Triage

Triage is a third person battlefield medical center simulator, a genre that has never before
been attempted in a major game production.
In Triage, you take on the role of a WW2 frontline medic. You are in charge of the key
medical outpost, where you and your staff are met with gravely injured soldiers, some
teetering on the brink of death.
Based upon that soldiers role and the severity of their injury, you have to decide who is
treated first, and who you can risk letting go untreated.
o Mission-critical troops may be your top priority in a given situation, but the
deaths of the soldiers you ultimately ignore may rest heavily upon your
conscience.

Target Psychographic
-

Triage targets the more story-focused players, who have seen the same World War II plots
play out in video games and movies over and over again. Theyre eager for a different
perspective in a beloved setting, something less focused on the typical running and
gunning of an action-packed FPS or Hollywood movie. Theyre accustomed to the often
gruesome visuals that are used to depict a realistic theater of battle, and do not shy away
from M-rated titles as long as the subject matter is treated with respect. They empathize
with the characters on screen, and feel the weight of even their fictional choices.

Tone & Style

-

While Triage will implement simplified and gamified versions of battlefield treatment
that are a far cry from the true reality faced by a frontline WWII doctor, it will still
attempt to evoke the visceral, overwhelming, and real feeling of trying desperately to
save as many of your wounded soldiers as you possibly can. Its aesthetic, at least, will
focus on accurately depicting the environment of a battlefield medic during this time
period injuries will be gruesome, but not exaggerated, and the character models will
faithfully depict the grim agony, shock, and desperation felt by wounded soldiers and the
player character alike.

Core Mechanics
-

The central focus of Triage will be treating wounded soldiers as they are brought into
your medical outpost.
Different soldiers will have varying levels of injury, from relatively moderate lacerations,
to gunshot wounds, to limbs severed by grenade blasts and explosions.
Depending upon the severity of injury, each soldier could potentially die if their wounds
go untreated for too long, and will at least occupy valuable space in the facility until they
have either been treated or have passed. The player will have to identify the most
grievously injured soldiers and choose who they treat first.
While you will always play from the perspective of your player character, your staff
and soldiers escorting the wounded will inform you of new entrants to your tent.
Page 1 of 4

You will also be handed regular missives which players automatically attach to their clip
board.
o These messages will inform the player of key battlefield information. The number
of soldiers currently on the front line, their unit type, the number of soldiers dead
or wounded, the estimated number of active enemy soldiers currently opposing
your troops in that mission, and any additional mission-specific information such
as terrain type will all be displayed here whenever the player chooses to look at it.
One of the most difficult tasks set to the player is who they should save. Depending on
your frontlines current mission, certain types of soldiers may be more key to victory than
others. While non-critical unit types may enter your outpost in a much worse state, you
may be forced to forego treating them in order to focus on saving as many of the key
units as you possibly can.

Unit Types
-

The soldiers you are responsible for treating are divided into three primary categories:
o Heavy: Equipped with heavy machine guns.
o Light: Lightly equipped with M1 carbines, able to move quickly.
o Sniper: Equipped with long range rifles, able to take out targets from afar.
Each soldier has an advantage and weakness in combat versus the two other types of
soldiers.
In basic rock paper scissors format:
o Heavies will most often prevail over Light units, but be defeated by Snipers
o Light will most often prevail over Snipers, but be defeated by Heavies
o Snipers will most often prevail over Heavies, but be defeated by Light units.
Depending on your current unit composition and the composition of the enemy unit, the
player may be influenced to save more of one type of soldier over the others.

