The Purpose of this Document.

This document is a breakdown of general ideas, mechanics and concepts. It is broken up into 3 main sections, Introduction, Mechanics, and Presentation. The "general" ideas covered in this document have been subsequently refined and detailed in a 2nd document that relates to a specific small scale prototype of some of the ideas and features covered in this document. A link to that next Prototype document can be found toward the end of this document, however ideally reading this document through fully before reading the prototype document would be best.

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Introduction
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Terminology To Avoid Confusion
Some sort of made up terms relating specifically to this document / idea.

Cube Resolution/Grid - This is smallest increment resolution of how things are built , the atom so to speak
5x5 Resolution/Grid - This will refer to the player cube, NPCs, the navigable areas of the world and so on.
Block - Any part of a structure or detail in the world that the player can climb or not climb in the case of it being too high
Square - the surface of a block
Item Cube - refers to 1x1x1 cubes that are collectable and droppable
Symbol - Any detail on a square or element in the world that pertains to some or other mechanic or functionality.
Key Square - The color pickup mechanic
Switch Square - The color pickup mechanic or standard switches (one instance of a standard switch in the Mini-World)
Slot - A 1x1x1 hole that holds items, such as the players cube, and the pillars in the HUB area)
Sub-Mechanics - Complimentary mechanic that are not a core mechanic, such as different types of hazard squares, items types.. etc.
Player Progression - Refers to the sequences of how the player moves through the world , the sequences of introductions to functions / hints, the sequence of tasks and management of inventory over time.

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WORLD
Player is a cube, and navigates the game world by rolling their cube in any direction along a set grid layout in the world.
Game world comprises of areas of visual interest and NPC Characters (other cubes) to deliver story/lore and set in perhaps an open world type layout that is broken up by puzzle areas the player must solve to access other areas of this game world.

STRUCTURE
Other Games with similar general structure in the world might be The Witness, which is an open area world with areas that are blocked by a global game mechanic / global puzzle mechanic (a consistently themed puzzle or task increasing in difficulty the more the player advanced through the game). However The Witness doesn't have any NPC or Story per say.

AESTHETIC
The game world aesthetic might be a combination of games such as Monument Valley, Edge, or even Fez , however the early inspiration behind the general possible aesthetic was based on a new tool I have been experimenting with called Magica Voxel. The style idea to base a game from was born out of some early experiments with doing minimal / abstract things of which I have since created daily image post blog called Vox Plox

CONTROL
The player control of the cube has to be as good as possible, Ideally something like a game called "Edge" is a prime example of how the cube should move and feel.

MECHANICS
The game will feature a variety of core mechanics


The Basic Story, Lor and General Ideas
Perhaps this game could be a simplistic re-telling of the famous story/book Flatland, or a story loosely based on it. Flatland is a story about a character that lives in a 2 dimensional world, learning of evidence of a 3rd dimension the story is one of his own struggle to comprehend such a dimension and a journey to see this dimension for real. My game is already set in a 3D world so I cannot base the game on possible 4th dimension, instead the game could be all about a world with things that are only cubic, 90 angles, and so forth, and in this world there is no comprehension of a curve, and that like flatland the main story is all about the main character (a cube) discovering some evidence that where is a world where curves exist, and its about his progress in learning where it is, or what/why.. and the very end game could be a cut scene where the cube enters into a world with similar style but everything now has curves, and the player realizes he is not a sphere.

Anyway this is just one initial idea, might be a bit overly complicated to apply to the sort of game this is, so any suggestions on a basic story or narrative would be greatly appreciated. In the meantime I will develop a story.

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NPC's, NPC Interactions and Other Types of Characters

NPC's will exist in the world, rolling about in certain areas that can be interacted with in someway or another.
these NPC's can deliver bits of a story or lore, give or be given an item, or be integrated into a gameplay task in someway or another.
The NPC's will be the same size in general as the players cube and some may be in a static position while others can be rolling about as if to demonstrate some sort of daily routine for that character.


Types of possible NPC's in the world

Regular Quest or Task Specific NPC
Functional NPC (Shop keeper/ upgrade sellers..etc)
Enemy NPC (on contact can kill, or steal items)
Random NPC (Just random characters about the world that may have interesting things to say not tied to any quest or task.
Abstract creatures that are also recognizable because they are either bigger or smaller than the standard size of characters
One of which could be a small cube that starts to follow you and you eventually gain its trust, it becomes a companion and can help (you can carry the pet over steps and drop it..etc

Click on the images to see bigger versions Some examples of various NPC's and abstract creatures that may be found around the game world. Looking at the world grid Vrs player grid in comparison to how these characters can move. In the above images I have shown a few examples of how the various NPC and creatures will look. Most NPC's will be the same size as the players cube, while other characters are smaller or bigger to represent creatures, and the bigger ones monsters. All NPC's and creatures will be in most cases symmetrical so no matter which way they are rolling or viewed they will always have the same appearance.

NPC / Character Behaviour and Movement

NPC's depending on who they are will be moving around much the same way as the player by rolling around. Many of these movements can be simple pre-defined paths, such as giving the impression a character is just going about their daily routine. Other NPC's might be totally static in the world such as NPC blocking a path, then rolling over when a certain task for that NPC is complete. Some quirky emotion can be conveyed through the speed or type of an NPC's movement, for example the player might come across a cube that is darting about here and there really fast and after opening up a dialog with it learn that its in a panic or upset about something. Other NPCs might react in a certain way to the player in a physical sense by avoidance or some other way, These can be made I hope with simple enough very basic AI.
An NPC's dialog can be triggered when there is one square between the NPC and player, then that dialog prompt can disappear on rolling away from that radius if the player chooses not to engage in dialog.

Enemy NPC's could also be in this world, and could have similar attributes as regular NPC's , however enemy NPC's will have extra layers of simple mechanics such as chasing the player, or on contact with the player stealing an item or killing the player, reducing health.. etc
These attack behaviors could be triggered on a certain square radius from the enemy. Attack behaviors can be on predefined paths or using simple AI to try make contact with the player cube.

Regarding any creatures or monsters, they can have similar attributes to NPC's or enemy NPC's, such as some might be passive while others will give chace, or some if interacted with might do a funny reaction.. etc. The monsters might have interesting aspects to them such as the very large one in right side of the image above, its center hole is the size of the players cube so if the monster tried to roll over the player the player could attempt to roll into a square that would have it not be crushed/killed.
As with NPC's and enemies, these creatures/monsters could have a sequence of reactions/attacks based on pre-defined paths that are triggered when the player is in a certain radius, or using simple AI.

Movement on the World Grid

The whole world will consist of a a grid, and everything in the world must adhere to that grid. The players resolution is 5x5 so as it rolls it moves 5 grid segments a time. Most if not all regular/enemy NPC's will also be 5x5 so they can never "snap" away from a possible path that the player can get onto. Monsters will be either 10x10 , or 15x15 etc, so they will always be in a power that avoids them ending up half on a 5x5 square, (the squares the player/NPC's are confined to).
The smaller creatures may be any size smaller then 5x5, however to avoid any instances of them rolling half on/off a world 5x5 grid square I may choose to set all creatures as 1 cube in size only.

*NOTE: If the project is using a voxel system (which is much desirable for a number of reasons) there will have to be elements that are traditional mesh and these would probably have to include the characters as outlined in this section.


