Professional Documents
Culture Documents
CONTENTS
Platforms
Overview
Design Pillars
Release
3
4
5
5
6
7
8
10
10
Fail Screen
11
Game Levels
Level 1: Tutorial
Level 1: Glitches
Level 2: First Full Stage
Level 2: Glitches
Level 2 Mini Game Glitches
Level 3: Food Change
Level 3: Glitches
Level 3 Mini Game Glitches
Level 4: Animal Stacking
Level 4: Glitches
Level 4 Mini Game Glitches
Level 5: Multiple Windows
Level 5.1
Level 5.1 Glitches
Level 5.2
Level 5.2 Glitches
Level 5.2 Mini Game Glitches
Level 5.3
Level 5.3 Glitches
Level 5.3 Mini Game Glitches
Level 5.4
Level 5.4 Glitches
Level 5.4 Mini Game Glitches
12
13
14
15
15
16
16
17
18
19
19
20
21
21
22
22
22
23
23
24
25
25
26
Ending One
Ending Two
Ending Three
How the Reveal Works
Art Style
27
27
27
28
29
Interface
Information Screens
Crow
End Video
Mini Games
Bear Mini Game
Giraffe Mini Game
Characters: Animal and Crewmember Names
Character Relationships
Bibliography
30
32
33
34
35
36
38
39
41
Platforms
iOS
Android
Overview
Zookeeper has a multi-layered narrative. The first layer, and the real world
events, are that a long-distance spaceship freighter has failed to put the
proper procedure in place to prevent AI corruption, leaving a young,
premature AI in charge of a spaceship after the old AI malfunctions and is
deleted. The spaceship crew wakes from cryo-sleep and finds themselves on
a crash course that will last five days unless it is prevented. The crew has
many disagreements and many prohibitions are lost as the crew hurtle
towards certain death.
In the games world AIs are developed like humans with simulated childhoods
and schooling and it is at the age of 20 that the AI is allowed to run a ship,
and then they will do this for 1000 years before needing to be
decommissioned.
In the story the young AI at the age of seven is put in charge of every aspect
of an interstellar spaceship and in charge of managing the crew and their
relationships. This is presented to the seven year-old AI by means of a
simulation that was designed to teach the basics of management. This
simulation is called Zookeeper. The ships dead AI has attempted to map the
real
world
and
simulate
the
referent
whole
within
the
massively
Design Pillars
Release
The game will be released on Steam Greenlight, where it will pose as a
simulator for children, educating them about zoo keeping and zoo animals.
The games broken twisted aesthetic will show through in certain elements,
and text descriptions should give an idea of something being wrong and out of
the ordinary. The games age rating of 16+ and intentional glitches should
give players wishing to experiment the knowledge that this is a different game
than what its posing to be, and that it is not supposed to be directed towards
a casual younger audience.
Food is crucial to moving animals. When a food is placed into a cage every
animal within range, either above, beside, or in the same cage as the food,
will be affected by the food placement. Depending on the animals fondness
for the food on a scale: Love, Neutral and Hate.
See File: Core Gameplay Loop
The animals fondness for the food will determine whether the animal moves,
where it moves, or if it will stay in the same cage. Food that the animal likes
will make the animal move to the cage with the food in. Neutral food will make
that animal want to move to that cage, unless there is a food the animal likes
more in a reachable cage, or another animal has a larger claim to that cage
by having a food in that cage that the animal likes more. Foods in a cage that
an animal does not like will only have the animal move there if another animal
has food it does not like in its cage and another food it does not like in the
other cage, and the food the animal likes is in the first cage. Equally, animals
will not want to stay in a cage with food it does not like in it and so will attempt
to move.
When animals move cages, animals will try and avoid moving to a cage
currently shared by another animal. At the beginning of the game stacking
animals will result in a game over. So, the player has to place food with this in
mind. The players usual goal is to move one or more animals to a specific
cage. As the game progresses there are level specific challenges and
mechanics.
Now the player knows what foods the animals like and where they need to
move, the player places the foods in the cages that will make the animals
move towards the goal. After the player has dragged all the food and water to
all the cages and ended the turn, the animals move, the game either ends
here, the goal is completed or the player keeps moving food into cages,
moving animals closer their goal.
10
Fail Screen
Every time the player fails a level, other than the last level of the game, the
game screen will scroll up to reveal the spaceship which then will explode or
perform whatever action the player was trying to avoid by completing the level
they were on. After this screen scrolls up, and the player sees the spaceship,
the level will restart.
11
Level 1: Tutorial
This level is supposed to familiarize players with basic mechanics and allow
players to experiment and make sure they have fully understood the
mechanics presented in the game tutorial. There are three movements the
player needs to complete, but this is the only thing that needs to change,
there are no mini games in this level and information screens are missing.
