Vertical Slice - One Pager

The Game Design Document Vertical Slice serves as a preview of the actual GDD prior to its completion.

Synopsis
Valeria, a succesful entrepenuer that likes punching her way out of trouble, and Irene, a maiden's disciple expert in martial arts, enter the underworld in the hopes of finding the treasure hidden within.

Armed with a pair of Gauntlets and a Spear, they will have to survive in the depths of this demon infested wasteland fighting together to defeat demon hordes of all kind ... in style.

High Concept
Unworthy Roses is a Top-Down Perspective, Co-op 3D Hack and Slash PC game, where players take control of Irene and Valeria, two girls that must free the Modern Human World from the Ancient Monsters from the Underworld.

Overview

 * Platform: PC
 * Controls: Xbox Controller
 * Players: 2 player co-op.
 * Genre: Hack and Slash
 * Engine: Unreal Engine 4.24

Vision Statement
Our goal is to develop a short game over the span of 4 months of Production that will showcase both individual and team abilities at Edgy Entertainment's disposal.

Design Pillars
The following are our Design Pillars that will hold our game's vision throughout its development:

1. Complementary Combat
Valeria and Irene's combat style must complement each other in order to achieve victory against the enemy encounters throughout the game.

For example: enemies are beginning to spawn from the walls surrounding the players. Valeria can attack one enemy at a time while Irene can hit multiple enemies at a time. Valeria, the hard hitter, will be focusing on the stronger enemies or helping Irene clear the weaker enemies by one-shotting them. Irene will be focusing on clearing enemy waves, or helping to defend Valeria while she attacks the stronger enemies.

2. Made for Co-op
Our game must play and feel as though it’s built for Cooperation between two players. There is no progression without each other. Both gameplay and level design heavily rely on this pillar for decision taking. For example, a puzzle is designed in a way that Valeria and Irene are both needed the entire time. Valeria and Irene may both need to stand on a pressure plate at the same time. Another example can be Valeria punching a block to move it while Irene is focusing on protecting Valeria from oncoming waves.

3. Edginess
Both characters and the overall environment of our game are based on Edginess. This implies cocky personalities, ridiculous and fancy clothes along with arrogant dialogue.

For example:


 * Here what the team perceives as a NOT Edgy User Interface:




 * On the other hand, here's a video from our Prototype for our Main Menu. (Captured like this and not improven due to the CoVID-19 pandemic) Original Footage is still @ VFS' Game Design campus.


 * Our UI contains animations that are triggered when hovering over different buttons along with camera movement. (*Characters and animations our not ours and are only meant for visual representations*)

1. Elegant Stick-Fighting
Despite her lack of magic powers, Irene can compensate it with great physical abilities and skills. Her fighting style is a mix between the Yin Shou Gun, a martial art used by Shaolin Monks, and Jo Suburi & Naginata, based on the fundamentals of Aikido.



2. Powerful Punches
Valeria is pure muscle. She hits enemies with her Doberman Gauntlets with no mercy. Her combat will rely on landing heavy punches, no matter the target.

3. Cooperative Puzzles
Throughout the game, players will encounter puzzles that will stop them from traversing through the levels. In order to complete these, they must work together to solve them, as they will not be solvable with only one character.

For example: If a statue needs to moved towards a specific spot for the puzzle to be solved, the players would work in this way: Irene's player must use the stick to change the path for the statue to reach the eventual target, whilst Valeria's user, must use her powerful punches to actually move the statue.

4. Overwhelmed Feeling
Our goal is to have the players feel overwhelmed with the number of enemies at one time. This in turn forces players to play together rather than by themselves, thus reinforces the co-operative play.

To fully accomplish this, we will implement A.I. behaviours based on flocking to keep the players surrounded during combat stages


 * Lots of weak Demon Grunts will be encountered.
 * They will move around their Demon Commanders that will provide buff to them.
 * When the Commanders die, the Grunts will go back to their weaker state if they do not find another suitable commander.

A simplified version of the Behaviour Tree is as follows*

For example: the enemies will begin to horde around the two players from multiple sides. This overwhelming number or enemies will have players fight “back to back” to clear the waves of enemies.

* The A.I. is to be prototyped on between week 5-6 of Pre-Production, behaviours are subject to change.

