den 14 Juni 2010 [NOVEMBER PITCH DOCUMENT]

November
Workingtitle

Pitch Document

Fruit Factory

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November
 November is a third-person strategic action game. It is a story driven game with a
linear plot with heavy emphasis on the character, her newfound humanity and her
struggle to maintain it.
 The game plays like a mixture of popular Tower-Defense games and the Gears of War
franchise – the player defends himself/herself by deploying different “turrets” out in
the game world that attacks any oncoming enemies.
 The game’s protagonist is a female android who turned partly human, and then sets
out to become entirely human by acquiring a certain object. At the same time she
struggles with the temptation of using the abilities of her robotic side to turn the
battle to her advantage, while doing so, drains her of her long sought humanity.
 Explore and make your way through the allured gameworld of November– a world of
uncertainty and danger. Fight your way from the darkest depths of a post-apocalyptic
world, to the last known refuge of humanity.
 The player can place turrets (the equivalent of towers) with different durations and
effects on the gameplay, and the player has to balance these strengths and
weaknesses in order to survive the post-apocalyptic mayhem.
 The main-character is limited by the amount of energy she currently has. This limits
her from spamming turrets.
 As the player progress through the game, he or she becomes better in the strategic
placement of turrets, which in turn gives the player upper hand in battle.
 Upgrade your turrets and acquire new ones to survive the dangerous post-
apocalyptic haven.
 Great varieties in Level-environments, letting the player experience the darkest and
most horrid places of the underworld as well as the shiny and futuristic city.
 November features loads of turrets that affect the world and the enemies in different
ways, such as the Slow-turret – a turret that slows down time within a certain radius.
 Featuring turrets that the player can unlock, customize and upgrade, to create their
own strategies and a unique and individual play-style.

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Key features
 A single-player third person game with strategic, story-driven action gameplay.
 Use your environment strategically to position turrets and sentries on the ground,
walls and the ceiling, utilizing every advantage possible to survive.
 Traverse the allured, post-apocalyptic world filled with mutated zombie-like horrors,
corporate controlled malevolent androids and more, standing in the way of the main-
characters chance to be human.
 Use your turrets to attack oncoming enemies, defend and clear obstructed paths.
 Acquire new turrets with new abilities as well as upgrade existing ones with new
exciting features.
 A mixture of enemy hordes and the intense turret-management keeps the player on
his or hers toes at all times.
 Player knowledge of different enemy-types and their individual weaknesses along
with the increasing level of movement and aiming skills lets the player progress
alongside his or hers strengthening turrets.
 As players progress throughout November, they develop their own unique way of
playing the game.

Further game definition

November is:

 Intense gameplay that requires the player to act strategically in the midst of
battle.
 A single-player campaign.
 Co-op game-modes that let players team up and combine their strengths and
come up with dynamic combinations.
 A story-driven game, with a thrilling plot that unravels as the player progress
through the game.
 The mixture of two highly successful game-concepts.

November is not:

 A game you just button-mash your way through without thought.

 A slow-paced traditional tower-defense game, where you place towers and
wait around as the enemies die.
 An open-world game or a MMO, with lots of quests and missions.
 A colorful and “easy” game for the younger audience.

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The scope of “November”

The game is divided up into 10 chapters; the very first chapter is a chapter where the
player gets to know the character and gets acquainted with the gameplay mechanics
and story.

4+ hours of gameplay (for the average-skilled player)

 4+ Chapters
 3 different settings (roughly); the gleaming city, the apocalyptic wasteland and
the underground remnants of a post-apocalyptic world.
 Offensive and Defensive turrets.
 5-10+ different turrets in the two categories.
 Talent trees – Offensive and Defensive.

Setting
November takes place in a post-apocalyptic world, where the remnants of an old worlds
civilization has taken refuge and rebuilt society. A gleaming, prosperous and over-controlled
society, run by a medicinal corporation called Lachesis in association with the military.

The main character is an android, manufactured for the cause of war – to secure the
perimeters around the city, in order for it to expand. As she is sent out on a
“decontamination”-mission, her group gets attacked by hordes of infected and she gets
separated from her group and falls through the ground. In the ruckus the main character
comes in contact with an artifact, leading to her gaining a conscience and renders her partly
human.

Now the player needs to find a way back to the city, and traverse through the allured
landscape of a post-apocalyptic world.

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Characters
The main-character November – An android manufactured solely for the
purpose of war against the infected hordes.
Once an imitation of life, she now goes to great lengths
to maintain her newfound humanity.
Unaccustomed to emotions and thought,
our heroine finds herself struggling with the process of
becoming a person.

Lachesis – A world-leading medicinal corporation.

After the apocalypse they barricaded themselves from the world alongside the military and
the most “influential” people of the world, by building a city within gigantic walls. They are
the ones responsible for the outbreak, but this is not known by the public.

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Mirrotine – A shiny, futuristic city controlled and run by Lachesis and the military, where
your every move is watched closely. Safety at the cost of privacy.

