Hello everybody! I am inviting you to visit my site and download a functional specification for a game i was planning to make one day. The design document is incomplete, but the groundwork is there. Missing is mostly production work. I hope you'll enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. The document: http://rhuantavan.com/files/1f606d79669d755d5a7c63463bc02e0b-0.html Here is the complete project proposal in case you wonder what kind of game I am talking about: Welcome Visitor! First let me introduce myself. I am Talli Tharschinkewratz and I welcome you to The Labyrinth. Let’s suppose that at some point in time the gods become bored to death. What do gods do when they are bored to death? Simple. They build an endless labyrinth consisting of little rooms in which they put tons of treasure and a fair amount of traps to entertain unaware tourists. Now, a particularly cruel twist of fate (as gods like to call themselves really) has decided to put YOU inside that labyrinth. Well, that was pretty obvious... No, no, no, ... now, don’t get upset. You look like you might even make it to the next couple of rooms in one piece... Here comes some exciting news for you. You know, my kind was given an exceptionally sensitive hearing, and I couldn’t help myself from overhearing something interesting from the “highest” authorities - if you know who I am referring to. It seems our branch of fools held an ale drinking party last night, celebrating the defeat of another labyrinth “visitor”. A cup followed another and finally someone uttered something that should better not be uttered: “Let it be known that I Truthinia, *HIC!* goddess of truth shall *HIC!* let the one, who first makes his way out of the la… *HIC!*… labyrinth, have a place here, among us *HIC!* gods!” The gods would most probably try to deny what has been said that night, so I have stored every single word inside a remember-it-all bottle fashioned by our local inventor. Hey, keep your hands off! I don’t have it. Yep, you heard me, I don’t have that bottle. Somebody stole it from me. If I’d have it, I’d give it to you, but now all I can give is what’s inside the chest over there... A Word on Your Future So your adventure begins. Now that you are stuck inside the labyrinth and you are increasingly becoming nervous and hungry for that bottle, you decide to search for it and get the deserved vacation. During your successful travels from room to room you encounter various interesting characters, deadly enemies and at the end of each of the four labyrinth levels you fight a guardian. There's more than one way to solve each enigma or beat a foe – you might either opt to use your brains, or in case you are just too tired to think, simply »dispose« the uglies. After defeating the last guardian and having retrieved the remember-it-all bottle, you are prepared for a long and pleasant vacation amongst your fellow gods. A Powerful Combination The Rooms Project is a unique game hybrid of many genres. It has the dynamicity of an arcade game, the depth of an RPG, the humor of a great adventure, and – if you wish, the involvedness of a puzzle. The game features advanced character AI and a modern 3D engine, rendering a high-detailed third-person view of the labyrinth and its inhabitants. Replayability at it’s best While classic role-playing games will usually let you play through as many times as you want, they will never provide a new playing experience the next time you decide to start a new game. The Rooms Project is different. Each time you fire up a new game, the level is randomly rebuilt and the world’s inhabitants gain knowledge of the new world’s structure, like they lived in there for years! It’s all about immersion The game’s unique level structure makes you want to play “just one more room”. Because each level is composed of hundreds of small randomized rooms, you never know what to expect behind the next door. This leads you naturally through alternating states of tension and relief, which means you never feel stuck or bored. Exciting character development We might have taken the complicated RPG character generation system, or we could have a limited set of predefined surrogate classes to choose from, but we are taking character development a little bit further than that. Players want to play the game as soon as they fire it up, without spending precious time blindly developing a character and wandering how the character will be suited for the levels to come. Also gone is the »fast« workaround by presenting the player a set of predefined characters to choose from. We want the player to jump right into the game, no questions asked. We have achieved that by introducing special items (mutation items), which can change the player character through both appearance and abilities. The items need to be bought by the player from wandering shopkeepers scattered throughout the game environment, thus making good use for the treasures collected. This is a clean and transparent way to build the character into whatever the player wants. Entertainment for the masses It doesn’t matter whether you are an experienced role player or a gaming newbie - anyone is able to pick up and play without the aid of long and boring introductory tutorials. Controls are minimal and intuitive, which make the learning curve exceptionally flat… for any type of player of any age. A wacky world Anyone wants to have a good laugh and games can be no exception. Be prepared to meet colorful, multi-dimensional characters, each living their wacky lives so different from anybody’s. Meet Elfendol Starshine, the great scholar studying tomes in the middle of a green forest room; Magus Spellfizzle, the old senile mage desperately trying to clean his rat-infested room; Breda Sharpspoon, the dirty, angry, local cook with her sweat pouring into the soup she makes, and many other peculiar characters! Marketing Hooks Simple point and click controls for movement, dialogue and fighting! An incredible, fully-developed game environment Design easily portable to other gaming platforms! Extreme replayability value Target Requirements 1GHz processor GeForce 3 class DirectX9 or OpenGL graphics accelerator with 32MB of RAM 256MB of RAM 600MB of disk space OpenAL Audio support (to minimize expenses) Release Date: / Documentation: Manual Suggested Retail: / Playing Time: 50 hours Bringing Fun into Games Gamers are ready to play something refreshing at last! The Rooms Project is sure to give them an addictive and replayable experience with a gentle learning curve. [Edited by - Rhuantavan on January 31, 2007 6:04:49 AM]

Looks like Rogue.

sounds A LOT like Gauntlet II, on my old Amstrad CPC 6128. Save for the 3D rendering. Ok, Let's make a Gauntlet III with 3D rendering...

I believe that size doesn't always matter in design documentation. If you took your time reading it all, you noticed that I covered enough of the game's features to start working on the game. Sure some sections are still incomplete, like the user interface, sounds, ... and I only started to fill in all of the game play elements which would probably make the document much larger.

The game depends a lot on characters and character interaction, this is why I like to place it much closer to the classic adventure genre, than the hack&slash counterpart.