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Buildings and Structures Throughout the Game World
Structures and buildings in the world will be highly abstract and minimal such as vox plox, the idea of this world is not to have any basis in any sort of realism but rather try to achieve an abstract world something akin to Flatland the movie but in a cubic(3d) world context.

The game world has to be as lush and varied as possible, meaning much of every new area will have completely different looking abstract assets such as structures, I will strive to have every structure or feature in the game world absolutely unique, so seeing the same building or feature twice will not happen however certain other things will of course have to be repeatable assets (prefabs) such as path, wall sections that may be common throughout the world or regions within the world.


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World Structure and Player Progression Through It
The world is likely to be an open world area or have a few large open areas that are separate that the player is not restricted to a linear progression (see the witness), however the wold as a whole may have some greater connection in terms of story.

The world might be a cube planet, and feature 6 large open areas but have each area load a new level when you get to the edge of the planet.

The Cube Planet Structure Idea

Traditional Flat World Structure
The game can be entirely on a flat world as is in the vast majority of games, the above idea of a planet is an option.

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Environmental Attributes to the Game World
If its a case of an open area world sort of thing , it might be nice to have a simple day/night cycle even tho this "world" is entirely abstract and cubist impressionistic, but it would be a nice touch and make the world appearance such as being able to have nice glows and emissive elements during the dark cycle.
Perhaps certain areas of the world or certain puzzle areas have to be engaged at a certain time of day, or when a shadow is aligned with something.. etc

Other possible environmental features might include

A very simple weather system, at certain random times it might rain, or in certain areas it might be foggy/hazy

A wind mechanic might be implemented which might make for a rather nice extra layer of gameplay challenge. The wind could be constantly nudging the players cube to roll in a certain direction depending on which way the wind is blowing., Whether or not its a world/environment wind or fans placed around the world, this could be a good idea to try implement.

Other areas might contain bodies of water (see pics) , or lava, or gas that if fallen into or made contact with could kill or effect the player in some way.

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The Language and Symbology of the Game World

An Idea I would like to explore is the possibility of the game not having any text language at all. This idea however might have to be complimented with a directory/index of translated meanings. I have not had time to fully think about this and it is something that may not be suitable in the game however I will try my best to explain the gist of how something like this in theory could work.

The point of this symbol language:
A method to cover as many languages as possible without any localization costs and very little work.
An interesting and relatively unique aesthetic to the game
An extra layer of achievement or challenge.

In its basic form the system is simply a set of symbols that have a direct meaning. These symbols will represent core meanings in any world language and can be strung together in combinations to form very basic, primitive instructions, or abstract dialog such as story.

After thinking about this for some time I was initially trying out some sort of strict logical system to the symbols, not only is this particularly hard to develope but would be difficult for many players to learn quickly. This initial method did not rely on any translation at all meaning the player would ultimately have to figure out their meanings.

So my other idea to make this easier to develop and much easier for the player to learn is having a system of symbols then when first encountered by the player will translate that symbol into its word/meaning depending on what language setting the player choose after installing the game. This means the symbols themselves don't have to have any logical aesthetic and can be in most cases just random designs, however some types of symbols such as numbers, or directions will have a degree of logic aesthetic to them, and some other symbols might try to match its design to whatever its meaning is, but in general there dose not have to be any logical system to the symbols aesthetic.

In addition to this being a very suitable aesthetic to the game, it also will help to cut down on localization work meaning we can easily add on any number of languages without having to translate actual sentences or dialog for each language. This would mean we can support many many languages from the common to very obscure by just adding about 50 to 100 words into an index. Because the language would be abstract, in particular with possible story dialog, the basic meaning of combination of symbols would be clear no matter what language its being translated to. No additional character sets and fonts have to be used because these symbol to meaning translation could be a small bitmap image with the word/meaning on it.

The table example below is an example on how simple we can quickly implement any language quite effortlessly, in most cases just fetching primitive translations from google translator.

España

日本

Россия

へ歩く
アイテムキューブ
危険

Идти к
Пункт Куб
Опасность

The game might have from 50 to 100 types of symbols, and each symbol has to translate into something with a relatively primitive and common meaning in all world languages. This means no elaborate words can be used, and the number of words used has to be kept to a bare minimum.
Not only is this symbolic language relatively unique for a video game, but it could also in theory cover the most amount of languages a video game has ever tried to cover, including the most obscure ones.

So the important thing to understand is that in relation to localization work, it might only take a few mins to fill in a table for a new language with something like google translator, rather than having to hire people to translate whole blocks of dialog along with their correct grammar for each and every language.

Here are some examples of some core primitive words/meanings that can be represented with a symbol

If the game uses between 50 to 100 types of symbols then stringing these symbols together to deliver the sorts of instructions that would be in the game would be quite easy and even 50 would be more then enough. However using this system to deliver some sort of story is much harder to achieve using a small number of symbols. In effect the more symbols the game uses the more rich the story could be but the disadvantage is the more that are used the less one can expect a average player to remember. The idea is to to reveal the player the symbol translations the first few times they encounter them, but as they get familiar with the game they wont have to keep referring to already learnt translations of symbols.

There is a balance here that only gameplay testing and feedback will give an indication of whether this idea is interesting or just annoying.

The Symbol Design

After playing around with some designs for the symbols, I finally settled on using a system of 3x3 cubes that can be also colored in any which way to help the player to remember them. For the most part these symbols are just quick examples, most don't follow any aesthetic logic, however a few are made to slightly resemble whatever it's meaning is.

Here are a selection of miscellaneous symbols.

Here are numbers 0 to 9.	Here are simple direction symbols.

An example of how the dialog symbols could be presented during game play, this one uses isomertic cube outline as a dialog container.	Same idea here just different color based on theme of the NPC, and I am trying out a different shaped dialog container here also, a flat square isometric plain.

Symbol System Achievements and Integrated Layer of Game Play Challenge

This system could be integrated into actual gameplay of the game in the form of basic achievement or simple memory type challenges.
In context to an achievement, the player could get an achievement for every 20 new symbols they discover, or an achievement for discovering all symbols in the game.
In context to an integrated layer of challenge, the player when first encountering a symbol will get a translation for free, however when they encounter the same symbol again they will have a choice to refer again to its translation which will cost the player for examples a coin cube (* See Item types section). In effect it would be advantageous for the player to try to remember each symbol as they first encounter it so they don't have to spend any coin cubes on revealing its translation again.

Symbol System Interface

I have not developed any ideas on how the player will interface with translating the symbols in depth yet, however it could go something like this:

Player triggers dialog with action key.
Player sees a series of symbols. Some of which they have not seen before. Player can use direction keys/buttons left and right at this point to highlight any symbol currently displayed on a dialog page. If they press the action button while highlighting any of the symbols it will popup a translation of the meaning of that symbol in the language of which ever the player choose after game installation.
Player can use direction keys/buttons up and down to scroll through pages of dialog if there are more then one. When they reach the last page the player can use the left right directional keys/buttons to scroll down to an "end dialog" symbol / arrow (whatever) which will bring the player out of the dialog session and back to regular gameplay mode.

Difficulty Mode?
An additional idea was to have a game difficulty mode where you can disable the translation feature, but that would mean the symbols would have to have a very strict logical aesthetic to their meanings otherwise the player would have no base of logic to work out the language other then trial and error associations over a lot of gameplay time. So this is another reason why a non-logical aesthetic style of symbols combined with a system of translation would be more practical.

