Our game is a 3rd-person, cooperative, horror-themed survival game in which up to 4-players attempt to make their way through a labyrinth in order to drive away a terrible evil that hunts and pursues them throughout the game.

Goals (Win/Lose)

In order to win, players must survive and traverse the labyrinth to the end.

Players lose when they are caught too many times by the evil.

Interesting or Unique Aspects

Is a cooperative horror survival game
Has an intuitive story to reduce barrier of entry and allow players to quickly jump in
The ability to “sing”

For a player:

Illuminates the world around them
Communicates with other players
Interacts with elements in the environment unique to each note (key)

For the evil:

Allows the AI to trick players by mimicking their songs (Note: The trickery is more effective when players are split up)

Feature List

Minimum Viable Product	Control over their character Can move Can manipulate camera Can sing Multiple players able to play together online Hostile AI that will chase players (NavMesh) Maze layout with lock-and-key progression
Must Have	Models Character Hostile AI Level geometry Graphics Lighting Textures Skybox Audio Tone generation for singing Footsteps Hostile AI sfx Level Design/Layout Interactable elements Doors Players Movement Camera manipulation Songs Hostile AI Movement (pathfinding) Attack Physics (collision) Networking Full state transfer Menu to host or join games
Would Be Really Nice	High Quality Graphics 3D models Effects Animation Nice particle effects Nice lighting High Quality Audio Sound Portals Responds to space Controller Support Beautiful Menus
Cool But Only If Ahead Of Schedule	Real-time Cloth Physics Client Side Prediction and Interpolation for Lag Compensation Prerendered Intro Cutscene Cinematic game cameras Procedurally generated levels Shallow pools of water SFX Graphics (SSR & Refraction)

Group Management

Major Roles

Project Management: Alex Hawker

Networking: Justin Chou & Ara Jermakyan

Graphics Engine: Alex Hawker & John Pallag

Gameplay: Stephen Trinh & Arno Gau

Audio: Austin Sun

Art (3D/2D): John Pallag

Decision Making

High-level and/or important decisions will be made through group consensus. Low-level decision making that does not interfere with other modules or roles can be done independently.

Communication

In person

We plan to meet in the CSE lab room B220 MWF from 10am to 2pm.

Online

We will be using:

Facebook chat for important messages
Discord for general communications and calls
Google Drive for sharing documents and art
Trello for issue-tracking

Managing Setbacks

Each person will be responsible to complete their weekly/daily tasks. Every person in the group is competent in multiple fields and can therefore be temporarily re-assigned to help anyone who falls behind. We are focusing on communication and hope to have an enjoyable, on-time team. In major cases, we will drop features from ‘cool but only if ahead of schedule’ or ‘would be really nice’.

Production of Weekly Reports

Everyone will do a weekly write-up and submit them to one person by Saturday morning. This person will be responsible for making sure everyone has completed their weekly write-ups before collating them into a single blog post.

Project Development

Development Roles

Project Management: Alex Hawker

Networking: Justin Chou & Ara Jermakyan

Graphics Engine: Alex Hawker & John Pallag

Gameplay: Stephen Trinh & Arno Gau

Audio: Austin Sun

Art (3D/2D): John Pallag

Tools

Since this is a WebGL game, the game will be programmed in JS. Most of us plan on using WebStorm for our primary IDE. NodeJS will be required server-side. The code will be tracked via git, keeping track of version history and handling merges from multiple sources. 3D art will be created primarily in Blender and 2D art will be created primarily in Photoshop.

QA Testing

Each member of the team will be responsible for writing unit tests for the code that they developed. The unit tests being written will be for code that we are confident is not going to change. For each major release we will do integration testing to ensure various parts of the project are working as desired. Continuous integration could be an option to speed up and streamline our development process. To test graphics, we will attempt to replicate the results of a raytraced version of the scene.

Handling Documentation

Each member will be responsible for writing documentation for each of the components they create under a standard set format. Documentation will be in the form of high-level documents depicting the overall flow of the systems and inline code comments depicting how each section of code works. High-level documentation will be stored on the google drive for everyone’s viewing.

Project Schedule

High-Level Milestones

Server-client communication/coupling

Client can send messages to the Server, and Server can send messages back to the Client.
Communication standards defined and implemented
Completion time: Week 3

Full graphics-engine implemented

Graphics engine work is complete such that basic graphics features are working and we can render the scene.
Completion time: Week 2 or 3

Game-look decided

A general idea of the look of the environment, characters, and general art is decided on. A general theme and feel exits.
Completed: large amount of concept art, color scheme, general level layout, character descriptions
Completion time: Week 2 or 3

Primary gameplay

The basic gameplay interactions including victory condition
Completed: Players can run around and interact with the environment, and hostile AI chases the player around.
Completion time: week 5

Design freeze

Game design is finished.
Completed: No more added features, and the design is done.
Completion time: week 5

Level layout

The level created in 3D.
Completed: The final game space created (does not include interaction) and rendered in the game.
Completion time: week 6

Detailed game-play

Fully fleshed out level design with appropriate difficulty curves. Make it actually fun!
Completed: The full level in the game engine with all the interactions in place.
Completion time: week 8

Full models/textures/sound

Integration and testing of full models
Addition of sounds
Completion time: week 9 or 10

Low-Level Milestones

Week	Gameplay (& Physics)	Networking	Graphics	Art	Audio
1	Feature decision	Research technologies	Primary graphics engine	Look dev	Engine Research
2	Design gameplay Add basic controls	Prototype a working client/server connection	Primary Graphics Engine	Look dev	Build Audio engine
3	Design gameplay Implementing physics Hostile AI Add interactable objects	Define and implement communication standards	Primary Graphics Engine Update GPU Particle System	Modeling	Build Audio engine
4	Tune gameplay Develop primary gameplay More physics Level design	Optimize networking	SSAO Deferred Decals	Modeling	Build Audio engine
5	Finalize primary gameplay Integrate physics Level design		Crepuscular Rays Foliage Rendering	Modeling the level	Sound design
6	Test primary gameplay Build final level	Client side prediction and interpolation	Cloth Simulation	Modeling UI	Sound design
7	Develop replayability (w/ Art) (randomization, generation)	Client side prediction and interpolation	Real Time Irradiance Probes (or other indirect lighting)	Modeling UI Procedural?	Sound design Record voices
8	Develop scaling gameplay		Optimizations and other features	Modeling UI Procedural?	Sound design
9	Test detailed gameplay		Optimizations	Modeling UI Procedural?	Sound design
10	Finalized gameplay		Optimizations	Finalization	Sound design