CapsLock Industries

CapsLock Industries Game Treatment Monolith

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CapsLock Industries

Contents Page 3: Title, Format and Genre Page 4: Market Research Page 5: Audience and Language Page 6: Territories and Content of Game Page 7: Objectives and Theme Page 8: Characters and Mechanics Page 9: Story Page 10: Environments Page 11: Structure Page 12: Features Page 13: Logo, DVD Cover and Poster Page 14: Concept Art

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CapsLock Industries Title - The Video Game is called Monolith. The one line pitch for the game is, Fight to Survive". We came up with Monolith from an unreleased book that Zac is making. The Monolith actually later found its way into each of the maps of our game, and the tournament ended up being named the Monolith Tournament. Format As the market research indicates the top five most popular game consoles, and therefore the consoles we will most likely issue this game out on, are Xbox 360, PC, Iphone / Ipad, PS3 and Wii. The consoles are listed in order from one to five out of the 5 most popular game consoles. However Iphone and Ipad do not accept the form of UI that the game requires, as a result the game will be available to play on the Xbox 360, PC, PS3, Wii (most popular) and PSP given that these devices are the most popular ones which support the required type of UI. Games of this genre are most often used on those five most popular game consoles because of the user interface (UI); which on those devices allows them to do a wide range of activities without too much hassle. For example without the Xbox 360 you use x to pick something up, reload, activate, use etc. Whereas with the IPhone you have a very small touch screen, and only your thumbs to play the game so it would be excruciatingly difficult to play with all those options available to you. PSP has been used to replace the IPhone because although it also has a very small screen for the gameplay it has the main controls that the Xbox 360 controller does, the arrow keys along with the same side controls, and therefore it would be viable to play on that console. Genre The Genre we have chosen to research is RPGs. RPGs are one of the main genres among hardcore gamers, and are popular due to their length and strategy involved in the gameplay. The games that are out for this genre vary. One that you have no doubt heard of is the Number 1 game of 2011 in the VGA Gaming Awards, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. This game is extremely popular, selling many copies per day, and has been critically acclaimed. The reviews for this game have all been stellar and high in the charts, scoring 97 out of 100 on Metacritic, making it close to the Number 1 game on Steam. This is loved due to its replay ability and the vast exploration, not to mention the hundreds of quests available, not to mention the crafting system and the thousands of pieces of equipment made available to you. This is so popular that it sold 3.4 million copies in 2 days, and has earned around 650 Million Dollars. Another extremely popular addition to RPGs is the whole multiple ending systems, where the choices you make within the game changes the ending that you come across, like in games such as Dragon Age: Origins, or a game series more popular, Mass Effect. Dragon Age: Origins has earned the 2008 VGA Awards RPG of the Year,

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CapsLock Industries while Mass Effect 3 has not earned any spot yet, because it was released this year, but Mass Effect 2 receive multiple awards. Usually, RPGs are played by older male gamers who are more mature and care more about the depth of their video games rather than the fun factor, so they can truly get immersed in the world in front of them. Female gamers usually go for the romance element in some video games, as that is popular among them. The community among the RPG players are usually helpful, sharing advice among the forums of the actual games. The most popular platform for RPGs is without a doubt the PC, although, in Japan portable consoles are usually more popular than PC gaming, but their style of RPG is usually played through a rather simple UI system compared to western RPGS. In the west, we have games like Dragon Age: Origins, which is made with the PC in mind. On the PS3, the UI is really hard to use due to the lack of a mouse. Market Research Through the market research that we have carried out we have found out some interesting points about the audience and their involvement in games. The research shows that the most popular platform that people use is the Xbox 360 (67%) by a 19% difference from the next highest of PC with 48%. Other popular platforms were the Iphone/Ipad/Ipod with 41% and the PS3 with 36%. This shows that the platforms that we were originally aiming at, of the Xbox 360, PS3 and PC, would be a good choice as they are three out of the top four choices. One surprising thing however was the popularity of the Iphone/Ipad/Ipod platform, seeing this could possibly make us consider releasing an Iphone version at a later date perhaps. The category of influential games was much less of a surprise as the type of games we expected came out on top. These included games from series being more popular, including mostly games like Call of Duty, FIFA, GTA, Mass Effect etc. Also the survey shown that popular genres included FPS, Action, RPG and sport. This was predictable as they are the genres that the popular games listed above fall under. One other interesting point is that most people will pay up to 40 a game and will largely buy a game based on a recommendation from a friend, having played the demo or having already played part of the series. This gives us a good idea about the price range for the game and also a good way to market the game by possibly releasing a demo to get a buzz around the game and for people to tell their friends as it is an original game and therefore not part of a series. The main point we found regarding the target audience was that the vast majority of gamers were male (75%) and aged between 16-19 (95%). The age point could be disregarded however as the survey was only taken within the college and therefore everyone is going to be between the ages of 16 -19.