A last note on this language idea: Its important to stress this idea is quite early in development and the examples above could be refined more to make the whole system instantly intuitive to learn/remember no matter where the game is being played in the world.


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Early Conceptual Development

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"Ideal" Game Engine / Code Requirements

I must stress everything here are not actual requirements to this project, they are simply a set of suggested idealistic requirements that could be implemented in some way or another into the project development and the game in general.




The Shader
It is quite important that the game has a particular look in terms of its shader. If the game is being made in unity then from previous experience with using it the "out of the box" shader in unity is not at all like the shader finish I think would suit the game. Because of this the unity shader will have to be modified in someway to get that soft shader finish this game ideally should have. I know there are probably plugins for unity that might get close to what I'm looking for however if at all possible I want to avoid buying plug-ins, any plug-ins for unity unless absolutely necessary, I am not in a position to be able to afford plug-ins even cheapy ones, also depending on how many people we have working on the project it would also mean everybody else has to fork out for plug-ins. Additionally I know that some plug-ins are problematic through unity versions/updates. So in a nutshell if there are any attributes to this game that can be covered by modifying code/script rather buying potential expensive and bloaty plug-ins it would be preferable.




4 Potential Construction Methods
Regarding the structure of the assets themselves, well I have not researched it much so I am going to see if its possible for unity (or any engine) to see if there is a plug-in or method to use voxels , or some plug-in to build up mesh in a cubic context.

ACTUAL VOXEL OBJECTS

The advantages to using voxels at the game engine level are many
- Much easier for me and whoever is working on layout to layout the world in a far more flexible way
- Reduces ALOT of asset size for the game because the world wont be comprised of 100`s of unique looking meshes (+ their uv textures)
- And as above will in turn help with general game performance
- Avoids color/texture seams on joining two elements of the same color/texture side by side
- Will be far far easier and quicker to set up collisions
- Will be far easier and quicker to separate certain elements on structures for different attributes or material type
- Will cut out all the prep work for imported world assets such as , exporting out of MagicaVoxel into Max, then out of Max into Engine, and all the middle work in Max
- Will be far easier (I assume) to work with if we use any sort of procedurally generated methods

Even if we figure out some way to build this in a voxel system there will of course be assets in the game that will have to be traditional mesh such as the cube characters, collectables, moving/animated elements of the world/structures.. etc, however using a voxel system for the general world structure would be much more desirable, but not absolutely necessary.

One solution could be this free plug-in for Unity: Cubiquity for Unity

VOXEL/CUBIC "STYLE" MESH ?

This potential method is a little bit harder to explain and I am not even sure if a plug-in or even the method itself exists.
Essentially this is mesh, but from an editor/constructing point of view the mesh behaves like a voxel. So.. lets assume you have 2 cubes, each cube obviously would have 6 sides with a total poly count of 12, lets assume you were to put these 2 boxes right beside each other the editor (plug-in/method?) would convert those 2 cubes with a total of 12side and 26 polys down to an elongated cube with only 6 sides and 12 polys. Further more this plug-in might keep a track of every volume that is in the grid so even if you have joined up cubes (as one solid object) you could pick up a cube from that object easily with the plug-in. Effectively what I am saying is this plug-in would have the ability to work in unity as if you had the flexibility of working with real voxels.

I will do some research into this to see if such a thing exists or is even possible.

TRADITIONAL MESH OBJECTS

Well this method is pretty self explanatory, and since unity (or other comparable engines) are already setup for this it means that learning how to set the project up initially wont be too much of a pain.

BITMAP IMAGES
In theory I don't see any reason why this game could not be done in 2D using imported rendered images to build up the world. However using 3D elements over this method might be problematic. The world will have many elevated areas and walls and so on, so I am not sure how a 3D cube navigating around a 3D environment can be setup to interact well with background images alone. Collisions would be tricky to setup, areas where the box can go into or behind might be tricky to setup, and other things such as the shadow the cube is casting wont cast correctly onto the world since they are background images, same for emissive objects, and so on. However I have seen a bunch of games that managed to pull this sort of method off.

Some advantages of this would be not having to worry about engine shader, LOD's based on device performance




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Game Mechanics

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The Global Puzzle Mechanic
This puzzle mechanic may be unique.

Although the game will be a somewhat adventure/exploration game it will feature many areas where the player has to work out a puzzle.
These puzzle areas will need to be solved in order for the player to progress further through the adventure.

Once the player has entered a puzzle area, the goal is to get from the starting position to the end position. The end position has a blocked route which the player has to unblock by solving the puzzle.

The gist of the puzzle is there will be a switch the player's cube must move to, that will unblock the blocked route. This "Switch Square" will be a certain color. Elsewhere in the puzzle there is another colored square called a "Key Square". The player has to roll their cube to the colored "Key Square" and whichever side of their cube lands face down on the Key Square then that side of the cube will become that color. Now the player has to roll their cube to the "Switch Square" with the same color and ensure when they are rolling their cube onto the Switch Square that the colored side of their square has to land face down on the Switch Square and only then will the blocked route be accessible to the player to progress further into the game world.
That is the very basic gist of a simple scenario, however more elaborate puzzles can be developed using this idea such as puzzles with multiple colored Key or Switch squares, other squares that are in some way a hazard and must be avoided, or other squares that are advantageous for the player to land on which have other mechanics asides from (or complimenting) the color idea. (See last part of this page for additional mechanics to this basic idea)

A Very Simple Example
(Images are not a visual representation of the game graphics)

Extremely small and simple example of a puzzle area, showing what each element to this area is.

In this example there is a limit of 9 rolls as may be indicated to the player at the start of each puzzle. So the player has to roll their cube in 9 rolls or less to first pickup the "Blue Key Square" and then to make it to the "Blue Switch Square" with the players cube Blue side face down. In this very basic example I made there is only one possible way to complete this in 9 moves or less. Before seeing the next example pictures see if you can solve it by looking at the above picture example.	Lets see if you solved it correctly. The first 4 rolls of the cube are obvious, 3 rolls to the left and 1 roll up. Now the player has only 5 rolls of their cube to ensure they roll the cube with the side that is now blue (the side facing the ground in above pic) so it lands color side down on the Blue Switch Square.
Taking each of the remaining rolls step by step you can see the next roll is one roll to the left. Notice the Blue Key Square on the ground has now turned to a regular square to indicate that the color has been picked up by the cube, and that blue side of the cube is now facing to the right in this picture.	The next roll of the cube is up, so the blue side is still orientated facing right in this picture. Notice this move was not moving closer to the Blue Switch Square because of the need to orientate the blue side of the square so it lands face down on the Switch Square.
The next roll is one roll to the left and now you can see the colored side of the cube exposed.	Another roll down and you can see the next roll of the cube will have its colored side face down on the corresponding colored Switch Square.
The last roll has the player land on the switch correctly and within the 9 roll limit, and the block that was blocking the way to the next area of the game world has disappeared.	The player moves onto the next area of the world leaving behind a regular square to have an additional indication that the puzzle is complete.

Conditions might be:

Player has a limited number of rolls at the start of each puzzle
If player fails to land correctly on the Switch Square in the exact number (or lower) of rolls then that puzzle has to be restarted.

Player has a limited amount of time to solve each puzzle
If player fails to solve the puzzle within the time limit the puzzle is restarted.

