In the earliest stages of this project, I wrote a number of design documents which defined the overall game vision, our design pillars, a proposed feature set, and the game's personality and tone. These documents included comparable game systems and experiences, as well as the books and movies that exemplified the emotional impact that we wanted our players to feel when they experienced our gamed.
These documents served as useful touchstones for the team, presenting a clear vision of what we were creating, as well as a guidepost that that we could return to when making decisions on the best ways to expand and improve the game. I have presented some excerpts from these documents below.
GAME VISION
OVERVIEW
Project Laguna is an ARPG with action elements that features a fast-paced, intuitive and engaging combat system that focuses on fun, cooperative play. In Project Laguna, players will battle the legendary creatures of mankind’s mythological past, creating unique and powerful weapons and armor as they protect the Earth from destruction. The game takes place in a unique and compelling setting that draws heavily upon early twentieth-century pulp fiction themes, infused with the sense of wonder and adventure found in books and comics of that era.
CORE DESIGN PILLARS
Fluid Action: We want our players to feel like powerful and superhuman, with smooth and intuitive transitions between parkour movement and dynamic action combat.
Epic Monsters: Our game will provide fun and challenging combat encounters where creatures and bosses feel intelligent and reactive. Group mechanics are encouraged in combat, and players feel tangible benefits from cooperative skill and success.
Effortless Multiplayer: Our game will feature content scaling and engaging social systems that allow players of all skill levels to experience the game together. Players will be able to forge and maintain lasting relationships that will keep them invested in the game for years to come.
PERSONALITY AND TONE
IT’S AN ADVENTURE!
Project Laguna, at its core, is a game about adventure. As one of the legendary Sentinels, players will travel the most remote and dangerous corners of the Earth to fight epic gods and monsters of myth and legend. Along the way, they will discover powerful ancient technology, explore lost cities and mysterious ruins, and meet some of the most famous (and infamous) individuals and deities from throughout history. Add to that a compelling setting that takes place in one of the greatest eras of exploration and scientific discovery in history, and you have a recipe for grand adventure on the most epic scale! Although there are many aspects to what I would describe as a game’s voice – in general, I would define Project Laguna’s voice as fantastic, lighthearted and unapologetically adventurous.
Providing players with an experience that reflects this sense of history and adventure should always be our first priority. Touchstone references would be the Indiana Jones trilogy, Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, Captain America – the First Avenger, Wonder Woman, and Hellboy.
TOUCHSTONES
What we are: fun, fantastic, lighthearted, adventurous, stylized art
More like: Overwatch, League of Legends, Avengers, Indiana Jones, Strange Brigade
Less like: Team Fortress 2, Orcs Must Die (Campy, slapstick, Saturday morning cartoon)
What we are not: grim dark, oppressive, serious, realistic art
Examples: Diablo, Dark Souls, Dead Space, Deus Ex, Tomb Raider (NOTE: Tomb Raider is indeed adventurous, but lacks the fun and lightheartedness that you see in Indiana Jones movies)
SETTING AND STORY
SETTING
The eighteenth century is coming to an end. Although human civilization has made great advancements over the last century, there are still vast swaths of the planet that have yet to be explored and countless archaeological mysteries yet to be uncovered. The jungles of the Congo and the Amazon are still largely unmapped, man has yet to reach the heights of Mount Everest, and King Tut’s tomb won’t be found for another thirty years.
It is the era of great explorers like Henry Stanley, David Livingstone, Ernest Shackleton, and Amelia Earhart – indomitable individuals who braved the untamed and unexplored wilds of planet Earth, driven by an insatiable need to conquer the unknown. It is the time of Thomas Edison, Nikola Tesla, Howard Hughes, and the other great industrialists and technologists of the age, men with an unshakeable vision for the future, and the relentless drive to make that future a reality. It is an age of great leaders like Teddy Roosevelt and Winston Churchill, stalwart men with strength, resolve and charisma who stand fearless in the face of adversity, and dare to dream of a better world.
In 1891, polar expedition led by Robert Peary makes a fantastic discovery in the frozen wastes of Greenland. Unbelievably, the ancient “temple” appeared to be of Atlantean origin – constructed of exotic materials and full of advanced technological devices fueled by an enigmatic, unidentified energy source. Seemingly overnight, the foundations of history and science are shaken to their foundations.