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CapsLock Industries Audience Through the market research that we carried out we found out a lot about who the audience should be and who we were going to aim our game at. The main ranges that we thought were important when targeting an audience where the age and gender. The research showed that the biggest age range for gamers is between the ages of 16-19. This is not really that big of a shock as this is the age range with the biggest amount of spare time on their hands and therefore will be the most into playing games. Also most of the popular games on the market are of this age range so it seems to be the most popular and the biggest sellers and therefore a good reason to aim our game at this age range. We have showed that this is our target age range by making the game a Pegi 16+ age rating. The other big factor we found in our market research was the gender of gamers. The research shows that a whopping 75% of gamers are male and therefore makes male gamers the biggest target audience possible. Because of this fact the game we made was more aimed to the violence/ combat side of gaming for the more hard-core gamers instead of the simple casual gamers. There were also other factors that could relate to audience like education, financial income, race, interests etc. However we thought that all of these factors were not directly relatable to our game. Language English (UK & US English + English subtitles) - Spanish - French - Russian - Chinese - Japanese - German - Italian We will be issuing this game with 8 languages English (UK and US as well as English subtitles), Spanish, French, Russian, Chinese, Japanese, German and Italian. We decided to use English given that a large percentage of the Earths population can understand it, which the game will be open to a wide audience. The other different languages we have chosen to use is Spanish, French, Russian, Chinese, Japanese, German and Italian, because those languages make up the bulk of the rest of the world (Europe). As a result of this the game will be open to the largest audience.

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CapsLock Industries Territories For purposes of clarification in context territories means the parts of the world which the game is sold in. Therefore the territories to which the game will be released in Britain, (North and South) America, (North and South) Asia, and Europe. The game will be released in these areas because they are the areas which have proper copyright laws preventing people from legally pirating the game. Since some countries are not properly developed to have those laws meaning people can easily and legally pirate them. Furthermore the specified countries and continents make up the majority of the world which has the capability to buy the game and then play it. This is a result of the fact that certain parts of the world do not have the wealth to be able to afford such luxuries. One such example of a country that might be too poor to be able to lawfully buy and play this game is Peru. Content of the Game Overview summary / what its all about The game consists of 8 individuals which have been abducted from different countries on Earth by aliens from the planet Cazria. The Aliens are called Cazrians just like we would be called Earthlings if we made contact. Once abducted they must fight for survival in a Hunger games inspired contest designed solely for these aliens demented minds, BUT wait it gets better you can scavenge for supplies from anywhere within the enclosure; these supplies allow you to create new things, upgrade your current items or could be used to lure your enemy. No matter what these supplies are used for (whether they were airdropped in or found elsewhere) they are meant to assist you regardless of whether you use to heal yourself or to kill. You can heal yourself by eating food, or using medical supplies however because, this is all happening on an alien planet you have no idea what food is edible and what is toxic. Since you have no way what so ever to tell edible from toxic, other than risking it and trying the food (and hope you find the antidote in time if it is toxic); YOUR NEXT MEAL COULD BE YOUR LAST! You better watch out this game is filled with deadly creatures which you must fight off to survive. You can fight these creatures to help level up, you can also scavenge through the supplies, create items or kill an opponent to level up.