Player might have a certain amount of lives or health while playing the adventure/exploration aspect of the game, this health system might be linked to the puzzle mechanic in that if the player has extra health picked up throughout the game they may get extra rolls/time on a puzzle to solve it. However even if the player is low on health or lives there will always be a "default/tested"set amount of time for each puzzle so they are always possible to beat even if the player has no additional rolls/time at the start of the puzzle.

Additional/Optional Elements to the Puzzle

The above example puzzle is really quite a simple basic demonstration of the main aspect to this , that being the cube has to pick up colors in order to use on switches. However there are many many elements that can be layered on top of this core idea to make puzzle areas more elaborate, challenging, varied and fun to play.

Here are some early ideas for additional elements to the puzzle mechanic that can compliment the basics as outlined in the images example above.
The start of the game can have easy/simple puzzles and as the game is progressed through these puzzles will get more and more elaborate and challenging by introducing more puzzle mechanic elements over the core idea.


Any number of sizes or shapes for the puzzle areas, that might include elevated areas/multi levels.
Obstacles such as blocks, walls, floor holes and so on, or obstacles that are moving in some way.
More then one color to work out the puzzle
Puzzles might have a time limit rather then a cube roll limit. (Very early puzzles neither, later/advanced puzzles both)
Collectable elements in some puzzles needed for the player progression in the game as a whole
An Anti Cube is moving about a puzzle that on contact will kill player.
One or more lasers that are sweeping the puzzle area the player has to avoid.
A Mode/Condition where every square the players cube rolls onto can not be rolled onto again.

A Mode/Condition where the players cube with a colored side cannot land face down at any point until it lands on the Switch Square. (think of it like wet paint and the player has to keep the wet paint side of their cube away from the ground/walls/blocks or the paint will rub off the cube and onto the ground/wall/block

A Mode/Condition where the the roll limit to a puzzle has to match the solved roll count, even if its possible to solve it in under the roll limit count. This means the more obvious route will act as bait for the player to fail the puzzle.

Perhaps if the player fails to solve a puzzle in the correct amount of moves or time limit then the puzzle is reset but changed, either randomly out of a list or preset puzzles (based on difficultly), or procedurally generated (again based on difficulty). If the puzzles are procedurally generated then the rules of the puzzle along with additional mechanic elements would have to be coded.



Hazard and Other types of Squares such as:

Squares that kill the players cube (puzzle reset)
Squares that act as regular switches to activate something else in the puzzle such as an elevator, bridge, gate, teleport..etc
Squares that clear any colored (or specific colored) side on the player cube
Squares that switch a certain colored side on the player cube to another color
Squares that switch the orientation of a colored side of the player cube to another side of the player cube
Squares that invert the players controls
Squares that add or reduce a certain number to the players roll limit (or Time in the case of a time limit puzzle)
Squares that are fragile if rolled onto will break momentarily (areas that are elevated) resulting in the players cube falling to their death

* Each of these possible puzzle element squares will have their own symbol or identifiable feature to let the player know what it will do. These additional mechanics could be introduced one by one as the player progresses giving the player ample time to learn what each one will do based on trial and error, before getting to the very advanced puzzles at later stages of the game.

*NOTE : Also see "Hazard, Switch and Puzzle Squares" Section further down this page.

Some additional notes

The game world will be in an entirely isometric perspective. I am still unsure at this point if the game will have the option to rotate the camera around in anyway, perhaps at four 90degree segments from the original camera angle. Whether or not this camera movement is implemented into the adventure/exploration areas of the game world it might be implemented only while the player is engaged in a puzzle. So effectively while the player is on a puzzle they have the ability to switch the camera so its looking forward, back, or to either side, but each angle will be locked to a traditional isometric perspective.

Although this general puzzle mechanic idea is related to specific puzzle areas within the game world, some of the elements of the puzzle mechanics can be implemented into the game world as a whole, such as regular switch squares, or other features. However puzzle elements that are implemented into the general adventure/exploration areas of the game world will be kept light and to the minimum.


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Inventory System / Gameplay Mechanic

This idea is quite possibly unique in that the inventory system to the game is inextricably tied to the game play mechanics and atheistic of the game itself and not some separate screen or dialog.

Cube has hole in middle on all sides, just big enough to slot in collectables throughout the world. These collectables are tiny cubes that glow, and come in a variety of colors that represent a type of item or powerup

In the adventure/exploration part of the game, these holes/slots on each side of the cube could be thought of as inventory slots, so the player has a limit of 6 inventory items to achieve various tasks or progression throughout the world. These inventory items might also be power ups. Inventory slot indication on each side of the cube wont effect the edge part since its a different area of the cubes side while playing a puzzle area.

The outer color/edge of the cube represents the part that will indicate which side the Key Color is on while playing in a puzzle area.

Some other interesting mechanics could be implemented into the adventure/exploration part inventory idea such as

If a certain inventory item happens to be in a slot that is face down on the players cube at any time, then that inventory item is no usable.. OR vise versa, only inventory items that are in slots that are at any time face down can be used. (Neither of these ideas would effect passive powerup's,, only items)
Perhaps have it so the cube cannot pick up any items if that side the player is trying to pick it up on is used with another item (so player has to orientate their cube to a free slot)

Player has the ability to drop inventory item cubes and pick them up again. This might be required when a player is somewhere in the world with a full inventory, but for whatever reason needs to collect some item to progress, then they can drop an item, pick up the needed item, and eventually go back to the dropped inventory item to collect it again if they want.

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Power-Up's, Upgrades and Collectable Items
The inventory system (as explained in the last section of this Mechanics document) can have a variety of different types of items in each of the 6 slots. In addition to items that take up inventory slots there may also be other types of items that are collectable in someway. Here is a breakdown of some of the possible items found in the world that can compliment the inventory system idea.

Possible Collectable Types:

Quest Items
These would be the sort of traditional quest items you get in many other games. such as some sort of item you must find or was given to you by an NPC, and that item must be held in a slot and used or given to another NPC that will unlock a gate or something, or tell you something vital for the adventure...etc etc



Power-Ups and Power-Downs
These would be power-up/downs for the cube. Some may require the player to actively use/start any time they want. In the case of a powerup once the powerup has been started it would have a limited time, then eventually run out. You can have any number of 6 different types of powerups in inventory at any one time or stack two or more of the same type of powerup using a few slots on the cube. (However its unlikely the player would want to occupy all their slots with just power-ups because of the possible "Cube Upgrade" items)
Perhaps only one or two power-ups can be active at any one time.

These Powerups might include:

Power-Ups:
Speed: Increases the speed of the cubes movement by a % for a time
Jump: Gives the player the ability to jump higher by a certain % for a time

Power-Downs: (Cannot be dropped from inventory)
Poison : Inverts the players control scheme for a time
Slowdown : Reduces the speed of the cubes movement by a % for a time(or set speed in case of specific task or puzzle in world)

Cube Upgrades

These could be items that upgrade the cube with certain abilities. Each upgrade type takes up a slot. An example of one type of upgrade could be SPEED MK1 , which increases the cubes speed a tiny bit. Further on in the adventure the player might come across the item SPEED MK2 or higher, in which case the player can drop their MK1 and roll over the MK2 and continue on the adventure with a tiny bit more speed.
In the case of MK 1, 2, 3 and so on system of upgrade then unlike other games, this game will not for example require the player to have MK 4 of a certain upgrade to be able to collect a MK 5 or higher. In other words, the sort of upgrades found in the world will much depend on the sort of area you are in, and/or level of advanced progression into the world, so being able to collect overpowered upgrades for early regions in the world will be avoided. The level of a certain power could be indicated by a stronger glow or more vivid hue of color that represents that upgrade type.