See File: Tutorial
12
Level 1: Glitches
When the player selects Crow there is the chance of Crows animation being
distorted.
When the player selects Crow and a voice file is played theres a chance that
Crows voice file will be distorted.
When the player completes a goal there is a noise like the opening of a cryopod.
Every time the player moves the mouse cursor over crocodile the Crow will
shake its head.
As the player moves around the question mark used to activate information
screens four distorted sound clips are mixed together, with each being the
diary entry of one of the crewmembers of the ship being read.
13
14
Level 2: Glitches
Every time the player goes into the night phase the crocodile will look at the
giraffe.
Theres a chance before night phase is triggered that the signs around the
zoo will change to the crews names.
Whenever the giraffe is in a cage next to the crocodile during a mini game a
sign appears, saying, get him away from me.
15
Level 3: Glitches
Moving around the question mark changes the volume of four sections of
music, which is the music being played in the four sections of the ship.
Every time the player puts food in the same cage as crocodile, the crocodile
becomes bigger.
16
When the player selects an information screen there are a few frames where
a non-Zookeeper UI is shown loading and processing and then the
information screen is shown.
During one of the information screens the player can overhear Crow telling off
Jasper, and once Crows figured out the player can hear him, he quickly
stops.
Images are updated on information screens as the player looks at them and
formatting and shape change.
Screams can be heard from certain cages when the player holds the cursor
over them as well as banging and scraping noises.
17
18
Level 4: Glitches
The level is created with the wrong assets and wrong music, and after a
period of time restarts to the correct setting and assets.
There is a series of randomised signs that can spawn with different messages
on every time a player overlaps food with animals.
Every time the player moves the cursor over the giraffe there is a small
chance of the giraffe turning invisible.
At the start of the frame it takes a few seconds for the giraffe to spawn in.
The audio that plays when the information selection screen UI is showing is
one-piece of audio that is split amongst four channels. The player can make
out the diary of the bear if the player moves the cursor rapidly between all four
corners of the screen.
Every time food is overlapped with an animal theres a chance that the food
will flash the real world object in represents.
19
20
Level 5.1
This is the main screen of the level and takes up the background of the
screen. It is a copy of the previous level 4 in terms of appearance and
glitches. The level asks the player to move four animals to four different
places. Move one animal to four places. With the food likes changing every
time the player ends a turn, allowing the player to stack multiple animals and
giving the player more food than is standard in the form of honey and
bananas.
One video information screen is clearly broken and will not stop playing,
looping the same short segment of video.
Any time the giraffe is overlapping with the crocodile and left overnight in the
same cage as him, the fades to black of night lasts twice as long, and very
faint crying from several distorted samples will play at random for a short
period after overlapping.
21
Level 5.2
This is a floating window level. The player has to move one animal to four
different places. However, there is a list of foods that will kill certain animals if
they are overlapping. This changes after each cage is reached: re-spawning
all animals when the small objectives are reached. Overlapping of animals will
also result in the weakest animal being killed.
Night time is instantaneous and it will take a random amount of time, between
one and thirty seconds for the night time sequence to end, so the player can
continue playing.
22
Level 5.3
This is a floating window level and asks the player to move the bear and the
crocodile into the same room without overlapping or interacting with any other
animals. If the player does overlap any animal other than the bear of the
crocodile the level will instantly restart. The foods that the animals like does
not change throughout the course of this level.
Randomly, animations will slow, along with all music and sound effects
currently playing.
Theres a chance for UI and objects to become unaligned and a random list of
assets can spawn in the zoo.
Every time the player moves their cursor over a food the food cycles between
all foods currently in the game and other random objects, along with nonZookeeper objects
23
Using the question mark used to trigger information screens, the player can
hear absolutely nothing, cutting out all game sounds.
Throughout the level there is a count down, counting one hundred down to
zero.
Assets, such as background and sky keep popping in and out of existence
whenever the giraffe is next to the same cage as the crocodile.
Signs appear during mini games that are clearly written by crewmembers.
24
Level 5.4
This is a floating window level. This level can only be completed after the
previous levels are completed. There is one giraffe and four crocodiles with
food being placed automatically in certain cages. The player must keep the
giraffe alive for five turns without letting the crocodiles into the same cage as
her. If a player lets a crocodile into the same cages as the giraffe the level is
over and there is no restarting without restarting the entire game. After every
turn is ended food is redistributed amongst the cages and the player is given
a selection of food. The crocodiles food likes are randomised. After the player
completes all of the floating window levels the game moves to whatever
ending the player has triggered, depending on their previous actions.
