Game Design Document

Hey guy's

Over the course of the last two weeks myself and Christopher Carney have been working together to get the GDD done for our team. Below is the completed GDD.

My part on the team is the Designer, I will be designing every aspect of the game and over looking the Team leader's on their decisions and ways of working their team.

GDD:

Proposed Game Design Document
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Introduction
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The game we are aiming to create is an open world 3D game about the 1916 Rising. We aim to recreate Dublin, researching pictures and footage from the time to help us. The game will be made in Unity and we will be using the plugin Fungus for the narratives.

Description
You play as Micahel “Foggy” Fogarty, a 16 year old boy who after witnessing the murder of hisfather joins the Irish Republican Brotherhood. Foggy travels with his division to Dublin, Easter weekend in 1916 to take part in the Rising and is tasked with passing messages from the GPO to other key locations the IRB and Civilian Army holds.

Hierarchy and Running Order
  • Chris and James will oversee all the Team Leaders
  • Team leaders will oversee all their Team Members
  • At the end of each week, team leaders will tell Chris and James what has been done and
    who is/isn’t doing their job
  • If a problem arises where someone isn’t available to pull their weight. Contact the Team
    Leader first and they will contact Chris or James
  • Provisionally there will be a meeting every 2 weeks, but this may not be needed
    depending on how well online communication works.
  • Every Week we will meet up in the same lab to get some work done. This way we can
    work with each other in person as Online communication can be perceived differently. If you are a Team Leader feel free to organise your own time to work with your team but please take note of attendance and contact Chris and/or James about the meeting
  • We will be using Slack.com to communicate. Slack is a way to communicate with one another through Website, Phone app and a Installed software. The reason we are using Slack is so that we can set up separate groups for every team and allow teams to communicate with one another in private rather than setting up multiple Facebook groups that could intertwine with your social life. Essentially, Keep business with business. If you have yet to sign up to Slack please get in touch with James to be added.
  • The workload will be controlled by Chris and James and distributed among the Team Leaders. The Team leaders will then give out the jobs to their members evenly.
    The teams will work in process of hierarchy.
    You follow the guidelines of your Lead members. They follow the guidelines from James or
    Chris. We will contact every “Lead” person individually or at meetings.
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Leaders
Chris: Project Manager- Creates reasonable and achievable goals for all team members.
- Keeps in contact with each team-leader to maintain communication and make sure there is no confusion.
- Contributes with Conor for the GDA to make sure the game is not obscured or changed.


James: Designer
Keeps in contact with each team-leader.
- Contributes to final decisions from team-leaders with 
Chris.
Collaborates with Chris and has the 2nd voice for all decisions made by Project Manager.
- Creates grading system and keeps up with the workload and Marks team-members depending on their work done.


Writers
Ellen: Lead Writer
Always keeps in contact with James & Chris.
- Refers to GDA to create a compelling and interesting story surrounding the 1916 rising. - Using historical research gathered by Niamh. 
Stay on topic and use locations, names and Stories that are historically correct.

Niamh: Researcher
Assists Ellen on punctuation and story writing.
- Keeps in contact with Ellen regarding the story and plot of the game.
- Gathers evidence regarding the 1916 rising. Who was involved, what characters should they be and based on what facts?


Nathan: GDA Creator
Siobhan Lee: GDA Creator
- Work with the writers and Chris to create a GDA to help out the rest of the teams. - Work with Ellen to find out the main story, names, characters etc.
- Use the GDA online we used with shaun in semester


Programmers
Aidan: Lead Programmer
- Always keeps in contact with James & Chris.
Creates achievable goals for the Junior Programmers. - Has the final say in programming sector.
James & Chris will help with programming.


Music Team
Eoin: Sound Effects
- Create Authentic sounds for the game i.e Footsteps, breathing, voices etc.
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- Create Ambient sounds such as wind. Use different records and make it as realistic as possible.

Trevor: Composer- Aid Eoin in all thing's music and sound.
- Create ambient sounds and music related to the 1916 era and time. Study different music that was popular at that time and use it to create a Composition that can be used throughout the game


Game Testers
Shane: Game Tester
- Always keeps in contact with James & Chris.
At the end of the week they will create a document using a template to say whats good, what’sbad and what needs to be changed. This way you’re not just testing the game and getting an easymark.
Communicates with Everyone discussing what he thinks works and doesn’t work.

Adam: Game Tester- Always keeps in contact with James & Chris.
At the end of the week they will create a document using a template to say whats good, what’s bad and what needs to be changed. This way you’re not just testing the game and getting an easymark.
Communicates with Everyone discussing what he thinks works and doesn’t work.

Art Team
Leah Byrne: Lead Artist
Always keeps in contact with James & Chris.
Designs the 3D World using their own Assets & Designs or finding assets in the unity store. - In charge of everything regarding the artwork for the game.

Conor Brennan: Graphic Designer
Always keeps in contact with James & Chris.
Work alongside the art team for criticism and oppinions.
- Create Loading screens, Graphics for promotion such as Logo, Banners etc. - Be prepared to help out on creating textures and assets.


