Game Concept - Assignment 2

Title: Last Stand

Concept: In Last Stand, players must outsmart relentless hordes of zombies using limited resources, putting their survival instinct to the ultimate test. 

Genre: The genre is Survival Action as the player will be constantly challenged to make strategic decisions. This genre combines intense encounters with resource management, forcing the player to make crucial decisions under pressure, which is a kind of gameplay that can create memorable and heart-pumping experiences. 

Concept Creation Process and Influences: 

For my concept creation process, I'm going for a subtractive design approach to create a game focused on zombie apocalypse. My goal is to simplify the core aspects of survival in a post-apocalyptic world, removing any features that takes away from the core mechanics. This makes so game focuses primarily on the essentials - survival, resource management, and fighting against zombie hordes. 

Adding to that, I'm also want to bring ideas from other games to enhance the experience (mashup). By using elements from other genres, i want to introduce unique mechanics that can enhance the traditional formula of zombie survival game. 

This process allows me to create a game that is both familiar to people that are fans of zombie apocalypse genre but also integrate innovative elements that set it apart from typical survival games. 

This game comes from many inspiration. Games like The Last of Us, Days Gone, Resident Evil franchise (particularly Resident Evil 2) and a TV show The Walking Dead. All shows the tension of being in the survival apocalypse and managing resources. The resource management are influenced by games like The Last of Us and Resident Evil franchise, especially when playing on the harder difficulty when the resources becomes more scarce. Player using guns with limited ammo hence resource management, come from many games. Zombies will always move to the player (pursuit), also come from many games. These core mechanics are what makes the game a zombie apocalypse game, creating tension as players balance survival, combat and resource management in a dangerous world. 

Target audience:

• Age: 15 - 50 years old
• Gender: both male and female
• Interests: enjoy playing games, particularly those that have  intense, challenging and engaging gameplay, enjoys action-packed game, like zombie apocalypse setting.
• Needs: wants continuous engagement and challenge game with focus on relentless threats, want a game that involves making quick strategic decision.  
• Lifestyle: balances gaming with work or study. 

My game offers intense, engaging and challenging gameplay, which matches the target audience interests in action packed games. 

The game's continuous engagement with relentless threats lines up with the audience's need for non-stop action. Making quick strategic decision which also satisfy the audience's needs. 

Similar successful games have attracted a larger audiences by offering engaging and action focused experience, which would make my game concept a good fit. 

Competitive analysis:

My game is similar to the inspiration of games I've mention above in terms of their genre and mechanics, such as trying to survive, managing resources and combat. The only difference that my game has is that there will be no story elements. My game primarily focuses on intense and engaging gameplay. 

 The other games have performed really well. Resident Evil 2 Remake has sold nearly 14 million units which is Capcom survival horror franchise's top seller (Carter, 2024).  The Last of Us, story-focused survival horror, has won multiple awards including Game of the year and is considered the "best zombie game ever made" (Sheridan et al, 2024).

 The last successful game that is similar to my game in terms of genre is Resident Evil 4 Remake. Though there is no zombies in it, it is combat focus. Which my game will focus on. It sold over 7 million units in nearly one year (Tsujimoto, 2024). 

The game similar to my mine that wasn't successful was Alone in the Dark remake. It's a survival horror that have some enemies that are zombie like and didn't reach the sales expectation and the reasoning was that it didn't have an outstanding gameplay and lack in storytelling (Charming, 2024). 

Game Treatment:  

You are a lone survivor and you've just alerted the largest horde you ever seen. With depleting resources and no escape, it's a dire fight for survival in your last stand. 

Key Features:

• Survival Under Pressure - Fight massive horde of zombies in an intense last stand. 
• Resource Management - Strategically manage limited resources (ammo, health and stamina).
• Increasing Difficulty - The longer you survive, more hungrier the zombies are. 
• Environments - Use obstacles around you to your advantage. 