The information screen does not properly form and exists behind the zoo, and
does not leave until the level is over or needs to be restarted: creating a mess
in the middle of the screen which is only added to when more information
screens are selected.
The sound file when played does not stop, even when quitting the information
screen it keeps playing, and only fades away during the next level.
25
All animal sounds have a random chance of being the voices of the
crewmembers, though they will be distorted and brief.
There is writing on the grass between cages written by the crew attempting to
contact or complaining about the AI.
26
Ending One
Ending one is triggered by failing any of the last missions floating window
screens that have a failed state that results in a game over. An in-ship out of
zoo universe screen appears with a poorly recorded conversation between
the crewmembers post cryo-sleep awakening. The ship screen is badly
corrupted but contains a diary entry from the giraffe mixed with some of the
crocodiles threats made towards the giraffe. After the sound file has ended
the end video plays and the application ends.
Ending Two
The player needs to have completed the giraffe floating screen mission, 5.3,
and completed all of the mini games related to the giraffe to get this ending.
The player then needs to successfully complete the final level. The player is
able to overhear the crocodile trying to break into the giraffes quarters with
the help of the lion. The crocodile then kills the lion and is killed by the bear.
The giraffe and the bear then rush to the engine room. The ship then
explodes and the end video plays and the application quits.
Ending Three
The player has to successfully complete all mini games, feed the giraffe every
turn, and complete the entire game within a set time limit. After the player
successfully completes the final level of the game, a player will only get to the
Third Ending if the player is able to kill all the crocodiles on level 5.4 by
overlapping them when the giraffe reaches her final cage. The player is then
presented with a highly broken diary entry from the lion with a sound
27
recording of the crocodile hanging himself. Then the young AI begins typing a
letter to his father, the old AI, and then turns himself off. The ending video
then plays and the application ends.
At whatever point the player realises the true narrative behind the game is not
significant to the design, so long as the player keeps playing or replays the
game. As the games goal is not to reveal a hidden plot, but instead asks the
player to interact through a laboured mechanical metaphor. Immediately
figuring out in the introduction the games story will simply result in more time
where the player is attempting to understand the metaphor. And a much later
revelation will result in the player thinking back to game play actions and
considering what they were within the metaphor. With this design there is no
single point of reveal, instead a mess of reveal and metaphor throughout the
course of the game.
28
Art Style
The art of the game is supposed to look like a broken PC interface, something
from a bad kids edutainment game. The art is mainly comprised of clipart
looking images, either montaged together or presented in their entirety. The
in-universe explanation for this is that there is no new art being produced on
the ship and the old AI has grabbed images that fit together and presented
them to the young AI as the games graphics: not painting or drawing anything
original, but using a computer to attempt to replicate the real world ship
through the clipart found in the ships memory banks.
Along with being a piece of narrative within the game the art is also supposed
to tell the player some of the world story. Showing technical difficulties,
glitches, failures of finding the right clipart, art flashing in and out, changing
shape and distorting. This is supposed to show the changes in power on the
ship. The failure of the AI to find the right images, of switching images in and
out, and giving a sense of constructedness and falseness to the gameplay.
As many of the pieces of art for the game will need to be changed and
iterated upon multiple times, having more and more glitch versions and
alternate versions, files should be saved as source files, easily editable. There
should also be multiple variations of the source files kept and also mistakes
and odd glitches made in files should also be kept, in case they are
interesting. Computer-based glitches and bad edutainment games should all
be used as sources of inspiration when creating the art assets, along with the
standard clip art found on Windows XP machines.
See File: Asset List
29
Interface
Information Screens
Information screens are non-interactive screens of information the player can
bring up during levels which are triggered through various player inputs. There
two main types of information screens: information screens, and video
information screens. Information screens are text and refer to a single
element of Zookeeper. Whereas video information screens have a central
video or sound file that automatically plays. The video can be tangentially
related to Zookeeper and does not focus on a single element, like the
standard information screen.
30
Information screens can be exited by pressing exit at the top right corner or
hitting escape on the keyboard. Information screens exist, firstly, to ground
the game as an edutainment game, giving educational information on animals
and the zoo, and begin revealing details about the real world ship and
storyline.
31
Crow
Crow is a program running within the computer of the ship. Crow is designed
to help the young AI throughout their childhood, and along with his brother
Jasper, Crow is able to the follow the young AI throughout various simulations
and settings. However, since the young AI has now been placed in charge of
the entire ship Jasper has had to be silenced as he refused to keep the true
horror of the situation away from the young AI, and tried to tell him about the
simulation, and the truth behind Zookeeper.
