Rough game concept

Zork:

There will be 4 “players”. They will each be marked with a special item (clothing? For example;  t-shirt, hoodie, cap and neckerchief). Each player will be placed at the centre of a mystery. They each have 12 hours to solve the mystery that has been set for them by the “dungeon master”.

There will be 6 “Wardens”. The wardens will be the only other people the players may interact with in the “dungeon” aside from each other. Each knows something that could solve the player’s mystery but they do not directly know it themselves.

 Around the “Dungeon” there are 12 locations to be explored. However a player may only visit 4 of these places. If the players fail to solve their mystery they will die. If any of the game “assets” attempt to flee the dungeon they will die. If they visit more than 4 places, they will die.  However, the first person to solve their mystery will become the new “dungeon master”. The Dungeon Master may choose to let whoever they wish leave – including themselves.  But among one of the assets of the game (be it the “Wardens” or “Players”) there is the original Dungeon Master. Should he escape – then everyone will be killed.

Without trust in the other game assets the players will undoubtedly die. But if that trust is misplaced, the same can be said. There is only one safe way to play the game – only one safe route to discover the truth and the true Dungeon Master – and you “The player” must find it.

                                                -Rough idea for the “Scenario” that the player is placed into (I wanted to keep a few references to the original Zork game in there so I used terms like “Dungeon Master” to refer to the antagonist)

Gameplay

I wanted my gameplay to be split into three distinct “layers”:

-Investigating/ Puzzle solving: As “a player” you have to explore and solve the mystery that is given to you by exploring 4 out of the 12 locations. This puzzle solving would be very much similar to the basic concepts of Zork –with basic actions like: “Take” “Drop” “Use” “Climb” “Examine” “Look” “Throw” “Combine” “Burn” and “Kick” being available to the player (Maybe through a selection wheel of some kind)



A command wheel from the Action RPG Mass Effect.



By exploring and solving the puzzle in the room, the player will find One Clue about a mystery – whether it is their own or not is up to the place they chose (there would be hints as to where they should go in their initial room if they look hard enough and in the subsequent items they find but it is not obvious).

I have yet to work out which perspective actions will take place in (3D 3^rd person perspective, 2D side scrolling, and First person)

-Trust and Dialogue: Given that there are a potential 9 other “game assets” in Zork, the player can interact with any one of them. But none of them completely trust each other due to the admission that the person who placed them in the situation is among them. In rigid dialogue selection menus during, before and after the investigation side of things, the player can use the “talk to” function to talk to whoever is present. By talking to and responding accordingly the player can become more trustworthy in the eyes of the other person. This will be shown by the removal of shadow over the faces of the people as an impromptu “trust level”. When they completely trust the player, a change in music will happen and the face will be clear to see.

When this happens, new information will be given or a new area to investigate will be uncovered. Only by gaining the complete trust of certain people will the player gain the true ending as the “true mystery” of why they are there and who is the dungeon master can only be discovered by piecing together information given by fully trusting characters.

-Critical Decisions: At around two points in the play through, the player can make “Critical Decisions”. These are quick reaction events where they must make a decision which ultimately could end or save a life. Depending on these the ending could vastly be altered,

The system of having multiple endings often complicates things but the system in Zork will be simple. Each Decision the player makes, leads to certain discoveries and in turn ticking an invisible box on an internal checklist over what they should know. Depending on which boxes are ticked at the end of the game (after 4 locations are visited) it will lead to a particular ending. Other factors will alter this (Critical Decisions/ who is trusted). Depending on how complex this makes things, having complete freedom over which areas you can choose, the structure can be “linearized” in that a new rule could be added:

“Only one “Player” can visit one location. No other players may visit this location once it has been visited.”

By doing this the number of options available to the player will be reduced as play continues and other “players” block off areas, which in turn reduces the number of possible endings massively.

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