Project Name: Survival Countdown
Team Name: Teamwork Overloaded
Team Member Roles
Name: Jianghui (David) Dai Role: Programmer & QA
Name: Lily Li Role: Concept & Visual Artist
Name: Andrew Tsui Role: Model Designer
Name: Teng Pin (Eric) Pan Role: Project Manager & Level Design
Introduction
Trapped on an island as a lone survivor of a catastrophe, do what you must to survive until rescue comes! Explore the island, gather resources, crafting tools, and fight off predators. It is up to you whether you will last till the rescue arrives.
Survival Countdown is a low-poly first-person survival & crafting game, dedicated to provide experiences of surviving in the wildness.
Goal of Project/Differentiator
The goal of Survival Countdown is to immerse the player into a primal environment in which the players will experience the fundamental needs of survival. Survival games such as Raft require the player to survive for as long as possible without presenting a clear goal or win condition.But on the other hand, Survival Countdown provides the player with a clear win condition of surviving for seven in game days, and do what they must to last until rescue comes.
Genre
First person survival exploration game.
Concept Art
Concept Image
Survival Countdown designed with a low-poly, cartoon-ish art style (Figure 1). The reason for using this art style is because it reduces the amount time and resources required to create it. This will free up a significant amount of time from environment polishing to perfecting the mechanism. Though the non-realistic art style will definitely remove some immersiveness from the game, it is far more important to have a robust system (survival and crafting etc.) as that will impact the gameplay experience the most.
Inspiration
The game draws inspiration from multiple existing games.These includes survival games like The Forest, and Raft; as well as Sandbox games with survival mode such as Minecraft. These games vary from visual design to core gameplay mechanics. But they all present a robust survival system in combination with crafting systems.
How these games integrate these mechanics are what inspired Survival Countdown. For instance, Raft and Minecraft are both survival games that do not use photo-realistic graphics. Yet both games deliver the survival experience players are looking for with the game systems. It follows Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs to create the immersiveness of surviving in the wild
Core User Experience
Target Core Experience
The core experience in Survival Countdown is based on the fundamental level of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, the physiological needs (food, water, shelter, and warmth etc.). Players are thrown into the most primal state of living in which the most basic human needs are luxuries. They would experience the struggle to survive and isolation from civilization for seven ingame days.
During Gameplay
Throughout the game, players are constantly asked to think twice. For every action the player makes, comes with a consequence. Thus, under the pressure of surviving, the players should feel like they never have enough time and resources on hand. They are constantly motivated (forced) to consider their next step to increase their chance of surviving.
After Gameplay
Whether or not the players beat the game, they should feel the uneasiness of surviving alone in the wilderness away from civilization after playing Survival Countdown. As well as the importance of the “common senses” (convenient and stable source of food, water, shelters etc.) in modern living.
Key Features
Survive - Hunger, dehydration, food poisoning, and predators are all your enemies! Experience the struggle of surviving in a primal environment.
Gather - Stones and wood are the materials for primal technology! Fruits and herbs will ensure you stay alive and healthy!
Craft - Spear, axe, and fire pit are your friends! Play smart to increase your chance of living!
Description
Survival Countdown is a survival and exploration game, you as a player needs to survive on a primitive island after an airplane crash. After you have successfully survived for 7 days on the isolated island, the rescue team will come to rescue the player character. Throughout the game, you will search and collect essential resources to survive until rescue. This includes exploring different ecosystems for different types of resources. Use the collected materials to your advantage and craft various tools to increase your chance of survival.
Narrative/Story (if applicable)
As a lone survivor of an airplane crash, you find yourself lying on the beach of a primitive island. In the attempt to stay alive against nature, you must explore around the island and find the ways to survive.
Storyboard
Please refer to this link.
Mechanics/Interaction
The project is a survival game built in Unity. Its core mechanics include the collecting system, the health system, the inventory system, and the crafting system.
The health system:
This system determines whether a player can be alive in the game world or not. Every minute the player spends in the game causes the player to lose certain hunger values and dehydration values. When the hunger values or the dehydration values decrease to zero, the player character starts to lose health. If the health values reach zero, then the player dies.To keep the player character alive, the player needs to consume food and water constantly. We want to use this starving mechanism to encourage the player to explore the island to find enough food, water to consume, and we also intend to use it to create survival pressure for players while playing.
