REC

The Sounds I See

Game Design Document
By: Tyler Osborne
December 14, 2017
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Table of Contents

Overview…………………………………………………………………………………………………3

Characters……………………………………………………………………………………………4

System & Controls…………………………………………………………………………5

Power-ups………………………………………………………………………………………………9

Traps………………………………………………………………………………………………………11

Gameplay………………………………………………………………………………………………12

Victory Conditions……………………………………………………………………15

Map Creation……………………………………………………………………………………16

Audio………………………………………………………………………………………………………17

Art……………………………………………………………………………………………………………18
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Overview

In an underground research facility, one of the subjects breaks free and attempts
to escape. ICHz067, the first successful test subject of rewiring the human brain to
become a person with synesthesia. The experiment allows the subject to see sounds.
But just before the test subject escaped, the power cut out and only the auxiliary
security system is functional. It is up to the head of security to find the subject and direct
the guards to key locations to halt and capture the subject before they can escape.
The Test Subject will have a Third-person perspective as they try to find their
way out. Along the way, the player can search through rooms to find power-ups and
traps to help deceive the Head of Security and have a better chance of escaping. The
player will also be able to hide in and under objects like tables, lockers, desks, etc. to
confuse the guards and wait until the coast is clear to continue with their escape
attempt.
The Head of Security will be in a control room looking at dual monitors. The left
screen will have the floor plan of the research facility on it and have green dots
representing the guard’s location. The player will be able to direct the movements of the
guards through this screen. The right monitor, however, shows areas where cameras
are located. The player can select a location and bring up the camera’s point of view to
better locate where the escapee might be.
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Characters

Test Subject ICHz067

Before becoming a test subject, Mark Ryan was a 36-year old black father
of 2 from Illinois. When a drought hit the area and his family farm was financially
struggling, Mark took it upon himself to look for quick cash. That was when he
read an article looking for physically fit individuals who were willing to test
experimental drugs. Reluctant, but feeling the pressure of financial insecurity,
Mark went to the local town and got accepted into trial. The testers were seeing if
their new sleeping drug was effective, as such, Mark had to spend the night at
the research facility. But when he woke up, he realized that he was not where he
was when he fell asleep and that is when the true experiments started to take
place.

Head of Security
Keith Summers was an exceptional data analyst for the CIA. At the age of
29, Keith saved the lives of a small platoon of US soldiers stationed in Iraq from a
terrorist plot because of his skills. After the platoon leader was tipped off by a
local informant, Keith was sent over by the leader’s request for help. While there,
Keith used his skills of analyzing data to find out about the details for a plot
planned to attack the platoon when they were planning on doing a training
exercise out in the mountains. After letting the commanding officers know about
the information that he collected, Keith was tasked with trying to hack into and
find out more details about the terrorists. Once he gained the information
necessary, the platoon raided the terrorist stronghold and stopped their plot,
saving the lives of the men in the platoon. For his service in Iraq, the CIA
stationed Keith at the research facility without telling him what was the true
purpose of the facility. But once the test subjects were brought in, he was
confronted with the reality. However, when he tried to report his findings, he was
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threatened with being charged with treason and execution. Fearful for his life,
Keith has to watch over the test subjects and report when things seem fishy.
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Console/System

The Sounds I See will be created for the PC. It will be created in either the Unity
Engine or Unreal Engine 4.

Controls

Test Subject ICHz067

 The player will use the standard WASD and mouse movement control
scheme to move the character and camera.
 While exploring and trying to find the way out, there will be many interactables
for the player to use. By using the E key, the player will be able to either
interact or pick up the interactable:
o Doors, Lockers, Powerups, Traps.
 The player will use the number keys to switch between the different traps and
powers they might have collected while trying to escape. The order can be
changed at the player’s discretion. After a power-up is used, it will go on cool
down or if an item was used it will be removed from the player’s inventory.

Head of Security
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The player will use the mouse for a majority of their interactions. They will
use the cursor and left mouse button to move between the two main view modes:
Cameras and Floor plan. While using one monitor, the focus of the other monitor
becomes more fuzzy demonstrating that the Head of Security is focusing on the
selected monitor, but is still able to notice what is happening with the other.