Some upgrades might not be passive and require player to activate at a certain time in which case the side of the cube where this upgrade is stored must be either face down or face up


These Cube Upgrades might include:

Speed : Increases the speed of the cubes movement
Jump : Gives the player the ability to jump (some switches might be on above the player)
Gravity Pulse : Suck in any collectables that are in a certain radius of the player, even if they are inaccessible to the player.
Anti Gravity Pulse : Push certain movable elements one grid square, or push an enemy NPC away one or more squares.

Coin / Health Items / Achievement Collectable items

These items would be consumed by the cube on collection, they don't take up a slot, and don't a require an empty slot side to be collected. There may be a coin/ring (but they will be cubes) sort of global collectable (such as Mario/Sonic) that act perhaps as currency to pay certain NPC's or buy upgrades and powerups and/or as a sense of achievement to the player having something happen every time you collect 100 such as extra time in next puzzle area, or extra life (if games uses life system) and so on.

If the player has some sort of health system then there might be health cubes about the world and these like the coins don't require inventory space to hold and can be collected any which way.

Each coin cube could be one credit, and the health cubes could be each worth one unit of health (out of say 100), but in some hard to reach places in the world there may be coin or health squares that if found could be worth 100 credits each, or in the case of health would be restore your health fully.

Achievement collectables such as finding all trophy cubes in the world, in a certain regions of the world. these like others might have to be represented globally as one color since there variety might be many with the quest items.

Color Associations for Item Types

I have not worked out what color will do which ..etc, since that would ultimately depend on the number of mechanics that can be implemented into the game. The more types of mechanics in the game that related to inventory items the more colors would be needed, but its important to keep the color system as simple as possible and try to stick to the primary colors to avoid the player confusing one type of item with another because they have slightly different hue of the same color. So keeping the colors well defined is important. Instead of using other hues of colors already used on other items we could use other visual representations of the difference between them such as coloring the square the item is standing on the same color, or having the items color flicker/strobe which would also flicker when active in the inventory slot and the corresponding color of the cubes inner color (This might work best on power-ups only which only last a few seconds)

Upgrade Speed Passive	Power-UP Speed 10% - 10Secs	Upgrade Jump Passive	Power-UP Jump 10% - 10Secs	Upgrade Gravity Push Passive	Quest Item
Poison - 10 to 20 Seconds	Slow Down 10 to 20 Seconds	1 Credit	100 Credits	Health: 1 to 10% Restore	Health: 50% to Full Restore

Although I have not worked out what color will do what, here are some suggested types of items that can be found in the world, their possible color and effect, there would be more than this but these are just to demonstrate how color can be associated with different types of items and how mixing that color with an animated flicker/colored square can make more variety using the same primary colors.

Cube powerup specific items might be indicated by the flickering /strobing color while powerups and others don't flicker.
This would be in the case of of having a similar type of powerup and upgrade such as speed power-up (which speeds up cube for only a time) and the speed cube upgrade (which speeds up cube permanently as long as that item is held in inventory), since these two items would have to share the same associated color then the powerup one could be flickering, and the upgrade one not, this can be applied to other powerups and upgrades that share the same associated color. In addition to further indicate a power-up rather than an upgrade is activated on the cubes side itself this flickering/strobing (see Edge) can be applied to the cubes side color of whichever powerup it is.

In general limiting the variety of items due to trying to keep primary colors, so items are instantly (once learnt) recognizable by color or vibrance of color. (keep it simple)

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Hazard, Switch and Puzzle Squares
In addition to the collectable cubes (items) there may be certain types of squares throughout the world that have certain functions or trigger some effect. The Mechanics that could be applied to these squares may be used in both the World and Puzzle Areas.

The aesthetic is to keep the symbols that represent their function as simple and minimal as possible (which was actually unavoidable due to the 3x3 res) so the player can easily learn and memorise what each one does, in addition to that the symbols themselves as shown in the examples below may resemble vaguely what their function is to help the player remember what they do more easily.

These examples below are only suggestions , there could be more , could be less, and their symbols might change around.. etc etc

This could be a standard switch that triggers something to move or open or whatever. Can be quickly rolled onto and off of to get it's function to trigger.	This could be a another type of standard switch same as above but requires the player to be resting on it to have effect.
This could freeze the players cube for a few seconds	This could teleport the cube instantly to another square like this nearby.
This could teleport the cube instantly to any random or defined squares that are on each corner of this square	This could teleport the cube instantly to any random or defined squares that are on each edge of this square
Resting on this switch could restore your health, but at a very very slow rate of restoration and will only restore a maximum of 50% health.	This could steal whichever item that was in the face side down slot, either forever or for a few mins/secs giving the player the choice to return to collect their stolen item.
This could freeze the world around you for a few seconds, as in the case of an enemy NPC chacing you or some other reason.	A switch that rolling off it will leave a clone of player cube that lasts a few secs while the player has to rest on a 2nd one. (2 switches that need to be pressed same time)
This triggers the square to drop a players cube height, if not rolled off of fast enough it will trap the players cube in the ground for some time.	This square could break and will only feature on elevated sections of the world or puzzle areas (or water/lava) leaving the players cube to fall and die or drop into a room.
This in itself is not a switch, however it could indicate to the player that there is a switch of the same type above them (ceiling) that the jump ability must be used to press, The symbol on square above them obviously cant be seen because of the isometric nature of the game.	This is a controller square, depending on which direction the arrow symbol is pointing it may control something else in the world to move in that direct. So a joy stick sort of thing can be setup where the cube has to roll up/down/left/right to control something in a particular way.

*NOTE: the images above are using sort of orange hue squares, the color theme of the areas of the world will vary but the symbols will remain consistent.


Some other ideas that could compliment the squares

On stepping on the square, it will drop down 1 or so cubes in height (game cube res) to give the nice impression they are switches in the ground, and can be rolled off of despite the 1 cube step, or other indicators can be used to emphasize a square has been activated such as a glow of either the square or its symbol for a moment after the cube has been activated or while a certain function of the square is running and stops glowing when its over.

These types of squares can not only be on the ground but can in some cases be on the sides of walls, this would require the player to roll against a wall/square to activate it and might add for some interesting challenges when combined with floor squares.

Some of these squares once activated are no longer usable, In those cases the symbol for whatever function it was would fade/disappear from the square in question. In other scenarios some of these squares could appear suddenly in the square the player is about to move onto.


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Player Control and Movement Rules
This is a more detailed break down of the rules of movement as briefly mentioned on the first page "Movement on the World Grid " (NPC's Section).

There is something inherently therapeutic about rolling a box that one might otherwise think might be boring, much the same way that rolling a ball in games where the player controls a ball just feels right. Of course both rolling a box or a ball alone no matter how initially therapeutic begins to wear thin over time, but the point is that there is something quite right / soothing feeling about the simple act of rolling a cube, as if there is a primitive side to our mind that makes it feel just right.
Because this simple directional rolling is in effect the only interface between the player and the world in the instance of this game its very important that the feel of that control is spot on. The feeling of this player movement has to feel like the player is moving it directly, rather then the feeling of the player issuing commands to remotely control the cube. Its hard to describe, but the best example I can think of is the feeling of player / cube control in the game Edge.