The collecting system:
This system allows the player character to collect food, water to consume. And it also allows the player character to collect all kinds of material (log, stone, etc.) to craft tools/buildings. If the player wants to interact with this system, the player character needs to collide with the objects first and then press the left mouse click to pick them up to put into the inventory for future interactions. This system connects the inventory system ,health system, and the crafting system.
The Inventory System:
This system can store the game objects the player picks up.
The Crafting System:
This system allows the player to craft essential tools and buildings to survive on the island. To toggle the crafting interface, the player needs to press the b key. The player can press number keys (1,2, 3) to select which item he wants to craft, and then the player needs to press the right mouse click to build the object. Once the object is built, the crafting item will appear in front of the player.
Immersion Framework
Supporting Immersion, flow, and/or presence
There are few factors that are important to support immersion, flow and/or presence in Survival Countdown.
Field of View (FOV) - In short, humans have approximately (without eyeballing) 180° forward-facing horizontal arc of their visual field. Thus, it is important to simulate a similar FOV in game that of real life.
Minimal or no lag - Latency (especially visual latency) will cause the player to break out of the immersion, reminding them what they are experiencing is not “real”.
Sensory - Visuals, auditory, and physics etc. should be logical and appropriate. If the player walks on grass, then it mustn’t sound like they are walking on stone.
Freedom -To be able to look anywhere, move anywhere, do plausible actions that seems reasonable.
Physical Comfort - Motion sickness is a thing even when it is not VR. Thus it is important to avoid at all cause
Immersion Type
The primary type of immersion Survival Countdown focuses on is Challenged-based Immersion. Players are presented with various challenges that threaten their survival.
Executing
The current plan to invoke Challenged-based Immersion are as follows…
More resources requires more effort, and poses more risks. For instance, food is an important resource the player must gather to survive. But safer areas on the island have significantly less food whereas more dangerous areas will provide a more stable food source.
Every action has a consequence. Moving and performing actions (gathering) costs hunger. Crafting is expensive when materials are rather scarce. Natural prey will hunt the player down if they are not careful with their pathing.
Timeline
Equipment Needs
Computers with hardwares that can run Unity Engine in 3D environments.
References/Assets
Mechanism
First Person Controller. Acquired from Standard Assets at
- https://assetstore.unity.com/packages/essentials/asset-packs/standard-assets-for-unity-2018-4-32351
Models / Textures
Low-Poly nature asset. Acquired from Low-Poly Simple Nature Pack at
- https://assetstore.unity.com/packages/3d/environments/landscapes/low-poly-simple-nature-pack-162153
And from Simple Low Poly Nature Pack at
- https://assetstore.unity.com/packages/3d/environments/landscapes/simple-low-poly-nature-pack-157552
Low-Poly airplane. Acquired from Simple Low-Poly Mini Airplanes at
- https://assetstore.unity.com/packages/3d/vehicles/air/simple-low-poly-mini-airplanes-178911
Low-Poly in game set. Acquired from Low-Poly Game kit at
- https://assetstore.unity.com/packages/templates/packs/low-poly-game-kit-110455
Low-Poly snow trees. Acquired from Snowy Low-Poly Trees at
- https://assetstore.unity.com/packages/3d/vegetation/trees/snowy-low-poly-trees-76796
Low-Poly environment. Acquired from Low-Poly pack 3D environment
- https://assetstore.unity.com/packages/3d/environments/low-poly-pack-94605#reviews
The Axe model was taken from
- https://assetstore.unity.com/packages/3d/props/tools/ handpainted-axe-62794
The Log model was taken from
- https://assetstore.unity.com/packages/2d/textures-materials/ wood/pbr-log-149788
The fire particles was taken from
- https://assetstore.unity.com/packages/vfx/particles/fire- explosions/tinyfire-vfx-1-0-97898
The tent model was taken from
- https://assetstore.unity.com/packages/3d/environments/ fantasy/tent-cr-max-550-118703
VFX / Audio (SFX / BGM)
Footsteps SFX. Acquired from Standard Assets
- https://assetstore.unity.com/packages/essentials/asset-packs/standard-assets-for-unity-2018-4-32351
Ambient soundtrack
- https://assetstore.unity.com/packages/audio/ambient/in-the-park-ambient-soundtrack-51986
Tutorials
Learn how to get relative height to the terrain space based on player position, then craft the item in that position based on
- https://docs.unity3d.com/ScriptReference/Terrain.SampleHeight.html
Learn how to set the pos in front of the player based on
- https://stackoverflow.com/questions/22696782/placing-an-object-in-front-of-the-camera