Active Treatment
-

Once the player has decided on which unit to treat, they are tasked with a quick minigame, simulating the emergency treatment process.
Different types and levels of injury will each have different mini-games attached to them.
o Broken limbs will require the player to manipulate the analog sticks in order to set
the broken bone, and then place a temporary cast.
o Moderate lacerations will require the player to disinfect the wound and enter a
series of button presses in order to quickly suture the wound shut, and then
bandage the sutured injuries.
Severe lacerations may also require blood transfusion.
o Gunshot wounds and shrapnel lodgings will require bullet or shrapnel extraction
through careful manipulation of the left analog stick, then disinfecting and
pressure dressing the wound with gauze.
Depending on the location and depth of the shot, treatment may not
always call for bullet extraction, while the most severe gunshots will also
require a blood transfusion.
Page 2 of 4

o Severed limbs will require application of morphine, disinfecting the wound, and
the application of a tourniquet through the rapid turning of an analog stick. These
injuries almost always require a blood transfusion as well.
Players will be responsible for remembering the correct order and techniques for
performing these emergency treatments effectively and quickly.
The player will also be given the option to stop in the middle of any given treatment if a
more severely injured or mission critical soldier is brought in need of immediate
treatment.
o However, this may result in the loss of the supplies that were being utilized during
that treatment, and even puts the abandoned soldier at risk of dying during your
absence.

Resource Management
-

Player will begin each mission with a set amount of medical supplies
o Supplies will include
Gauze bandages
Tourniquets
Dried Plasma
Sutures
Morphine
If players fail their treatment mini-game too badly, a resource may be entirely wasted.
Certain missions may unexpectedly call for more of a specific resource to be used than
originally anticipated by your HQ.
If the player is observant of his supply count and the aggravating circumstances of his
mission, he can send healthy or sufficiently recovered soldiers to retrieve additional
supplies from a nearby base.
o This will remove those soldiers temporarily from the front line, weakening your
overall force very slightly, but may allow you to save more lives in the future
once you have the additional resources.
The assigned resource retriever will not instantly return with your request, however. The
player will be given an ETA of return once they select the option to resupply. Tracking
the rate of your resource depletion and the mission-specific pressures you are under are
key to knowing when to call for the additional resources.

Mission Types
-

Players will support their troops on a number of often-specialized missions.

While a standard mission will require the player to simply treat the soldiers on his
frontline with regard to severity of injury and troop composition (on both the player and
the enemys side). The player will be tasked with maintaining adequate numbers of the
right troops capable of returning to the battlefield once treated, or capable of joining in on
the next mission.

Page 3 of 4

However, specialized missions may be assigned to the troops supported by the player.
This will heavily influence the priority the player must place on treating the different
types of soldiers.
Special missions will include:
o Artillery missions: A fourth type of unit will be added to the troop roster, and
must be given absolute priority to prevail against enemy bombardment. Casualty
and injury of other troop types may be severe during these missions, but they
must still be ranked lower than these key operators.
o Terrain-based missions: The type of terrain of a particular mission may strengthen
a particular unit and weaken others, making them inherently stronger for the
entirety of that mission, and critical to success. In open plains or desert missions,
snipers will have the advantage with lack of cover for the enemy and their
extreme long range weapons. Keeping snipers alive during these missions will be
highly incentivized.
o Holdout: Occasionally the player will be faced with absolutely overwhelming
odds. Their performance in prior missions will dictate in part how many troops
they start out with, but success will be essentially impossible with your current
numbers. Here, speed is more important than strategy, and a players mastery of
the treatment techniques will be tested. Players will be forced to simply hold out
and save as many of their troops as possible until reinforcements arrive within a
given timeframe.

Victory and Defeat

-

If the player sufficiently maintains the health of his supported troops, the enemy numbers
will eventually whittle away until victory is achieved.
At the end of each mission, players will be given a full report on the number of soldiers
you were able to save, and how many they lost.
o This serves as a break from the chaos and action of the triage center, but also as a
sobering reminder of the gravity of their actions.
The degree of the players success will influence the in-game cut scene they receive
between each mission and the progression of the story. A poor performance will lead to
the players encampment having a notably dark atmosphere with fewer NPCs populating
the camp in general, and few making conversation with the player. A stellar performance
will result in a substantially lighter atmosphere, with personal congratulations given from
higher ranking officers and common soldiers you personally saved alike.
Every single soldier in the game will be given a specific name. Players will have the
choice to view the dog tags of the soldiers they fail to save, along with their cause of
death, as a reminder of those who have been lost, and so that they can learn from their
mistakes.

Page 4 of 4