Isabel: Asset Management- Always keeps in contact with James & Chris.
Communicating with Conor, Leah and Chloe. Find assets on the unity store that would benefit in world creation and mechanics of the game.
- Take notes of every asset we use and may use in the future for easy finding among the teams.


Chloe: Character Creator
- Create Characters and NPC suitable for the Game
- Use assets where necessary or create your own textures
- Create multiple characters with distinct features i.e. Clothes, Models, Gender
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Daniel: Level Editor
- Collaborate with Game testers to find mistakes in the level and make sure that it works properly - Make edits to the levels and world WITH PERMISSION FROM LEAH. And fix mistakes made by other artists.
- Essentially your job is to make sure the level is playable and okay to use and fix any issue that may come to arise


Media Team
Ian: Media Management
- Document the entirety of the process of game building
- Work with each department separately, gathering information and footage - Creat
e a “Behind 19Sixteen” video.

David: Media Assistant
- Collaborate with Ian to help out with gathering footage and editing videos.
- Help out Ian in creating a suitable video to promote the game and highlight the idea of the game.


Inspiration/Examples
Some of the inspiration for my idea comes from the recent Centenary celebrations in 2016, 100 years on from the 1916 Rising. It is an important event in recent Irish history that I believe should not be forgotten, and along with it the stories from the Rising should not be lost or forgotten either. Here are examples of works, artefacts and history that are relevant to our project.

Games
Example of games set during WW1 Battlefield 1
• Set during WW1 this game and the events within it are from 1914-1918. It captures the war and atmosphere in Europe very well and is a great reference point for weapons, soldier outfits, vehicles, buildings, etc.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4pY3hlQEOc0
Example of story games/dialogue screens Fallout (Game Series)
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The Fallout games have a great choice of dialogue
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jyk_j0D25EM
Example of games that are achievable visually and workwise Medal of Honor: Frontlines
The first mission is the battle in Normandy, which if you have seen the intro to Saving Private Ryan is quite similar (excusing the very basic graphics!). This is a very interesting contrast between two iconic battles. (The scene in Saving Private Ryan is the battle for Omaha beach).
Game intro: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aYVkoiyslJMMovie intro: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DSKerypwUDM

Art
Example of expected Character - quality/detail Medal of Honor – Airborne characters
Call of Duty 3 characters (first picture is better quality than what they look like in game)
Example of Clothes
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Example of Architecture
Relevant reading: 
http://www.engineersjournal.ie/2016/05/31/city-and-the-rising-1916/
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Example of Assets
Medal of Honor 
– Airborne
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Example of Fonts
Battlefield 1 and V 
– Futura font family
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Both games lean heavily on Futura for title screens and it looks sharp. The font is heavily associated with WW2 but is a great example of a font.
Irish Republic Flag
Celtic/Blackletter fonts
These might be worth looking at for some inspiration for fonts that were still widely used at the time.

Music:
• https://irishsheetmusicarchives.com/Galleries/Irish-In-World-War-I-Songs.htmExample of Actual Songs from the Era
• John McCormack - It's A Long Way To Tipperary
- This song was recorded in 1914 and often sung by Irish soldiers who fought in the British army during World War 1. I feel something like this could capture the "war time feel" in a game, and the song features in a campaign mission in Battlefield V which is how I knew it would fit perfectly with my game idea.
Example of Songs Related to the Era
Example of Marching Song
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PN2dAGWjUBUExample of Background Music
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• Enzo - Vincent Peirani- This is a moody instrumental piece that I feel would be perfect as an intro piece or even in the
background of the game.
Example of Title, Home Screen, Credits Music


Source Material for Inspiration
Books/Graphic Novels
Blood Upon The Rose - The Rebellion That Set Ireland Free
- This is a graphic novel that I read when I was younger that portrays some of the stories of the Rising in a different light.
Movies
The Wind That Shakes The Barley
- Although this movie is set during the Irish War of Independence (1919-1921) it still manages to capture the feeling the Irish people at the time had following the Rising and gives examples of the horrific treatment the British soldiers gave the Irish civilians at the time.
Please watch the opening scene of the film, link below.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MDLBVXZXnN8
Media
Examples of Documentaries
Granite and Chalk – A short animated documentary that Hugh Rodgers worked on that talks about two undercover British spies that kept an eye on the IRB before the Rising.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=POpxLQt8w6I

Grading System
  • Everyone will receive a mark out of 10
  • Team Leaders will grade team members
  • Project leaders will grade team leaders
    0-3 = Poor effort
    4-6 = Average
    7-8 = Good Effort
    9-10 = They essentially did the job that was given
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Please be unbiased when grading as we don’t want any confrontation or giving your friends 10 marks consistently because they’re your friend.
I (James) will be looking at the grades of every member every weekend and their workload as a review to add it to the grade spreadsheet that will be sent to you as a shared excel sheet.
Team Leaders can edit, everyone else can view it.

If someone is unable to do a certain job contact the team leader.

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