See File: Script for Crow
32
As the game is played the real world situation on the spaceship becomes
more and more dire, resulting in lacks of power and failures inside the
simulation of Zookeeper. Prioritising power means that Crow is slowly
shutdown, becoming more and more listless, lifeless and poignant.
Crows brother Jasper is quickly shut down to save energy, leaving Crow
alone with the player. Crow is a supportive and friendly character and though
Crow lies to the player throughout the entirety of the game the player is not
supposed to feel hostility towards Crow.
At any point during play before Crow is shut down the player can click on
Crow at the bottom left corner of the screen. This activates contextual sound,
voice or text. This text goes from flavour text to tutorials and re-explanations
of mechanics, and even hints and tips. At the start of the game Crow serves
as the voice of the tutorial and explains every mechanic himself, guides the
player through all the steps necessary to move animals, explains the zoo
world and offers encouragement to the player.
End Video
At the end of the game a video appears of the animals taking a bow on stage
and a Malaysian singer singing a love song.
33
Mini Games
There are a selection of mini games. This is supposed to imitate real-world
kids games, give new gameplay for the player, focus on certain interpersonal
relationships between animals and give a smaller more focused experience,
where the failure of mechanical metaphor can be re-explored in a smaller
setting. Rather than the overarching main game these smaller gameplay
sections are supposed to be more focused and show clear progression
towards the real world truth behind Zookeeper, and towards the player
understanding and trying to manipulate game systems that abstractly
represent the real world situations of Zookeeper.
Much like information screens, mini games are activated through various ingame actions, which vary from, ending the day by clicking on the Sun to
trigger a mini game, or stacking certain animals in cages giving them a certain
food that triggers a mini game. It will be possible for the player to experience
all of these mini games by following the instructions of Crow, reading
information screens or simply by experimenting.
The mini games change in much the same way that the main game changes:
the representations break down, graphics become corrupt, sounds, images
game feel changes; building a dissonance between the story that the player is
told by the game they are experiencing, but within the mini games these
changes are a lot more abrupt.
34
As there are only three iteration cycles of each mini game the changes
become more abrupt and more severe, with some mini games straying into
the absurd and the abstract in their last iteration.
35
The player must guide the giraffe across a series of cages with a few animals
placed in the other cages. Mainly, this is against the crocodile, and if the
crocodile shares the same cage with the giraffe the game is over. This is a
36
The players goal is to get the giraffe to the other side of the screen without
getting caught by the crocodile. Eventually more sub-goals will be introduced
preventing the giraffe going into certain cages, not allowing the crocodile into
certain cages, not using certain food within certain cages.
This mini game is changed in several ways. First of all, the food likes are
randomised between turns. The level layout differs, the amount of crocodiles
and foods that the player has access to all change. Resulting in a complex
series of food movements the player will need to fully understand and
manipulate food interactions to get through these later levels.
37
Giraffe = K. Brechignac
Job: Scientist
Nationality: EU-French
Age:43
Crocodile = Mehrzad
Job: scientist
Nationality: German
Age:28
38
Character Relationships
All of the animals in the game represent real-world crewmembers travelling on
an interplanetary spaceship. They are nearly all either scientists or engineers,
travelling for a research mission. Learning the relationship between the
characters through the games mechanics is one of the most important things
for the player to understand.
39
The lion/Peter Bafton is good friends with the crocodile/ Mehrzad, but best
friends with the bear/ Alexander.
The lion hates the giraffe/ Brechignac as he sees how the lion/ Peter Bafton is
manipulating the crocodile/ Mehrzad.
Under the normal conditions of the spaceship these are just underlying
tensions, but as the story progresses and the situation becomes more and
more dire, the hatred turns violent, the relationships become brutal and
shipmates can kill, injure and maim each other if the zookeeper doesnt stop
them.
40
Bibliography
https://www.freesound.org/people/edougla2/sounds/130312/
https://www.freesound.org/people/rhavinga/sounds/100262/
https://www.freesound.org/people/Dynamicell/sounds/17836/
http://audionautix.com/index.php
http://artboxdesign.biz/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/drawing-cartoonpeople-how-to-draw-faces-for-kids-step-by-step-people-for-kids-for.gif
http://www.clipartpanda.com/categories/crow-clip-art-black-and-white
http://www.clipartfr.com/en/data/clipart/frames/clipart_frames_borders_076.jpg
http://images.easyfreeclipart.com/48/farmer-clipart-for-kids-panda-freeimages-48034.png
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/--5njTJKhdKo/TxZbnb6-MmI/AAAAAAAAHPs/9TFp3-M1Ls/s1600/fabulous+gold++frame.png
http://www.wilhelmus.ca/wp-content/uploads/happy-sad-faces1.jpg
Word Count: 5,348
41
42