Concept Art:

Zombies:

Zombies will have ragged clothes on and a bit of disgusting look to clearly show that they're zombies. They will always pursue the player no matter where they are in the world. After death, they may drop something which might help the player. There may be different variation of zombies. Have a zombie that runs fast but have lower health than regular zombies and do small amount of damage to the player, have a brute zombie with large amount of health, do devastating damage to the player but they're slow. Regular zombies will very slowly get quicker, the longer the game goes but the speed of speedy and brute zombies will remain the same. The spawn of zombies will increase, the longer the game goes on. 

Player: 

Player will wear some kit on him that have helped him survive this long in the apocalypse and will have a determined expression as he'll try and survive as long as he can. Player starts with a pistol but can find an assault rifle or shotgun somewhere in the world. Player is able to use guns with limited ammo to defend against the zombies. Player can sprint, but will use stamina and will make player more thirsty quicker. Will have certain amount of health and stamina and the maximum amount of health will decrease, the more hungry the player is and maximum amount of stamina will decrease, the more thirsty the player is, making food and drink important in this game. He can heal by using a medkit or bandages that is scattered around the world. 

Weapons:

Guns is the only weapon you can use to fight against hordes of zombies. Will have to reload when all ammo in the gun is used but can reload even with ammo still in the gun but it takes a couple of seconds, with each gun having different reload times. There will be three guns: pistol, assault rifle and shotgun.

• Pistol - Pistol is the weakest gun out of the three but its still a versatile weapon. Ammo will be the most common to spawn and quickest to reload. 
• Assault Rifle - Fast firing gun, do decent damage to zombies. Ammo will be the second most common to spawn and is the slowest to reload. 
• Shotgun - Powerful gun, can hit multiple zombies at once. The damage will be based on distance, for example shooting an enemy closest to you will do more damage do the enemy further from you. Player can't carry too much shotgun shells, forcing the player to use it conservatively. Ammo will be the hardest to find. 

World:

The world will be much bigger than what is shown in the concept art, to make it the game more engaging. There will be buildings that player can go in. They can close doors and zombies are dumb so they'll break the door down but it'll take them a while, giving players time to eat, drink and check their ammo amount. Player can jump out of the windows. Supplies will be scattered around the world, like ammo and consumables and after a certain time it will spawn in more supplies, to keep the game going. 

Consumables:

Player will need consumables to stay alive a bit longer. Consumables like Food, drink, medkit and bandages.

• Food - Good for maintaining your hunger and is important for keeping your health up as maximum health is based on the player's hunger. Player can carry certain amount of food and eat them whey they feel a need to and only decrease portion of your hunger when food is consumed. 
• Drink - Good for maintaining your thirst and is important for maintaining your stamina as maximum stamina is based on the player's thirst. Similar to food, they can carry certain amount of drinks and drink them when they feel a need to and only decrease portion of your thirst when drink is consumed. 
• Medkit - Good for healing the player. Medkit fully heals the player but are a bit rare to find.
• Bandages - Similar to medkit but heals portion of the player's health and easier to find. 

References: 

Carter, J. (2024, June 22). Resident Evil 2 Remake becomes the franchise's top-seller at nearly 14 million sales. Game            Developer. https://www.gamedeveloper.com/business/resident-evil-2-remake-becomes-the-franchise-s-top-seller-at-nearly-14-million-sales

Holiday, C. (2024, May 23). Alone In The Dark reboot seems to have failed. GAMERANT. https://gamerant.com/alone-in-the-dark-reboot-fail/#:~:text=Alone%20in%20the%20Dark%2C%20while,4%20to%20produce%20successful%20remakes.

Sheridan et al. (2024, Spetember 10). The 10 best zombie game that will munch your brain. Gamesradar. https://www.gamesradar.com/best-zombie-games/

Tsujimoto, H. (2024, March 13). Resident Evil 4 Sales Top 7 Million Units Nearly One Year After Release!. CAPCOM: Corporate | Investor Relation (IR). https://www.capcom.co.jp/ir/english/news/html/e240313.html#:~:text=Resident%20Evil%204%20is%20a,now%20exceeding%207%20million%20units.