5. Refreshing Combos
When in combat, if players land consecutive blows they will trigger the combo system allowing them to access more powerful attacks that will help them overcome the enemies more efficiently. It makes combat feel constantly fresh rather than just having the same attack over and over again.

6. Enemy Lock-On
Since our players will be constantly overwhelmed by so many enemies, they require guidance when battling them. For this, our combat system will have a Lock-On feature that will allow our players to choose who to specifically attack.

For example:


 * When Valeria is near enemies that she's available to punch, a crosshair will be added on top of the enemy that she may hit.
 * Same goes for Irene, when she is around enemies that will get hit by her Staff, a crosshair will show on top of a reachable enemy along with the area that she will cause damage in.
 * Players will have the chance to choose the lock-on target prior to attacking.

1.2 Overview
Valeria uses her Doberman Gauntlets to punch one target at a time dealing high amounts of damage.

2.2 Overview
Irene uses her staff to attack multiple enemies dealing medium damage and clearing the horde.

Character's Backstory
The year is 2020

Demons and Humans live in the same world separated by a magical seal keeping the demons buried underground. But, in order for the human kind to keep the demon forces at bay a sacrifice is needed...

Every 7th decade, when the moon is full, humans send tributes to the demonkind, people who have nothing to contribute to humanity, murderers and killers brought to justice, but there are some people that enter the Underworld willingly, with hopes of finding all kinds of treasure, these people are the tastier...

 Irene 

A maiden living in a shrine gets the knowledge from her master about the demon worlds and is looking for her 2 shrine maiden friends and a cure to save her master from a disease.

Life as a kid thief and prisoner Previously a thief, she got captured at the age of 10, when she witnessed how her parents abandoned her right before her eyes. She was put in a young detention centre, where she was abused by the inmates and got in a lot of fights. She made a lot of attempts to escape, only ending in failure.

At the age of 15, she managed to escape in her last attempt for a long time: 4 days. However, she couldn't find food and a place to rest, until one night, at the outskirts of town, she found a shrine and a dojo. She sneaked in and stole some food supplies and some money from the donation box where she got discovered by the shrine maiden, Horai, who threw an ofuda nearby, creating a boundary box around Irene. Horai turned lamp on and saw the worse condition of Irene, who was desperately trying to break the seal. Horai, surprised and a bit confused, stayed one minute staring at her, just trying to come into her senses and try to warn the authorities, when Irene started to cry and beg for mercy to bring her back to the detention centre. Horai didn’t stop until she heard unusual crack sounds, she turned back and saw Irene trying to crack her head and her body open ergo breaking the seal until she fainted.

Shrine maiden training days

When she woke up, she noticed that she was still in the dojo and her wounds were treated by some of the disciples. Horai came up, and interrogated her. Irene limited herself to answer anything but what happened when her parents abandoned her. Then, Horai made the decision to take good care of her, as well as put her on a strict discipline and training on the shrine duties if she was willing to accept. Irene agreed, and asked her why she was doing this, only for Horai to answer that she acted with instinct and that she heard about the dubious reputation about the detention centre. Irene couldn't help but notice that there was something missing behind her actions.

For the next 7 years, she dedicated herself to training under her custody, changing her attitude and her ways, developing a bond between her, her master and the rest of the disciples: Aya, a serious and play-by-the-books girl and the most experienced disciple, Chunhua, a cheerful girl with a Chinese background, and Aoi, a caring, yet troll girl with great health abilities and the youngest of the group. The dojo teaches the principles and fundamental basis of Judo and Aikido, however, sibce they are in a multicultural region, disciples are allowed to bring some external moves if permitted. Irene mixed between the Naginata fight style and Jo Suburi with the Shaolin monk style, Yin Shou Gun (learned by Chunhua). Although she developed a great skill in physical combat, her magical side is still low in comparison with the others (seals, heal, exorcism). She also learns from her master about the existence of the underworld, its secrets, the purpose of it and the dangers that surround it. Irene got really interested and tried to ask more, but Horai stopped her and told her not to enter the underworld by any means.

