This is the design document originally created and submitted for the game reformatted and uploaded here for your viewing pleasure.

Central Scoop

And the Case of the Missing Pizza!

Magical creatures, alternate dimensions, and stolen pizza: sounds like a job for New York City's finest journalist!

   Alessandro Fiorella, Brandon Service, Carson Lampila, Liliana Klein, Lucas Veldman

Overview

Players: 1

Genre: 2D Casual Mystery Adventure / 2D Point-and-Click Adventure Mystery

Themes: Light-Hearted, Mystery

Core Mechanic: Explore different areas to gather different items and clues in order to solve puzzles and mysteries.

One Line Pitch: Uncover the truth behind the missing pizza by hopping between dimensions and helping all manner of magical creatures in this retro 2D adventure game.

Engine: Unity 2020

Story

The Central Scoop is a small-time newspaper in a big city. Play as Central Scoop reporter, Miss Victoria “Vic” Turry who has been assigned to write a story about a local pizza store that has reported mysterious disappearances (of pizza, not people). After some investigating, Vic comes to realize that the disappearances may not be so mundane after all. The culprit isn't just any pizza rat or particularly enterprising pigeon--it's actually a being Vic didn't believe existed outside of bedtime stories. Once Vic understands the hidden nature of her world, she is pulled into an adventure that goes way beyond what she expected to write in her story. 

Art

Mood Board:

Proof of Concept Background:

Concept Sketches:

Rules

Controls:

• Use the mouse to click on objects, obstacles, and characters in the scene to interact with, investigate, or acquire them.
  • Items can be stored in the player's inventory for later use in puzzle solving.
• Click items in your inventory to ready them for use, and then click again on the desired object within the scene to use the readied item.
  • Items are generally “one time use”; they’re more like items in a trade quest than they are Zelda items.

Gameplay Loop:

• The player goes from screen to screen checking what can be interacted with and what can be taken.
• Players will talk with NPC’s in order to get clues about the puzzles and the overarching mystery.
• Players will use their items in the correct spots to progress further in the game and potentially garner new items that will help solve puzzles in other scenes.
• Eventually, players will gain access to the Nevernever, and will be able to travel there on each screen by helping out the fairy on that screen.
  • The gameplay loop stays the same between the Nevernever and our dimension.
  • Changing things in one dimension will alter things in the other.

Win Condition:

• Solve all of the puzzles and progress to the end of the story.
  • The game is semi-linear, meaning that players cannot beat the game and win without having completed them all at some point.

Lose Condition

• There is no lose condition within the game; the player is simply unable to win unless they solve all of the presented puzzles.

Mechanics

Players will progress throughout various scenes and will find numerous people, creatures,  and objects that they can interact with. By interacting the player will be presented with one of two different generalized outcomes. Either the player will be given the object with which they interacted with (or a subsequently related object), or they will be presented with a challenge in which they need to discover an additional object or piece of information to complete. The player will be able to interact with all people and objects presented on the screen with any item in their inventory, each of which will give a unique response, until the interactable person’s or object’s needs are fulfilled and the player is rewarded with something they will find useful in the future. Objects found within the scene will often have to be taken to another scene to solve challenges there, encouraging players to remember what they have seen through their playthrough. The game will require the completion of these puzzles by the player to reach their eventual end goal of solving the final mystery.

Timeline

Milestone 1: (11/6)

• Design doc, elevator pitch, e.t.c 
• Make project in Unity and figure out Version Control

Milestone 2: (11/13)

• Basic Functionality: The ability to move between screens, interact with objects, pick up objects (and put them in an “inventory”), and use said objects to interact with other objects.
• Basic Art: Squares and basic shapes
• Basic Plot: Start planning out any important plot points/dialogue necessary for the mystery.
• Playtest Core Build: Have people playtest they core gameplay loop (getting items, interacting with things, using items).

Milestone 3: (11/20)

• Designing Game: Design and implement final puzzles and dialogue.
• Art Creation: Object assets, backgrounds, hud.
• Implement Plot: Implement finalized dialogue and plot elements.

Milestone 4: (11/27)

• More Design: Continue designing puzzles; add onboarding.
• More Art: More assets, UI.
• Playtesting + Iteration

Milestone 5: (12/8 PROTOTYPE DUE)

• Balance + Polish: music, sound effects, etc.
• Playtesting + Iteration
• More Art: Any finalized necessary art assets.

Stretch Goals

If we have time/get ahead of our timeline, we may add some or all of the following:

• The ability to move the player around the screen using WASD controls.
• The ability to combine items in your inventory in order to create new ones (for puzzle solving purposes).
• A “final report” mechanic, wherein you need to create a report of what happened using items in a sort of “mad libs” style in order to uncover the truth behind the mystery.