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CapsLock Industries The ultimate goal of this game is to kill the other opponents; once you do you are returned to Earth. You can go about this in a number of ways those being: 1) You can find and kill the opponent as soon as the round starts, 2) You can scavenge through the environment, find supplies and use those to create weapons (such as bows and arrows) to make killing the opponent easier and armour to protect you, 3) Or you can find supplies collect it and place it into a pile, then create and place traps around the supplies and then lure your enemy into the traps. The overall conclusion of this is that, the game is a fighting game based on the sole purpose on finding your opponents and killing them anyway you can. This game is a single round only since all 8 characters are placed in the one map, and it continues until only one remains, making this game a last man standing style fight. As a result of this you can choose which map out of the four; Desert, Frozen wasteland, Space station or Untamed Wilderness (forest); you want to use. Objectives The Objective is the game is to kill all 7 opposing enemy players using traps and combat. The opposing players may even fall victim to the environments around them, so you may not even have to fight them in one on one combat at all. You can find and track down the enemy players through a heartbeat sensor which increases range as the game continues, so there will eventually be nowhere to hide. Kills do not matter in this game, all that matters is being the last man standing. You can take many different approaches to the game. Of course, the clock is ticking as you are playing. You have to balance out your desires quickly. If its defense, youd need to create armour and traps in order to keep your enemy at bay, but if youre an attacker, youll need a sharp eye and craft many weapons, with some medicine with you as you progress through the level. The weapons you can make consist of hatchets, bows, throwing knives/axes, swords and polearms. There are no guns or unfair weapons in the game. There are also vehicles that are placed on the map, but they are locked inside areas that need special materials to be deposited in order to get at them. However, there are great risks in using these vehicles. The maps are large, and using a vehicle will cover land in little time, however, they are loud, and youll be heard miles away. Vehicles are useful to grab drops. Theme how does the topic work? The game is set on a completely foreign planet called Cazria, where the materials, creatures, and even the environments are different. Of course, there are areas that the player can relate to in the game, but youll end up finding that they are completely different upon exploring and examining the area. To make the game more interesting, materials are randomised for the

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CapsLock Industries amounts needed to make certain armour each game, and the locations are scattered around the map at random, so there isnt some typical build or strategy that the player familiarises himself with, and gets the hand on less experienced or skilled players. Each map has a monolith in the middle, but thats just as a landmark. Usually, theres not much there. The aesthetic to the game is half cartoony, half realistic. The menus and the UI are Sci-Fi, sort of like mass effect, where the Menus and UI look like its from some sort of futuristic computer navigation system, and the sounds when you interact with buttons sound like pings from radars and such. However, the soundtrack will be different. It will be fantasy, so we could have a soundtrack from Skyrim or World of Warcraft as inspiration. There will be a lot of cartoony feedback from hits, pickups, etc, usually shooting onto the screen from offscreen in a cartoony fashion. It will maintain a serious sort of vibe, but it will be stylish and identifiable at the same time. The textures on the objects surrounding the environments are going to be detailed, but not to the point of some AA developers. The quality will be standard, and the parts that are not detailed enough will be detailed with Cartoon-like textures, so well get away with some details in the name of our aesthetic. The feedback from the stereotypical characters in terms of voice-acting will be realistic. Some of the characters are humorous, while others, like the gas-masked German, will be serious. The death sounds will be realistic, and not humorous, as we want to maintain some degree of realism in our game Characters Who do you play? Who are the other characters? There were eight, strong characters that have been abducted by Cazria in order to fight In the Monolith Tournament. Each of these characters are stereotypes from each of the countries chosen, which include England, America, Saudi Arabia, Italy, Germany, Russia, France, Spain. Each character has special traits, such as increased stamina for the German, and greater accuracy for the American. Each character is stereotypical, for example, the American is a cowboy, and the Russian has an Ushanka. They all speak in very stereotypical accents too, the cowboy being redneck, and the German having a very high pitched voice. Mechanics how do you earn points/compete levels? What are the rewards?

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CapsLock Industries You earn Experience as a reward in this game, for doing activities such as harvesting, crafting, firing bows, attacking with Melee weapons, climbing obstacles etc. As you level up in these skills, you will be able to go about these skills faster or more effective. The effects of levelling up varies with each skill, for example, you can create more powerful medicines or potions as you level up your medical skill, and youll be able to shoot your bow more accurately. The damage in weapons will actually only be measured through crafting, and healing will only be measured through medicine. This is placed in the game so everybody takes their time to level up their skills and not rush to other players to kill them. If you spend too much time looking for a player, that player will have taken their time to create powerful medicines, armour and weapons, and they will destroy you. There are some armour that will resist others. For example, weaker arrows will not hit through body armour, although, there will still be spots to do damage on. This is also added in the game to encourage players to upgrade their weapons and armour constantly, even to high levels. There will also be traps you can set in order to snare your opponent, and if theyre not well equipped, they may not be able to get out of it in time to escape death.