The players cube is 5x5x5, so the global square size that the worlds ground/floors are made up are 5x5. This means no matter where the players cube rolls to it will never snap away from a 5x5 square. This will not only apply to ground movement but also to vertical movement such as climbing a step which will be 5x5x5 block. No matter where the cube is in the world and no matter if its moving along the ground or climbing steps its edge will always pivot on the edge of the square/step. (See: Edge) ... There will be exceptions to this in relation to the player cube such as cut sequences that for example have the cube raise on an elevator square, or in such cases as the player being on a raft crossing water.. In those cases there will be a smooth transition from one location.


Movement: Basic Control

In general the player has the ability to balance the cube, so if they see they are about to land on a square they realize they should not they can pull back from that at the last moment.	At 20 degrees or lower in the direction of a roll the player will not be able to pull back.

Movement: Climbing A Step

An example of how the cube will climb a step. Every Step in the game that the player can climb has to be 5 cubes in height.	As the cube starts to pull itself up you can see the pivot of the rotation is the corner of the cube against the corner of the step.

At 90 degrees of rotation.	Flipping over .....

The player cube has climbed the step and is still locked into that all important 5x5 grid as you can see.

Movement: Dropping Down From A Step

Dropping down from a step is a little different in that the cube only rotates 90 degrees then drops down.	Again showing the pivot (corner to corner) point of the rotation.

When the player reaches 90 degrees, gravity will take over and start to pull the cube downward.	Down we go.......

Player lands neatly on the 5x5 grid.

Movement: Walls Too Tall To Climb

Any walls that are higher then 5 cubes cannot be climbed.	The player will be able to attempt to roll, and get as far as 90 degrees, but as you can see the pivot will not allow it to flip over onto the step.

Much like dropping down from a step, gravity takes over at this point.	And the cube starts to drop...

And back neatly onto the grid, but with a different orientation than before it started the move. IMPORTANT AFTER THOUGHT NOTE: After some thought on this, I have determined this slipping action when climbing walls too high to climb may not be allowed while playing puzzle areas or not at all in the game. The reason for this is part of the challenge is to try orientate the color key side down onto the color switch squares, and if there are any walls nearby its quite easy for the player to just keep re-orientating their cubes faces against the wall as described in the above screenshots. So, perhaps rather then have this slipping action, have the game not engage a roll at all while pushing against walls over 6 cubes. (in other words in the whole game the cube cannot even begin to roll/lift if there is no corner to corner (edge to edge) pivot)

Movement: Example of Problem Senario1

Because its important the cube never moves off the 5x5 grid in most conceivable situations there are limitations on certain details that the world can have. Space/gaps that are under/or more than the 5x5 will result in the cube going "off the grid".
Here are a few scenarios which must be avoided.

Here you can see there is a step lower then 5 cubes. This means the cubes corner has nothing to pivot against. However if we assume an alternate pivot (the pink circle), and follow through with this move you will see how it results in the player cube going off grid.	If the player did a full 180 degree flip, you can see the resulting scenario.	Even if the step was onto flat ground the result is still a bad scenario.

Likewise, very low steps have a similar issue.	The result is off grid.

Movement: Example of Problem Scenario 2

And here is an example of another bad scenario in that the players cube ends up resting on a wall because the gap is lower than 5 cubes.	No matter where it is.

In Conclusion:

These rules mean that finer detailing that is adjacent to player navigable areas has to be somewhat more restricted. This wont effect how intricate the world can be so it wont have much baring on the final look/feel of the world, but it dose mean more fore-thought than I initially thought has to be used when laying out areas of the world. There may be some exceptions to these rules in some circumstances, such as NPC's or moving elements in the world, in the next section "Examples of Moving Elements" you can see more concept images that are sticking to the rules as opposed to the above earlier concept image.



Additional Notes:

No invisible sudden barriers tell the player they cannot roll this or that way .. the whole world in effect has to determine where the player can go rather then putting invisible walls. This is partly due to always ensuring the player is on grid from a game play point of view but also keeps the whole aesthetic nice and tight.

If cube falls more than 10 world cubes , it dies or looses health

If cube falls into water/lava and is completely submerged it dies or looses health (it can wade through water because some switch squares or items might be slightly hidden under shallow water.

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Examples of Moving Elements
Asides from NPC's, Creatures and the Player, the world will comprise of moving elements such as elevators, moving platforms and so on.

Three Methods of crossing a space that use moving elements.

Here are three examples of some interesting methods of crossing a space that feature some of the mechanic elements as mentioned already in this document, so you should be half familiar with how these 3 methods work. Much of the details here are just for aesthetic such as the water storage tower/aqueduct structure.

Lets take a look at each one in more detail:


The Cable Car

I'm calling this "The Cable Car" tho it doesn't bare much resemblance to one, but its just an example of an interesting way to cross a space such as a body of water. Player simply rolls onto the platform and then another 2 rolls to land on the "Controller Square" with its symbol facing toward the far side of the space. As the player rests on this square the cable car will move, if the player rolls off midway they can stop the car, or roll back the "Back Controller Square".

Color Pickup Puzzle + Elevator + Teleport

OK so here is a combination of 3 mechanic ideas that I have already covered. Assuming the player is starting from the area closest to the camera, then they would first have to pick up the green "Key Square" color on the high platform nearest the water, then orientatw their cube so that the Key side lands facedown on the green "Switch Square". This square then starts to raise like an elevator and when it reaches the top the player rolls onto the standard "Teleport Square" at which point the player appears on the far side of the water standing on the corresponding "Teleport Square". You can also see the player has a similar method of crossing back to the near side again with the same type of puzzle"

Cube Cage Crossing. All Aboard!!

'This is another example of an interesting moving element feature. Notice the hot pink cube is 7x7x7 and its a cage, so the space in between is 5x5x5 , just enough for the player to snuggly fit into. This special type of cube could be an NPC or Creature or could just be a special type of mechanism that holds the players cube in place using some attractive force (so the players cube doesn't fall out at any point). And this attractive force is active when this type of cube/NPC/creature is moving. So the player cubes rolls up the 2 steps, rolls drops into the cage cube but at the same time the player cube hits a switch (you can see where these switches are in the image by looking at the far side switch). This standard switch starts the cage cube to roll forward and it might also start to glow to indicate there is a force holding the player cube in place. When the cage cube reaches the end the player cube inside will land on the far side switch. This switch de-activates the cage cube and also starts to elevate this block up and through the cage cube pushing the players cube 10 cubes high so they can roll away. This specific mechanic may have to have an additional thing to it so if the player approaches it from a side where the cube cage is not, then they can summon the cage with a switch.

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Game Presentation
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Game-Play Screen Presentation

This section covers ideas on how the actual game play part of the game is presented on the screen. And from this GUI can be laid out.


The Table Top Look
This is essentially the same idea as the classic Populous Games. A small area of the world is shown on a slate/platform (table-top) and as the player moves through the world the world will scroll confined to this table-top, so the details of the world will pop in and pop out as it scrolls off the edges of the table. This may very well suit the game aesthetic but may not be viable to implement depending on which way it is done.

This table top aesthetic may not only suit the game style from a visual context but has the added advantage of giving elevated areas of the world strong definition against the black (or whatever background). Because the game will be set in a pure isometric perspective it is sometimes tricky to make out what areas are elevated without rolling behind it (which is partly deliberate as an element of "optical illusion" challenge), so seeing elevated areas against a solid background will help the player figure where it is safe to roll.