Camera
The Cameras will be laid out in the outline of the floor plan. The
player can click onto a room and have a POV of the room from that
camera, if there are multiple cameras in the room, the player can use the
A or D key to swap between the different cameras. Hitting the Right
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Mouse button will back the player out of the POV mode.

If sound is detected in a room that has a working camera, the room

will flash red for a few seconds allowing the player to know that there is
unknown activity. However, in POV mode, the player will not be notified
unless they back out to the overview mode.
While in POV mode, any sound that did not originate from the
Guards will show up as a red heat map, while the guards will show up as
green. If the heat map of an unknown sound and guard overlap (in any
combination) it will show up as yellow.
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Floor Plan
On another computer monitor will be the blueprints of the research
facility and green dots showing where the guards have been detected by
the security cameras. The player can select one guard at a time and Left
Click a room. If the guard is not in the selected room, then they will move
to the room. If the guard is already in the room, the player can Right Click
after selecting the guard and have them search the room.
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Power-Ups

Test Subject ICHz067

Mimic
After gaining this powerup, the test subject has figured out how to
mimic the sound the Guard’s Transmitters emit. For a short period of time,
the escapee whistles at that frequency and adds a Guard Icon onto the
Head of Security’s Blueprint mode and confuse the security cameras as to
not recognize an unknown sound. In addition, the sound trail that the
escapee leaves behind will look like one of the Guard’s green paths.

Doppler
After gaining this powerup, the test subject has become
understanding of the doppler effect and can tell the direction that the
Guards are facing. If a guard is facing towards a direction, the color they
will emit will be red, if they are facing away from direction, then the color
will be green.
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Projection/Echo
After gaining this powerup, the test subject can project their voice and
allow it to echo off walls and down hallways a short distance. This will trip any
working security cameras, causing the affected cameras to flash on the Head of
Security’s Camera mode. This will also erase all trails that were previously there
and leave a fresh red trail.

Head of Security (These may or may not be implemented)

Lockdown
The Head of Security has the front door go on lockdown for a
period of time. This will lock out the escapee from winning the game.

Reinforcements
Instead of having the usual 6 guards on patrol, the Head of Security
gets 4 more guards, making it 10 guards to start looking for the escapee.
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Traps

Delayed Decoy
After a quick setup time, a sound producing transmitter is placed on the
ground. Depending on the model, a delay is set to a short, medium, or long timer.
Once the timer is up, the transmitter starts to make erratic noise setting off any
cameras in the room/hallway.

Tripwire
After a quick setup time, a tripwire is set up across a hallway or doorway.
This will slow down the advancement of any patrolling guard or trip a chasing
guard for a couple of seconds.

Camera Loop
After a long setup time, the camera that the escapee tampers with will be
put on a loop. The camera will no longer function normally and detect any
unusual sounds, but the Head of Security can still view through the camera and
not be notified that the camera has been tampered with.

Guard Uniform
The player discovers an unused guard uniform and is able to put it on for a
resonable amount of time. However, because the player does not have any
undergarments, the clothing becomes too unconfortable to wear and must be
taken off for a while before the player can put it back on.
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Gameplay

Test Subject ICHz067

The player will spawn in the testing room, the farthest room from the front
door. The player will be dressed in a patient’s gown and will not have any armor
or weapons. The player will have to causiously move about the facility to find the
exit. While trying to escape, the player will be able to see the sounds coming
from the guards like light being reflected off walls or down tunnels.

Some rooms may contain items or power-ups for the player to utilize,
however, time spent looking for these means that its more time for the guards to
block off the player’s escape routes. Power-ups will be in glowing needles that
are injected into the player to gain the effects. The spawn location of the power-
ups will be static, but which power-up will be contained will change from game to
game. Each power-up will have a color associated with it so the player can know
at a glance if it is a power-up that wish to have or can just leave.
Traps will also be located throughout different rooms in the facility and will
have a gold ring outlining them. Each trap is a one time use item, but some types
of traps will have more than one scattered throughout the facility.