The exorcism ceremony incident On an usual ritual ceremony, coinciding the date of the demon king, Irene was in a supportive role, helping Horai and the others when suddenly, her master started to act strangely and erratically. The disciples were about to help her but she imminently attacked one of them. The rest jumped into action and managed to bring her down, realizing that a demon had possessed her. They managed to get the demon out of her body and exterminated it. The incident was noticeable enough that the authorities of the region became involved. The reputation of the shrine was put to the test. To make matters worse, Horai’s health had started to decrease. Some of the disciples who witnessed the incident didn’t come back, only leaving Irene, Aya, Chunhua, Aoi and some few alone. They tried to heal her master, but it didn’t seem to work. Running out of options, Irene proposed to search for a cure in the underworld, only to back off. Later, Aya came here and she agreed to the idea of going to the underworld, but only she and Chunhua can come, arguing that they are most prepared and that she felt guilty about what happened because she was one of them responsible in the ceremony. A week passed and they didn't come back.

Preparations to the Underworld Horai woke up and when she learned what happened to them, she got depressed. Irene couldn’t take it anymore and before she got up, Horai stopped her by telling her this: "Irene must find Aya and Chunhua and get out of here as soon as possible, and forget about the cure." Irene tried to argue back, but Horai answered back that it's not worth the risk, confessing the next: "usually the Underworld opens each 7th decade during a full moon and ends at the next one. But, there were rumors that people managed to enter the underworld before the date." She was one of them with an old friend who looked so much as Irene as teenagers. Things got worse lately when they dug deeper. Both managed to escape, but her friend got obsessed about the treasures. They fought and argued, breaking their relationship and that friend left the shrine. Just as Irene was about to ask more about the Underworld and her old friend, Horai suffered another heavy blood coughing attack. When Aoi managed to stop the coughing, she told Irene to keep a promise to find them as well as the cure, while she will be taking care of their master. Irene geared up and took her leave to the Underworld.

Despite her weak magic powers, she eventually heard the rumour that some people are trying to enter the subway. She sneaked in, entering through the tunnels. She was looking for an opening when, suddenly, she bumped into Valeria. Looking at her and trying not to risk another person, she was not willing to work with her at first, but then, she felt something nearby. It was an opening, they entered and got teleported into the demon realm.

 Valeria 

A night in Wallstreet

A successful entrepreneur who managed to run the stock market like no other before her and now earns more money than what she can spend. She spends her wealth in fancy clothes, makeup and anything she can think of, but she always wants more in the hopes to fill the hole her parents left behind.

One night, coming back home from a fancy and very expensive dinner, she saw one girl being assaulted by two men right behind what looked like a bar. She wanted to keep walking but couldn't bear the sight of another woman being treated like that, she jumped in to defend the poor girl, swinging her fists right and left she managed to knock one of the guys out but suddenly encountered a fist right to her chin. She woke up in a hospital bed, with bruises covering all her body and face, but next to her bed there she was, the girl from the bar, she stood up as soon as Valeria opened her eyes just to thank her for saving her... but Valeria didn't care about that, she was filled with excitement and a new discovered passion, feelings she had not felt for quite some time, she felt alive.

First rule of the club ...

Valeria began her own fighting club soon after, she loved seeing men fight, but she loved fighting even more. She attended the club every day after taking care of her business and quickly enough she became the best fighter of all, beating even the strongest and meanest of men. But word ran fast, and eventually everyone knew who Valeria was, but most importantly how much money she had in her pockets.

People started following Valeria after leaving the club, they got closer and closer until one day she was cornered by a group of people she had never seen before, she barely managed to fight her way out, knocked every one cold, but this kept happening and eventually she knew she had to take on more serious measures, she didn't want to hire men to protect her so she bought two big Dobermans, they were huge and she liked their style but mostly their bite. The dogs helped keep thieves at bay but the money and the wealth was too tempting.

The fist and the flower

One night, the followers were too many to even count so she decided to flee, but she turned in the wrong corner and the only way out was down into the old subway station, she went deep into the tunnels to get away from them. There, in the darkness, she found a girl, she seemed to be looking for something...

Irene was looking for the entrance of something she called the "Underworld" and bumped into Valerie, she looked very strong and so Irene asked for her help in exchange for the treasure that was promised in the demon realm. Valeria was convinced by these allegations of such a treasure, and considering the circumstances, she accepted the challenge.