* I have not yet decided whether or not the game will have the ability to rotate the camera around the player in some way so the player can view the world at different angles, if this is the case hard to see elevated areas might not be such an issue or challenge.

* Whether or not the table top or camera rotation is used, the game could also have a very slight offset of perspective the further away from the camera focus point (the player cube). In this case the focus point would be on an exact pure isometric angle (45° Horizontal and 36° Vertical) and start to offset very very slightly the further out the screen. This will help the player to make out elevated areas and details in general because of the slight perspective while keeping a solid isometric look. An example of this would be the game Edge.

The image above demonstrates a typical type of view of the table top look. A Slight DOF (depth of field) effect can be applied to accentuate the table top style as if it were a macro camera lens looking down at something small. The world may scale down in relation to the table top (world zoom) if the player is moving fast or some other scenarios, to show more of the world around the player. Then the the world could scale up in certain scenarios such as the player being engaged in a small puzzle area or open up dialog with NPC's etc.

Problems and Compromises of Using the Table Top Style


The main part of this idea that would be tricky to implement based on research and conversations would be the 2 edges of the table that are facing the camera. Assuming the main bulk of the world is using a voxel system then as structures, such as building, that have space and details inside are scrolling on or off those edges the player will be able to see inside them, which is not an ideal situation for 2 reasons,.. these buildings might be locked and you don't want the player to see what is in them due to this edge slicing before they have unlocked that building. the other reason is, it just might end up being ugly to see.
If the world is being built out of mesh then the problems these 2 edges bring are even more of an issue.
There are solutions to this based on slicing / capping mesh in real-time as it scrolls off and on but it seems a bit messy and complicated to setup even for very experienced coders.

I have thought of a possible solution that quite frankly I have no clue how one could set up, but it involves drawing 2d vectors on a screen overlay to cap the mesh / or voxel rooms, and the points theses vectors are being drawn from are calculated by the furthest outer most vertices on cross-section of mesh that is at the edge of the table.

If the project goes down the route of a "full table top" I can try to explain this possible solution in better detail then.

Although this game is primarily being developed for PC/Consoles it has the potential to be released for mobile devices. The full table top view may not work so well being viewed on smaller mobile devices in which case there could be an option to switch to table top or full screen world view, or just have the mobile versions on full world view only.




The "Half Table Top" Compromise

Above: Shows how the game world is presented on screen in a traditional sense. (Not showing any GUI)	Above: In engine, place plain/rectangle vertically and position it at the far edge of the table top. (green line demonstrating its an object laying cutting through the world. This object is set not to cast or receive light, no specular.. etc.
Copying that object and mirror it on the other side of the table top. You now have a curtain cutting through the world that wont effect any of the worlds environment such as GI and AO	Now the top edges of the table can scroll through the curtain and give a half table top style look to the game that can further be accentuated by using a touch of DOF

The Traditional Full Screen World Screen
If the table-top style isn't a viable option or doesn't suit the game, then a regular full screen method can be used and will look just as good as the table-top.

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The Problem Of Obscured View When Behind Elevated Areas
The game will feature many elevated areas and buildings that result in the players cube being obscured from view. Due to the nature of the isometric perspective knowing which way to roll might be difficult to figure out. Although the isometric perspective is part of the challenge there will be many instances that may require the player to view things in a different way.
The most obvious solution is giving the player the ability to rotate the camera so the world (or more importantly the puzzle areas) can be viewed from 4 angles, 45°, -45°, 135° and -135° (with the vertical locked at -36°).

The above 4 images show an example of a puzzle area with elevated areas, however this could just as well be some area in any part of the game world. Looking at it from 4 angles you can clearly see areas that were obscured from other angels.

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GUI

I have not spent much time with GUI ideas for a few reasons. The number of GUI elements and subsequently their layout ultimately depend on how many game play features can be implemented from the ideas covered in this game design document. The layout of the GUI would also depend on how the game-play screen is presented (*see last section "Game-Play Screen Presentation").. Furthermore I really feel GUI design should be developed at a later stage of the project when its established how feature rich the game will be.

Other GUI areas such as options / map screens will be developed based on the style of the Gameplay screen GUI.

I do however have some ideas on how the GUI in general might work that I shall explain in more detail as the project develops.

In general the GUI has to be kept as minimal as possible, likely using no text and instead a system of symbols or colors that tie into game mechanics.

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Music and Sound Design
The music and sound effects ideally should try to reflect the minimal and abstract visual aesthetic of the game.

Sound Design
Synth sound effects may suit the game very well, using artificial sounds generated by a synthesiser as apposed to realistic types of sound effects.

NPC's might have audio speech to go with their dialog, however this audio would be gibberish abstract noises that will give the impression of speech.
Music note aspects over certain squares


Music
Ideally the game should have a nice variety of game-play music to go along with certain aspects of the game and had to fit into the style of the game in general.

Gameplay Music:
A nice variety of music tracks that change according to a particular region of the world, or shorter music sequences might trigger when certain scenarios happen such as being chased by an enemy NPC or creature.

Game Presentation Music:
Other shorter music tracks can be used in such areas as the games launch screen, menu screens, map screen, on pausing the game, a death sequence, cut-scenes, promotional videos and so on.

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Cut-Scenes and Sequences

Story Cut-Scenes
A selection of pre-made cut-scenes can be used to help tell the story and can be triggered at certain times during the players progression.
For example the intro to the game could set the context of the world and story in cut-scene form, then at some point into the game after the player has collected a certain number of "vital" quest items or completed a certain number of tasks in a certain sequence then could be counted as a specific point of the story and have a cut-scene triggered, and as like the intro the very end of the game can have a cut-scene to close the story/game in a nice way.

Event Based Cut-Scenes / Sequences
During actual game play in the world there may be cut-scenes or short sequences that are triggered by specific scenarios. For example if the player enters a puzzle area then the camera might orientate itself in a smooth sequence so more of the puzzle area is seen on screen, while this short sequence is engaged the world is effectively frozen until the camera settles, this will help emphasize to the player that they are in a puzzle area (which has different rules to the regular world).

Other event based cut-scenes and sequences might be triggered when:
Player dies / Player re-spawns
Player dies in a certain way, such as falling from a height (resulting in a animated sequence of a pile of tiny cubes collapsing)
Player teleports to another location (such as shaft of light/beam sucking up the cube)
Crossing an area while on a platform (such as raft that crosses a body of water to another area)
Player collects a certain item, or collecting a certain number of items such as the coin cubes.

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Control Schemes

I have a few ideas that are obvious and straight forward control schemes for various devices, however have not bothered to define how this works in detail due to the fact many of the controls would depend on how many of features get implemented from the ideas covered in the design document.

* For early development purposes a prototype of the players cube control ideally should be controlled with the W,A,S,D keys or arrow keys. Which would control its basic left, right, up, down movement (roll).


Desktop/Laptop Computers
Keyboard Control (perhaps mouse to navigate GUI screens, or move player cube)

Game Consoles
Many ways of implementing comfortable controls here

Mobile Devices
This may be a challenge , but not impossible to find a good comfortable solution



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Online Records, Downloads and Multiplay.

Perhaps I am getting a little too ambitious now eh? heh ;) ... even so here are some ideas on how this game could possibly have a simplistic multiplay feature and online records and achievements system.