Head of Security
The Head of Security will be sitting infront of two monitors in a control
room. The left monitor will have the floor plan of the facility and have green dots
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representing the guards. The right monitor will have the locations of the cameras
and will flash red if unknown sounds are heard in an area.
Six guards will spawn in the facility lobby and will be directed by the Head
of Security to hunt down and capture the escapee. In order for the guards to
move, the Head of Security must select the left monitor, which will put focus on
the monitor and make the surroundings hazing, but still noticable if something on
the other monitor goes off.
While focusing on this monitor, the player can select a guard and then
select an area and the guard will move towards that location on his own path.
But, the player can set checkpoints for the guard to follow so that they have more
control on how they wish for the guards to move.

After backing out of focus on the Blueprint monitor, the player can focus
on the Camera monitor. While focusing on this monitor, the player can select a
room or hallway that has a camera in them and have a POV of the area from the
camera. If multiple camera are in a room or hallway, the player can swap
between them using the A or D key. While in this POV mode, the player can see
tracks of sound that have been detected a short time ago and color codes it
based on whether it was a guard, green, unknown, red, or yellow if both a red
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and green were detected near the same time. The size of the track fades the
longer it has been since sound has been detected until the trail is no longer
visibal. However, in this mode, the player cannot see any activity detected by the
other cameras.
If the player backs out of the POV mode and just has the camera locations
mode on, if a camera detects a sound, the room or hallway that the camera is in
will blink for a short time. It will blink green if a guard was detected or red if an
unknown sound is detected. However, this display will only happen when a new
sound enters the camera’s detection radius. If, for example, the escapee is
making noise in a room, it will leave a trail in the POV mode, but not display
every instance of sound in the camera Mode. Only the intial instance of new
sound.
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Victory Conditions

Test Subject ICHz067

The Goal of the player is to NOT get surrounded by the Guards and to
find the exit to escape. The player will need to get to the Box trigger right
in front of the Front Doors to become the winner.

Head of Security
The goal of the player is to have the Guards surround the test subject. If
the test subject is in a Room, then there will need to be a Guard
guarding the doorway and one searching the room, otherwise, the test
subject could escape. To be consider trapped, the guards must cover all
exits. Ex: both sides to a hallway; all for ways for a + - shaped hallway; 1
searching a room with 1 blocking the doorway, etc.
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Procedurally Generated Map/Floor Plan

Each map/floor plan will be procedurally generated from a list of predetermined

tile sets. Every map will have the same rooms, connections, and hallways, but arranged
in a procedurally generated layout, making every game a new experience for both
players. Because of this, the escapee will not be able to memorize the most optimized
path because each map is unique. Thus, making them feel like the escapee trying to
escape an unknown place. However, because each tile set is selected from a “prefab”
the escapee can memorize what a room looks like and what items are located in a
room. If a room contains 1 trap and 1 power-up, then that room will always spawn a trap
and power-up. However, which power-up or trap is spawned in a room is different with
each map. So, it changes the dynamic of the game for both the escapee and Head of
Security because both won’t know what power-ups or traps the escapee will gain
access to and when.
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Audio
Music
Escapee:
The music that the escapee will be listening to would be of the style of
many stealth games like Metal Gear Solid, Hitman, etc. That being slow and
tension building while trying to sneak around and fast paced when once spotted
and being chased. The music should amplify the feeling the player should be
feeling throughout the game.

Head of Security:
The music should be similar to elevator music or music found in office
buildings. I want the music to make the player feel far removed from the action
and feel like it’s just another day on the job. They music should keep the player
calm and allow them to focus on their strategy and react as the situation changes
because of the escapee’s movements.

SFX
 Foot steps
 High-pitched humming (Transmitter frequency)
 Radio chatter
 Yelling
 Beeping
 Power-up SFX (when the escapee gains a power-up)
 Alert Beep
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Art
The art style will be influenced by other stealth games such as Hitman:
Absolution and Metal Gear Solid 5. Realistic and well detailed to allow the escapee to
know where they are located and what tile set an area is to allow them to know what
items, power-ups, or hiding places are available.