapons in certain situations. If the player is particularly
wasteful of the ammunition, it is possible he will run out of the ammunition for all his
projectile weapons. The ammunition will be distributed through the game-world in
such a way that this is unlikely to happen for all the projectile weapons, with typically
the player having an overabundance of at least one type of projectile ammunition,


598 Appendix B: Sample Design Document:The Suffering

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