Prey’s "golden nuggets"

Rationale

This document is the repository of those ideas which we’ve developed over the last year or so that we want to get in Prey. This is a very elite, very selective list—probably 80-90% of the ideas we’ve come up with didn’t make it this far.

Rather than a standard design doc, this is meant to augment the Prey design docs with one specific focus—it outlines things that we want to do in Prey that will separate us from the crowd in this genre. Some of these ideas are risky—some take chances with player’s expectations and perceived familiarity with the genre. But it is precisely by taking chances (albeit carefully thought-out chances) that we will make Prey an exceptional game.

To review our goals for this game, here is an excerpt from our Prey mission statement:

• Prey, as a game, will redefine the standards of the action game genre, in play, in story and in technology.
• Our Portal Technology engine will define the bloody edge of technology, and will allow Prey, and other games that use this engine, to achieve a "play fidelity" which eclipses anything yet seen by our players or competition.
• Talon Brave, as a character, will be the cornerstone to a long and vibrant franchise that will reach out far beyond simply PC action games, much like Duke is doing.
• Prey will tell a story to our players, the story of Talon Brave and his adventures as he struggles to understand the Trocara and their mysterious Keepers.
• Prey will deliver both gameplay and story to the player at a frenetic pace, never letting the player take anything for granted, never letting them relax their guard—the player will be exhausted and exhilarated at the end of a Prey play session.
• Prey will offer an intense and vibrant multiplay experience, offering new approaches to both Deathmatch and Co-op play.
• The Prey world will constantly react and respond to the player, always allowing the player to feel that he is an agent of change in the game universe.
• More than anything, Prey will be a blast to play!

Major design "golden nuggets"

These ideas are major departures from current design convention or current player expectation. These are the riskiest things we will attempt in Prey, but if they work, then will have made Prey truly a ground breaking game.

General

If you get too encumbered, you get slower—this allows players to have a single, smaller weapon, but be able to outrun their opponents

Single play

• Let’s not have health powerups at all—only health stations and health objects. The player can run through health stations for a quick 10% boost, or can remain at them to gain additional health. In single play, remaining at a health station will signal an alarm. Health objects are natural objects in the game that the player must learn to use to gain health—things like rat-like creatures he can eat, energy crystals, etc.
• As Talon moves along in the single player game, he is secretly "scored"-when he reaches certain score thresholds, his demeanor will change (he is growing more confidant), so that the content of his spoken dialogue will alter. We also want to give him slight performance bonuses, as well.
• Instead of having an weapons "floating" around in single play at all, the primary means to get a better weapon is to kill a foe using that weapon—adds challenge and excitement, because you’ll have to work hard to "upgrade" your weapons.
• A new item class that we’ll call "puzzle object"—these items work in certain situations or in combination with other puzzle objects. They are a separate inventory class altogether, and accessed differently. Most are used once and then disappear forever from your inventory. For example, a wire-repair kit to repair a panel to open a door. Or a can of oil that you poor into a machine to get it working. Or a piece of paper containing a code to be used later. Basically, inventory items like you found in adventure games, and you hung onto them until you figured out how and where to use them. For example, you could find a can of gas, empty bottles, some rags, and make a Molotov cocktail. Imagine the player's excitement in figuring this out. On the other hand, the player might put the can of gas somewhere and attach a proximity fuse to it, making a gas mine. Giving the player this freedom to make objects will be seen as ultra-cool.
• Saving, difficulty levels: this is "the big risk." Here’s the best possibility to date: there are five difficulty levels: Training, Easy, Challenging, Nightmare and Over-the-top. The player can start at whatever level they want. The game, though, increases in difficulty as played: Training level only works on Chapter 1; Easy level only works for Chapters 1-2. Chapters 3-6 will always be played at Challenging or more difficult levels. If you play on Training level, you will be switched to Easy for Chapter 2. No matter what easy level you start on (Training or Easy), you’ll be switched to Challenging at Chapter 3.
• Training level: you can save at any time, all cheats are active, there are less monsters (and they all appear in the same locations), less weapon varieties, you can only explore about 60% of the environments and you don’t get the ending cinematic or character interactions (this is a big question mark in my mind).
• Easy level: you can save at any time, some cheats are active, a few more monsters (but still at the same locations), a few more weapons, you can access about 75% of the level, and still no character interactions or cinematics (also, in Chapter 2—no "awakening" of mystical powers).
• Challening level: (this is the primary design skill level—this is how we want the game to be played). No cheats are active, you get all monsters, at varied locations, all weapons, access to all pasts of the level. At the end of a level, you can do a "true" save. If you die, you restart the level. You can "capture" play at anytime (if you have to quit playing for dinner or something like that), but once you restore a capture, it is gone—there is no reverting back.
• Nightmare level: Essentially, the same as challenging, but with more monsters.
• Over-the-top level: This is the "Master’s" level! More monsters, a few new surprises and you only get one life (there is no saving at the end of levels, only "capture" saving). If someone finishes this level, they should be able to be "registered" as a master player on our web page.