A picture showing what the city of Mirrortine, might come to look like.

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Player progression

The distribution of different types of gameplay in November.

In the very first chapters of November, the game will focus a lot on dialogue and puzzle
gameplay, and some tutorial-like gameplay. Getting the player accustomed to the controllers
and gameplay-mechanic.

As the player progress and gain new turrets with new abilities, the enemies become harder
and certain enemies become vulnerable to certain turrets (the player needs to use these right
in order to sufficiently survive the oncoming hordes of infected).

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As the player becomes more familiar with the placements of turrets, the levels change and
require the player to adapt to the new environment.

A graph showing the player-progression and gameplay-experience throughout November.

An increasing level of difficulty throughout the game lets the player realize how much he or
she has improved, as well as letting the player enter a “flow” state of mind.

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The player can upgrade turrets and give them for example higher accuracy, faster rate of fire
or increased life-length by placing earned points in a, what is commonly referred to as,
Talent-tree.

A mockup of one way of doing the talent-tree feature in November

A talent-based upgrade-system for the turrets adds to the development of each players
unique and individual play-style. As well as giving the game a higher replay-value.

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Controls
The main-character is controlled in a classic third-person manner (like the Gears of War
franchise), maneuvering the character with the left stick and controlling the view-port
(camera) with the right one. Turrets are placed with the A and x, and the utility-turret with B.
Aim-mode is entered by simple holding down the triggers.

Control-mapping

A screen from the conceptual-demo, telling the player the controls of the game.

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Visual style and Aesthetics

The game features a varying graphical style. From the glimmering, shiny futuristic city to the
dark and horrid underworld (abandoned subway-stations and underground tunnels).

The world:

An in-game screenshot, showing the subway systems, where the demo takes place.

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The enemies:

Screen-captures from Maya, showing the zombie-model.

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The combat:

An in-game screenshot showing a player taking out a pack of zombies by placing a machine-gun turret.

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Basic menu system

Main menu:

Singleplayer (FINISHED PRODUCT)

 Continue
 New Game
 Load Game
 Back

Multiplayer (FINISHED PRODUCT)

 Quick-match
 Join Game
 Create Game
 LAN

Singleplayer(Proof of Concept - DEMO)

 Start
 Credits
 Quit

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In-game HUD and Player-guidance/tutorial features:

A screenshot from the later part of the DEMO, demonstrating the diegetic tutorial-parts of the
demo, as well as the HUD in the bottom right corner.

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Sounds
All sounds in November are taken from the The Freesound Project collaborative database of
Creative Commons licensed sounds. ([Link])

The in-game dialogues and cutscenes of November will be voiced-over, as well as in-game
phrases.

The music-style is ambient and dark, setting the mood and feeling of the game to scary but
yet exciting.

Environmental-sounds will feature effects like dripping water, distant screams, broken
ventilation-systems, electric sparks. Adding an effect of a chaotic and broken world.

Each of the turrets will have individual sounds that correspond to their effect on the
environment; slow-turrets will have a warping sound effect.

As the infected stand idle, you will hear mumbling and faint screams and cries. As they notice
you, they will become raged – let out screams and screeches.

Competition
November mixes the winning concepts of the immensely successful Gears of War-
franchise and the wide variety of popular tower-defense games.

The camera-viewport in November is similar to Gears of War or Dead Space, and is

very popular in the third person franchise.

November is the first game to apply the tower-defense gameplay in a third-person

action-oriented environment. This is something that will make November unique but
also utilizing the proven successful gameplay of other franchises.

The market is becoming more and more expectant of online replay-value, and
therefore co-op modes and online multiplayer-modes are features that will be
developed for November.

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Demo – Proof of Concept

The November demo will contain the later part of a chapter in the early middle of the
game. Getting the player involved in the plot and letting him or her get acquainted
with the gameplay.

The demo starts of in a subway-station. The player then has to find a way to the
surface, by utilizing the turrets to kill off infected hordes, weld through hatch-doors
and hack through a terminal – getting an elevator to work.

The things the demo needs to contain to prove that November is possible within a
set time/money frame are, sorted by priority:

1. A working turret-system, where the player can place turrets on any surface
desired.
2. Functional AI, letting the zombies chase the player through the map and
forcing the player to utilize the strategic placement of turrets.
3. Damage and Health system.
4. UI – showing energy, turrets placed, power-up ability, character health (blood
splatter on the screen).

The focus in the demo-development should be, as the above list dictates, to
implement a working or partially working combat system, as this is one of the game’s
core features and one of its unique selling points. Other priorities are a striking visual
style, character progression and event-like gameplay (making a stand against hordes
of zombies).

A more detailed description of what the proof of concept will contain follows below:

 10 minutes of gameplay.
 Dynamic placement of turrets.
 Switching between two different types of turrets.
 Working Ai behavior – enemies.
 A character that can move around in a third-person environment.
 Fully animated main-character, as well as enemies.
 A dynamic UI giving the player the proper information necessary to fight of
the infected hordes.

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