I should start by saying I personally know someone who has had direct experience with implementing some of what I am about to suggest so this person could be taken onboard at some stage of the project.

Online Records System
Although the game world in single player context probably wont have levels that could be considered for competitive speed runs, there could be a set of levels developed specifically for speed runs. The various statistics a player acquires by playing these speed runs could be uploaded to an online server and displayed on a webpage, such as top 100 leader boards, personal statistics and so on.
A game I helped to work on called UFO Explorer has this system integrated into the game, so if you take a look at how its done here you can see exactly what I mean and what may be possible.

The Index Page showing the all-round top runs: http://www.dfpgames.com/ufoxnet/
If you click on any level you can get details on that level: http://www.dfpgames.com/ufoxnet/level/1
And it has personal stats too for example: http://www.dfpgames.com/ufoxnet/spARx



Co-Op Adventure
Well this is pretty obvious, 2 players going through the whole game together. They can choose who wants to do the puzzle areas. Or some other mechanic chooses which player engages the puzzle areas.

Perhaps a specific Co-op adventure campaign mode where the adventure / world is tweaked to take advantage of 2 players.

This Co-Op mode could be played offline on the same screen (camera zooms out when players distance gets far)..
or it could be an Online mode where 2 players are playing the game from different locations.

Online Person vrs Person Speed Runs
Pretty straight forward concept, 2 players get to race each other on a speed run level, either online or split screen offline


Ghost Cube System + Downloads
Game might have the ability to record a players run in a speed run level, and the next time the player tries that level they will see a ghost cube of their best run, much the same ideas as you see in racing games or other games that have a players best time to beat as a ghost.
Additionally there may be an option to upload these best runs on any speed run level to a database on a server which can be listed on a website and downloaded for other players to try and beat.

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Platforms, Demographic and Public Exposure
Some early notes on what sort of platforms should be a priority and some thoughts on the sort of people that may be interested in playing this game, how to expose the game and what sort of online market exposure we might target.

Platforms
The primary platform for this game will be PC's, and this would likely include both Windows and Linux. Then if viable we look at bringing it to Mac, while also considering a variety of Game Consoles. This game may also be pretty nice to play on mobile devices too so we can consider that later. The point is though that from the start the project drive has to be with focus on Computer/Consoles and watered down for Mobile, as opposed to developing it from the start for Mobile and adding in features later for PC..etc

Exposing / Promoting a game for mobile only is a much harder challenge, no person or site with influence in getting games exposed in a general context takes mobile content that seriously, and if the game is developed for mobile first then after computers, players are not going to take it as seriously thinking its just a cheapy mobile port.

Demographics
Not many games can get interest from all sections of the game community, ie, genre specific, age, gender, location/language This game shall strive to keep things as simple, minimal and neutral as to try to capture the attention of as many sections of the gaming community as possible.
Making a typical fps game for example, you are probably not going to get many younger kids, women, or older folks playing that. So from the start I have tried to make this game as neutral as possible in looks and play, and feature. Many puzzle type games do manage to capture a larger demographic but lack adventure or story in many cases so this is what I am attempting to do.
In addition keeping as many traditional text based elements in the game to using symbols or animations.. etc will help to get more interest from folks in countries that speak different languages plus have the added advantage of less localization work.


Social Media / Public Development Exposure
At some point I think it would be advantageous to fully expose this project in public on various sites for a few reasons. The biggest reason is that bringing this general idea to the public will help determine sooner rather then later if the game has any worth. If its a case that the project is exposed but is getting little to no interest then we can probably take that as an indication the game may not be worth developing any further. If there is good interest in the development of the game then we can assume its worth committing to. Come launch day we have a good measure of how things might go based on the public exposure of its development, rather than take the huge risk in exposing a game out of the blue.

The sooner and more exposed we can get in public and the more initial interest we can get will also help to deter anybody else developing a similar game at the same time.

The one bad thing about exposing a project to the public as its in development is we run the risk of getting people initially interested in the game but as time goes on people will either get tired of seeing it in dev, or think they have seen everything there is to see through content in dev updates so not bother actually playing the game.

Either way its important to strategies what we show and how much of the game we expose before launch. I think the "teaser" strategy might work best of all for this type of game, rather then expose bread and butter parts of the game.

- Kickstarter Campaign
We could at a later (but not advanced) stage of development bring this project to Kickstarter or some other community based funding site.
This would help not only with getting initial exposure for the game, but contribute to project in a variety of ways, not least paying whoever is involved with the project some money toward work done. It also would help with getting plug-ins or making sure everybody is up to date with tool licences.. etc etc. However its important to stress that running a kickstarter campaign also comes with a lot of commitments to backers so there is risk involved and also extra work involved offering promotional aspects to the game that we might otherwise not have bothered to do if not running a Kickstarter type campaign.

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Product Identity


Possible Game Titles
In terms of number of words I figure to have it as catchy as possible

A few title ideas

Chiúbaithe
Adventure³ (Adventure Cubed)
Planet³ (Planet Cubed)
World³ (World Cubed)
Qubique
Isomatrix
Geomatrix

Cubum Orbis (cube world)
Cubum Via (cube journey)
Cubum Regno (cube kingdom)
Cubum Universum (cube universe)
Cubum Fabula (cube fable)

Cubum Orbis: Preliminary Logo Designs
A few early designs based around using "Cubum Orbis" as the actual game title.

A series of title ideas were based on Latin words using the "Cubum" prefix, which means Cube .. Out of a few ideas Cubum Orbis (Cube World) it my personal favorite. It has a nice ring to it, and from a design point of view its flexible. Here are 2 types of preliminary ideas, the first 4 images are based around using the players cube as an isolated/separate element to the logo and this one uses slight edge beveling, while the remaining 8 images are based around using the cube integrated into the text itself as the "O" on Orbis. (both a bit rushed/messy presently) The colors are just a test. Click on any image to see much higher res.

Other areas.
I have a few ideas around development of the games identity in relation to its promotional material that I will suggest at a later stage of the project.

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Some Closing Notes

My Philosophy and Vision for This Project

thank you for reading
pan

Please don't hesitate to contact me for any inquiries or interest in getting involved

cube@fractalscapes.net

q`

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For further reference here is and index of links to areas on this page.

Introduction
01 - Terminology To Avoid Confusion
02 - The Basic Story
03 - NPC's, NPC Interactions and Other Types of Characters
04 - Buildings and Structures Throughout the Game World
05 - World Structure and Player Progression Through It
06 - Environmental Attributes to the Game World
07 - The Language and Symbology of the Game World
08 - Early Conceptual Development
09 - "Ideal" Game Engine / Code Requirements

Game Mechanics
10 - The Global Puzzle Mechanic
11 - Additional/Optional Elements to the Puzzle
12 - Inventory System / Gameplay Mechanic
13 - Power-Up's, Upgrades and Collectable Items
14 - Hazard, Switch and Puzzle Squares
15 - Player Control and Movement Rules
16 - Examples of Moving Elements

Game Presentation
17 - Game-Play Screen Presentation
18 - GUI
19 - Music and Sound Design
20 - Cut-Scenes and Sequences
21 - Control Schemes
22 - Online Records, Downloads and Multiplay
23 - Platforms, Demographic and Public Exposure
24 - Product Identity
25 - Some Closing Notes
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The information outlined on this document are Copyright © 2016 Pangaea / tma (fractalscapes.net / #GameDevelopers - Esper.net & Freenode.org)