Gnosis

1
Gnosis

• Michael Bennett
• Keith Francisco
• Grady Yarborough
• Chris McInnis
• Anthony Grant

2
General information

• Action/RPG hybrid
• Some NPCs react to player behavior
• Various abilities to be gained during play
• Basic gameplay is action
• Over-the-shoulder shooter

3
Overall Setting

• Distant future
• Humanity has colonized the nearby stars, but is
  fighting a losing war
• Multiple alien races
• Some are hostile to humanity, some are neutral, a
  few are friendly

4
Races

• Humans
• Homeworld destroyed decades earlier
• Only a handful of star systems truly under their
  control
• Highly advanced, but lacking in population

5
Races

• Shomaten
• The oldest and most powerful faction in the
  galaxy is mostly this race
• Slowly destroying humanity
• Uses completely biological technology
• Everything, even ships, is alive
• Had bad experience with machine-based technology
  centuries ago
• Breakaway faction seeks to harmonize bio-based
  and machine-based technologies

6
Races

• Shichi
• Very small race
• Good at tinkering with things, always looking
  for various bits of tech
• Not widespread galactically
• Ignored by both humans and the evil aliens

7
Factions

• Humans
• Main government
• Controls nearly all the human star systems
• Totalitarian
• Highly advanced, but numerically weak
• Believes that humans must stand or fall alone
• Peacemakers
• Seek assistance from other races, especially the
  breakaway Shomaten faction
• Non-violently opposed to main government

8
Factions

• Shomaten
• Main government
• Xenophobic technophobic traditionalists
• Seeks to destroy all humans
• Relies exclusively on advanced biological tech
• Resistance
• Separate from the main government
• Desires to integrate mechanical and biological
  technology
• Seeks more peaceful, less insular relations with
  other races/factions

9
Protagonists

• Player
• Experimental human cyborg
• Abandoned in a remote tech facility when the
  evil aliens took over the system
• Activated by an inquisitive good alien
• Bizer
• The Shichi who activates the player
• Can upgrade player with tech
• Has his own goals

10
Demo

• Setting
• The remote facility where you were developed and
  abandoned
• Facility is deteriorated, but shows signs of very
  hurried departure some tech may still work

11
Demo

• Narrative
• Bizer activates you and the two of you start to
  explore
• Shortly thereafter, a covert team of human agents
  arrive with the goal of retrieving you and
  whatever else may be available
• Possible to agree to go with them at this point
• Later in the facility, alien forces arrive to
  destroy the intrusion
• Ultimate goal escape facility

12
Gameplay

• Controllable with either Xbox 360 controller or
  keyboard/mouse
• Energy restores health (via nanobots) and powers
  all non-projectile weapons regenerates at an
  improvable rate
• Line-of-sight stealth elements
• Multiple interactions with NPCs (not just kill/be
  killed)
• Usable vehicles

13
Level Design
14
Technical info

• System requirements
• Xbox 360
• PC
• Video Card
• Pixel shader model 2.0 compatible
• 128MB (256MB recommended)
• DirectX 9.0
• XNA redistributable
• 512MB of RAM (1GB recommended)
• Intended ESRB rating T

15
Content

• Audio
• FX from the web (not yet determined)
• Some voice work from team members

16
Game Engine

• The game engine is developed by Chris McInnis, in
  C, using Microsofts XNA framework
• References include Programming A Multiplayer FPS
  in DirectX by Vaughan Young and Programming Role
  Playing Games with DirectX by Jim Adams
• Modular engine to facilitate OO approach

17
Game Engine Modules

• The biggest component will probably be the Screen
  Manager

18
Game Engine Modules

• The Frame Counter component will keep track of
  the games frames per second. This will be used
  for testing purposes - Completed
• The Keyboard component will handle all input
  information from the keyboard. The information
  will be dispatched by keyboard events Completed
  in old engine
• The Mouse component will handle all input
  information from the mouse. The information will
  be dispatched by mouse events. This component is
  only available on the Windows game engine
  version. This limitation is due to the fact that
  a mouse cannot be used with the Xbox 360 -
  Completed in old engine

19
Game Engine Modules

• The Game Pads component will handle all input
  information from the Xbox 360 controllers. The
  information will be dispatched by Xbox 360
  controller events Completed in old engine
• The Data Manager component will handle any game
  data that will require loading and saving when
  the player starts the game or when he/she is
  finished playing
• The Script Manager component will handle
  executing any game scripts. Scripts will be used
  to remove game specific concepts from the code.
  The script manager will handle loading and
  properly disposing of these scripts as well

20
Screen Manager
21
Screen Manager

• A game screen means anything to be drawn in the
  game window. Screens will be managed using a
  stack approach. A screen can be pushed onto the
  stack and popped off of the stack, creating a
  state-based system
• For instance the title screen can be pushed on
  first. When the player starts the game the game
  scene will be pushed on top of the title screen,
  then the graphical user interface pushed on top
  of the game scene

22
Screen Manager

• Using the stack approach the game screens will be
  drawn from bottom to top. Some screens can block
  screens that are underneath from updating or
  drawing. Drawing from bottom to top creates a
  clean way of separating different screens from
  each other. Since the graphical user interface
  will be pushed on top of the game scene the
  graphical user interface will be drawn after the
  game scene

23
Screen Manager

• The User Interface screen separates any graphical
  user interface controls from the rest of the
  screens. This screen will manage passing user
  input to the controls in order to update them and
  interact with them
• The Game Scene screen handles drawing three
  dimensional scenes, as well as collision
  detection and object culling to improve drawing
  performance
• Another screen needed is the HUD. This screen is
  used to display health and energy as well as
  current weapon and target reticule. This screen
  can also display interaction information

24
Timeline

• Develop Story Mon 3/5/07
• Game Engine Mon 3/26/07
• Character Design Fri 3/9/07
• Character Meshes Sun 4/1/07
• Level Design Fri 3/9/07
• Voice acting Fri 4/27/07
• Sound FX Thu 4/26/07