The Game Design Document [.pdf]

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e boring. Note that the controls needed for each level do not match exactly with actual agricultural practices, but I tried to make them match as much as possible. Potatoes. The potato level will include water and pest control. This crop was chosen as a starter because it grows below ground and is very hardy. Wheat. The wheat level will require water and pest control, as well as introduce the policy decisions. Wheat will require slightly less water but be more sensitive to pests. Corn. This level requires a third control, birds. Corn will require moderate amounts of water, be about as sensitive to pests, but very sensitive to birds. Tomates. This crop will require a fourth, fertilization. Tomatoes require quite a bit of water and fertilization. Pumpkin. This crop requires a fifth, pollenation. Pumpkins require lots of water and fertilization. While not strictly as large scale of an agricultural crop as the rest, pumpkins still are grown and harvested. This crop and the next also act as rewards, being more "interesting" than the others. Strawberries. This final crop introduces no new requirements but each requirement affects the yield and quality more due to the delicate nature of the plants. Lack of water, too many birds or pests, all can devastate the crop yield. There will be three difficulty settings. Easy, Medium, and Hard. Easy mode is as above, with a maximum of five factors to balance. Medium mode introduces pollution to every level, with each level being more sensitive to the pollution. Hard mode introduces no more factors but each factor affects the yield, quality, and each other more. Music and Sound Sound will be whimsical and fun, not necessarially realistic. Some sound effects may roughly be based on noises made by kids when playing with toy tractors rather than the noises a tractor would actually make when tilling a field. Music will be upbeat, not too fast but not too slow, in a jaunty but simple tone. Art Design The art of the game will be simple and clean-looking hand drawn and colored art. The crops will be personified, with facial features such as eyes and sometimes mouths. Machinery will be simplified and brightly colored. The only human, Stan, will have exaggerated proportions, with a large head, hands and feet. If time permits, I would like to animate the crops and the narrator flower to "dance" to the beat of the music, though this will be a low priority. All art will have the same flat, cartoon, outlined style to maintain a simple theme throughout the game. Rules, Gameplay, Scoring The game cannot be completely lost, keeping with a traditional supportive structure for education and children's games. In order to progress to the next level, the current crop must provide a certain amount of "yield" for the season. Below this amount and the player must redo the current level. The player increases their yield by keeping environmental
factors in balance. The closer they are to being balanced, the faster yield increases. If the environment is completely out of whack, the yield may decrease in harder difficulty levels due to rot or infestation. Instead of fighting to beat a level, in this game it is simply an attempt to beat it more efficiently, with higher yield, and a shorter time. Three factors are used to calculate the final score: Quality of the product, which is affected by how much pollution there was and whether or not the product was genetically engineered. Quantity of the product, which is the yield of the season and is affected by how well the factors were balanced. Asking for more money will decrease the end score, but only by enough to keep players from abusing the feature. Stan has kept his eyes on you and will judge the player and decrease the score accordingly if they used gene-modified seeds or asked for too much money. Once the final scoring has occurred, the record is either broken or not. If the record was not broken, the player can try again. If it is broken, Stan gives the player the seeds, unlocking the next level and allowing the player to continue. A few other "fun" statistics that have no other effect on the game are tracked and displayed at harvest time. For example, the game will keep track of how many bugs you squished, how many birds you barked at, and how much water you sprayed. Program Structure Two main game states: In town and in the field. In town can be as the main menu out of game or as part of a current game once a game has been reloaded. In the town, the simulation is paused. In the field unpauses the game and allows the player to manipulate the various factors. Each game state will be kept separate by the game and held open but hidden as long as the game is still running. The field game state will be loaded and modified when the levels change, whereas the town state will largely be kept around as it is the menu and is loaded from the start. If the player has not yet loaded a game, certain in-game functions (namely the ability to go to the fields) will not be active. During the game in both the town and fields, at certain times a secondary window may have to pop up, for example to show an instructional movie or to allow the player to choose field locations. Whenever another window pops up the game is paused (if it is not already), the rest of the screen around the window is tinted to emphasize the window, and the player may concentrate freely on the window. Once the window is gone (either due to being over, like for a movie, or the user has finished with it, if they selected a location) then the game resumes back to what it was doing before.
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