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

Trial by Inn

Adapt your tavern to make it the best in the land!

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

Overview

Players: 1

Genre: Fantasy Casual Puzzle

Themes: Light-Hearted, Organizational Planning

Core mechanic:  Move objects to reconfigure a layout and make paths to keep happy customers coming.

One line pitch: Use telekinesis to reconfigure your tavern like a puzzle to accommodate your customers and keep them happy.

Engine: Unity 2020

Story

The player is an innkeeper from the Ethshar of the Spices who became a Warlock after the Night of Madness. Instead of seeking power or changing professions they decided to keep their job as an Innkeeper and incorporate their new powers into running the inn. This has made the inn something of a novelty, and there is more business than ever before!  Everyone wants to visit the warlock and their magnificent inn. Will the Warlock be able to keep up with the customers? They must use magic to allow for as many customers as possible, and to keep them as happy as possible, in order to maximize profit.  To do this the innkeeper will use their telekinetic powers to ensure that their restaurant is sat to the maximum potential and organized in a way that makes as many of their beloved patrons happy as possible.  But, with all this fame and business comes great struggles.  The inn is now held to a high standard and the player must work to keep this standard to ensure maximum profit.

Art

Mood Board:

Sprites:

Rules

Controls:

• Left-Click to select an object. It will rise into the air.
• Use W,S,A,D keys to move the object forward, back, left, and right.
• Left-Click on the object again to deselect and put it back down on the grid.
• For NPCs, left-click on them to select. Then left-click at an available seat or exit and they will attempt to walk to that location.

Gameplay Loop:

• Customers of a specific type enters.
  • If the player takes too long to move a customer to a seat, they will leave the queue, and the player would lose out on the potential cash they could have received from said customer’s patronage (only a certain number of customers will appear per level, so each one is important to getting a high score).
• Players make a path from the entrance to a table with an available seat for the customer at the front of the queue by moving and rotating tables, obstacles, and other objects. 
• After a set amount of time, the customer will wish to leave the inn. Once this occurs, the player must once again move around objects within the restaurant to create a path for them to the exit.
  • If the player takes too long to let the customer leave, then they will become “enraged”. Enraged customers will prevent any additional customers from being seated at their table, and they will continue to do so until the player lets them out.

Levels:

• The difficulty will rise from level to level as more customers come to the inn at a progressively higher rate. There will also be an increasingly random chance for obstacles (such as spills or broken crockery) to appear and take up space.
• As levels go on, the player will also have more dining space and furniture to manage.

Score (Money):

• Score is based on the speed at which customers are seated when they first arrive, and the speed at which they are let out when they are finished with their stay.
  • Satisfied customers will tip nicely, which will boost the player’s score.
  • The longer players take, they angrier customers will get, lowering the money they give. Levels of anger will be indicated by a bubble above their head.
• Customers of the same type, when seated at the same table, will increase the money they give the player. 
• Some other factors, such as whether or not the bard is nearby, will also increase or decrease the size of the tip the player receives from a customer.

Win Condition:

• A level will be completed when there are no more customers to service.
• The player will win if they reach a certain point threshold for that level.
  • If that threshold is not met, the player will fail and need to replay the level in order to progress.

Mechanics

What the player can do:

The player takes the role of the Warlock innkeeper. 

• They can use telekinesis to move objects in the tavern such as tables and other types of furniture along a grid. 

Customers will come into the tavern

• The player can direct each one to a seat at a table. 
• There must be an open path from the door to the target seat for the customer, which the player creates and maintains by moving furniture and other objects.

Goals/Win Condition:

The player's goal is to make as much money as possible before the night ends. 

• Each night is a level that ends after a set amount of time has passed.
  • The more customers served in that time will mean the more money the player makes. Happier customers will also make more money. 

The Inn:

The inn is set up as a 20x20 grid square that expands on certain levels of the game. 

• There are walls on each side, a door at the front, and a bar in the back where food appears from. 
• The player can control objects in the inn and move them around. 
  • This includes tables, sometimes while customers are still sitting at them, or other entities such as a Bard that have effects such as improving the customers' happiness around it.

Customer AI:

Customers enter the inn in intervals on a timer. 

• If they are not seated, more will line up outside, but they will leave if they are made to wait too long. 
• After the player selects a customer and a seat for them to go to, they will attempt to make a path along the grid to that seat. 
  • If they become stuck, the player will have to rearrange objects in their way to create a path for them. 

Customers can be made more happy based on their experience at the inn. Customer happiness can be improved in a number of different ways, including:

• Seating them quickly
• Seating them near others of similar class or profession
• Following their instructions (e.g. "I want to sit near the window")

The happier the customer, the more money they will leave before they depart, and so a higher score for the player!

• Customers can become angry if they are seated too slowly or in some cases if their instructions are not followed. 
  • When this happens, no other customers will be able to sit at the same table for a short time.

Obstacles:

Difficulty increases with each level of the game. 

• More customers will approach the inn more quickly
• More furniture will be added in sometimes inconvenient shapes that the player must deftly adapt paths to. 
• There is a higher chance of customers becoming angry, and spills can occur that block off paths until they are cleaned.

UI: 

• Tables will turn one color if customers at that table are mostly from the same class.
• The main menu will consist of a title graphic along with two buttons, one to start the game and one to see an instructions screen. 
  • The instructions screen will have the same background as the title and consist of a list of instructions the player will need to know. It will also have a button to return to the main menu. 
  • The start button on the main menu will take you directly into the game. 
• The game will then have a few things that the player can view, such as score and the number of customers sat. 
  • There will also be a pause button that will open a small menu that allows the player to exit the game.

Timeline

Milestone 1: (10/2)

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

Milestone 2: (10/9)

• Basic functionality: Grid, tiles
• Basic Art: Squares and basic shapes

Milestone 3: (10/14)

• Improved functionality: AI Pathfinding, UI 
• Prototype Art: Base person, tables

Milestone 4: (10/21)

• Integration of Game Mechanics: Playtest
• More art: Animation (Sitting, walking)

Milestone 5: (10/27 PROTOTYPE DUE)

• Tutorial
• Balance + Polish
• More art: Plates and food, Bard