The maps are large, so the matches are expected to go on for about 20 minutes plus. This means that the players may be inclined to leave if theyve got other things to do, but when they leave, the player will be controlled by AI until another player sees fit to take over that character. When a player dies, they are given XP, and the choice of whether to watch as the game progresses, or to leave and look for another game. Story what is the story the player will work through? There is no story that you progress through in the game, but there is a backstory, already Document1

CapsLock Industries listed above. The game is set out in a way that it is simply an Arena-based game, where youll fight in a selected Arena against the 7 players, online or offline. As popularity for the game increases, we plan to add DLC to the game, so perhaps there will be some sort of story there. The skills in the game are worthy of a full Skyrim-like game, anyway. However, when a character wins a game, there is talk of him/her going out into the world of Cazria with wealth, and he/she has a whole world full of technology that he/she can explore. Environments where does it take place? The game takes place on a fictional planet called Cazria, and it is an alien, foreign planet that hosts arenas in 4 different environments. The arenas in which the tournaments are hosted has different conditions, such as grasslands, snowy tundras, a space station and a desert. In some of the maps, there are areas that give you certain conditions, such as in the space station there are rooms that slowly heal you, or give you buffs. Such rooms will likely be a hotspot for other players on the map, though, so be careful. Another example is on the snowy map, if you fall into the freezing cold water, you get a debuff that will kill you if you allow it to stack too high. The environments can also be interacted with. For example, in the grasslands, you can climb vines and trees to lay traps and hide in wait for your opponents if they are chasing you, and you can also lay traps in places such as the water and on pathways.

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CapsLock Industries Structure Flow Chart of the Game

Start

Choose Online or Single mode.

Single Mode

Which mode did you choose? Choose a Character.

Multiplayer Mode Host a game.

Join a game.

Host or Join a game

Choose an Arena.
Wait for more players to join. Change settings of the game.

Start the Match.

Choose a Character.

Choose a Character.

Start the Match.

Choose an Arena.

Start the Match.

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CapsLock Industries Features powers/objects/items/weapons Powers Of the eight characters each individual character will have their own special power relating to the country in which they came from. These special powers could range from a special attack to signature skills, for example the American character would have greater accuracy and have a lasso as a special weapon. This could also be one of the features in the game that allows you develop the skills as you progress through the game by upgrading your attacks and skills as you level up through the game. Objects There are objects in the game that are you cannot directly move or pickup but are interactive and you can interact with the objects by crouching behind them, jumping over them, and using them as a temporary base like a tree house for example. This could be helpful within the game as you could use these objects as cover and therefore help you within the gameplay. Items and weapons The items that you can acquire throughout the game can range from weapons, food and drink, throw able objects and tools. All of these items can benefit your character in different ways but some are harder to come across than others. For example food and drink would be easy to find as it is something that you really need to survive, you could find apples and other farmable crops or kill the wildlife for their meat to use for food and take water from the rivers and lakes for drink. However this would involve risks as you would not know what food is safe and which is not because you are on a foreign planet with unknown food items. As well as food you can also craft tools from items that you can find on the floor like and spear from a stick and a stone for example. Other examples would be things like an axe and a spade that you could craft by using items like wood and stone. These items could also possibly be upgraded as you play through the game as you could find tools and food in airdrops to help you along the way. Along with tools to help you gather items you can also craft and collect weapons like swords, bows and arrows, spears etc. these could range from basic simple stone weapons that you have crafted to advanced, powerful and special weapons that you have gathered from air drops and scavenged from other characters that you have killed. These special swords be the difference between life and death in a battle situations and therefore will be some of the harder things to find within the map and the game as a whole.

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CapsLock Industries Logo, Poster and Game Cover

This is one of the logos that we have created for the company CapsLock Industries.

This is one of the posters that one of the team members has designed for the game. This will be the poster that will represent our game before it is released worldwide.

This is one of the game covers that the team members have designed for the game. This is one of the four game covers we have designed and the other three might be used for a sequel of the game.

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CapsLock Industries

Concept art The characters that we have designed for our game are in the same style as those on popular games such as borderlands with the characters beings designed in a way that represents them as kinds of cartoon like but also with a hint of realism in the characters. We designed eight separate characters at first, gaining inspirations from other games like Borderlands and also games like Saints row and GTA. We thought that this would be the best way to go with the characters as these styles of characters are not used that often but seem to be very popular when they are used. We also designed backgrounds and environments for our game in a similar style with a similar concept also taking inspirations from other games like World of Warcraft, Call of Duty and Minecraft. These types of games are very popular and also have very different styles of environments, because of this fact we thought that if we could somehow find a way of combining all of these types of games in one style of map and environment it would be a really good idea. We took certain aspects from each game to add into our game, these include; floating blocks, mountains and open battlefields from World of Warcraft, realistic looking war zones from Call of Duty and crafting style interfaces from Minecraft. We believe by combining all of these different styles of concept art we have produced a very good original style.

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