As Earth’s population becomes aware of this awe-inspiring discovery, the world is infused with a tangible sense of hope and unlimited potential. Scientists begin to unravel the mysteries of Atlantean technology, and previously unimaginable wonders – such as flying cars and mind-bending architectural structures – start appearing throughout the world. Stories surrounding the lost civilization of Atlantis and other ancient myths become all the rage, and dime-store pulp novels sold in newsstands and corner stores across the globe tell stories of larger-than-life heroes venturing into the great unknown to reveal even greater mysteries about the legends of gods and monsters of ages past.
And then, in 1926, all of those legends came true.
Seemingly at once, mythical monstrosities begin appearing on every continent, spreading terror and causing destruction in their wake. Headlines across the globe announce leviathans emerging from oceans and lakes, giant yetis attacking mountain villages, and eldritch horrors stalking the shadows at night. As the world looks on in hopeless terror, a mysterious figure reassembles an ancient order from the distant past, made up of special individuals with the power to save the world…
THE HEROES
In Project Laguna, players play as one of the Sentinels of Atlantis - using a combination of enhanced technology, ancient relics, and mystical powers to battle the most powerful and terrifying enemies from realms and realities beyond our own. Descended from the legendary heroes, otherworldly entities, and lost civilizations of Earth’s mythological past, players can draw upon strange and exotic energies – enabling them to perform amazing feats of physical and mental prowess as they defend our world from a never-ending host of uncanny invaders.
GAME FEATURES
[NOTE: The material below is just an excerpt of a longer section that I wrote which described the game’s major features. I have included a few parts of this section as examples.]
SENTINELS
Players can choose from six Sentinels when the game launches. Each Sentinel will be designed to provide a compelling gameplay experience, featuring unique weapons, abilities, and mechanics that will resonate with different playstyles. The six launching Sentinels are:
The Strongman
The Industrialist
The Occultist
The Mad Scientist
The Magician
The Explorer
CHARACTER PROGRESSION
Character progression will be a hybrid of horizontal and vertical progression. It will feature a ranking system which clearly communicates to the player what content they can interact with, along with a character level which communicates the player’s time investment.
There will be multiple facets of progression that players will be able to develop over time – including weapons, armor, and a player hub with system facilities (such as a crafting station) that can be enhanced and upgraded. There will also be account-level progression that will provide players with blanket stat increases for all of their characters, encouraging the creation of alts.
COMBAT
Project Laguna will feature a fun, fast-paced, and intuitive combat system that will be easy to learn and rewarding to master. Control schemes will cleanly support both PC and console platforms.
Combat will feature a 3rd person camera.
Each Sentinel will use a unique weapon that they can craft and upgrade throughout the experience. The combat experience will focus on melee weapons, although ranged weapons will be used infrequently and/or situationally. Players will be designed with three combat archetypes in mind – Fast, Strong and Smart – and these archetypes will determine what weapons they can use, and, by extension, the kinds of abilities that they will have access to.
The foundation of the combat experience will be attack combinations. These combinations will be unique to each Sentinel, and can be improved and enhanced throughout progression. Combinations will vary contextually with movement, providing players with different options as they traverse encounter spaces.
Movement and positioning will be extremely important. Players will have a large variety of movement types that can be utilized in combat – such as wall running, boosted jumps and grappling hooks. Because of this, verticality will be important to the overall combat experience, as well as unique environmental interactions.
Combat encounters will feature unique and engaging mechanics that encourage and reward cooperative play. Players will be encouraged to change their ability loadouts to support and complement the other players (and playstyles) in their groups. Players will also receive mission briefs before starting instances, allowing them to customize their loadouts based on the encounter types that an instance features. Player abilities will be designed with synergies in mind, opening up opportunities for players to create epic moments in combat and boss encounters.
CONTENT MODEL
BattleStream
The game’s core experience features the BattleStream, a continuous series of scaling, procedurally-generated 1-4 player Mission Instances that offer an endless variety of content while encouraging effortless socialization and longer game sessions - not unlike a PvE version of Overwatch.
Mission Instances
Mission Instances are instanced experiences designed for groups of 1-4 players. They will be designed to highlight and reward player coordination and ability synergies. In general, Mission Instances will contain:
A mission briefing before the instance begins, highlighting what players can expect and allowing them to customize their loadouts.
Various objective types and mechanics – such as traditional dungeon crawl, wave survival, and point capture.
A progression of less challenging creatures and mini-bosses that may eventually lead to a boss. These creatures can be farmed for common resources, and will serve to get the group ready for a potential final boss encounter.
Epic boss encounters. These will be the most challenging encounters in the instance, requiring both individual skill and group coordination for success.
Rare and unique resource rewards that can be used to craft gear upgrades and customizations.