MultiPrey

• Let’s not have health powerups at all—only health stations. The player can run through these for a quick 10% boost, or can remain at them to gain additional health. Perhaps the health station can sound an "in use" alarm to alert the other players.
• When you get killed, there is a time penalty before respawn. 10 seconds for a regular frag, 15 for a suicide. (perhaps this can be an option during MultiPrey setup)
• After you respawn, you get 3 seconds of invisibility (but you can’t pick anything up). (perhaps this can be an option during MultiPrey setup)
• In DM, a player can only carry 2 or 3 weapons (perhaps we should enable this number to be altered during MultiPrey setup—there can be "no limit" as in single play, or the players can select any # between 1 and 10 for maximum weapons load). He can pick the ones he wants as he runs through a level, and to get a new one, he’ll drop one he already has. This can be very cool if the majority of our weapons are very balanced.
• Not only "MultiPrey" as different human-type entities, but allow a player to become one of the alternates—for example, the Saurian Quad.
• It would be great if the player could create a "character" for a multiplayer game that would be a species, a skin variation, and a budget of "points" to add to the various capabilities to create a unique character. Some possibilities are: speed, "sixth sense," weapon accuracy, stealth, etc. We just need to make sure that the various abilities actually mean something in the game.
• In addition, we could have a "mundane" and a magical game—the magical game would allow player to take on the role of Talon and be able to spend points setting up their mystical powers (sort of like the force powers in Jedi Knight). We may even give players a power bonus if they are limited to melee-only weapons.

Major technology "golden nuggets"

These ideas will take considerable technological wizardry to pull off—we should evaluate them soon based upon their perceived technological complexity.

General

• Things like crates, rocks, cash registers, etc. are all dynamic—they can be moved, if light enough they can be picked up and thrown, pushed over a ledge, destroyed, etc.
• How do we do water in Prey? As we thought about before, the surface of water is a portal—what is under water is a complete room with the movement, gravity and viscosity properties that make it water. If you are part way in the water, then you take on water properties. We can use an extrusion as a cutting plane to sever geometry into above and below water rooms. How do we do the surface? We could do it as an animated texture on the surface of the portal. Another possibility, to get some dynamism to the surface, is to have the surface of water be an animated mesh object with a translucent texture (animated or not) applied to it. It rests just above the water portal plane and undulated to give a really nice effect. How do we do rising (or lowering) water? In both the above water and below water room, we have their geometry extend beyond the current water portal. When the water rises or lowers, we transform the portal in both rooms, and the effect will be the same as the water rising or lowering.
• Let’s have a distortion on water textures like the distortion when Mario jumps into a painting like in Mario 64. When Talon jumps in or tosses something in the water.
• Vehicles: these range from simple things, like a tram and speeder-bike, to more challenging vehicles like a shuttle that allows the player to fly outside of the Trocaran mothersip.
• General dynamically created, dynamically moving portals.
• Portal device: available in single play and MultiPrey, this is a two part object—transmitter and receiver. The player tosses a receiver somewhere and then tosses a transmitter somewhere. When activated, a dynamic portal is created between the two areas (we’ll probably have to limit how many of these can be active at one time).
• Robust camera and editing features: the ability to save demos, records 3^rd person camera locations, camera movements, cuts to different camera locations, digital and redbook playback, etc. We’ll use this for the game cinematics, as well as a cool "toy" for the players.

Single play

• AL: Neural-net based artificial learning utilized to "train" the entities in Prey. They will run with a neural-net, using defined parameters, in house-we’ll play against them and they will lean according to the behavior templates we set up. When they’re behavior is "just right," we’ll "record" their neural net to use for their AI "brain."
• AI variations: We want the entities in this game to be varied. First off, on Challenging and higher skill levels, they will not always appear in the same positions when a player replays the game. Also, and even more important, individual instances of an entity can posses unique capabilities. These will be defined by the mappers to be either absolute or random, and the various values (such as speed, hearing, health, aggressiveness, etc.) will fall within a pre-determined range for the particular entity class.
• Cinematics handled in the engine: see above for a description of the camera system. Cinematics will be entirely in engine (the actors movements will either be scripted or "played live" and then recorded). We’ll have dynamic camera movements, special "cinematic-only" animations, character speech, etc.
• Working CRT monitors: when the player gets close to certain terminals, he can access the information on those terminals and see the data scroll by on the screen.

MultiPrey

• Bot play as characters: Bots are included in the game, allowing the player to easily play against an "AI" entity. The player can save a bot as a character, after spending some points to outfit its capabilities. As an extension (now? Prey add-on pack? Prey 2?), we can have "learning bots" that react to the player via a neural-net and learn how to play better and more skillfully.
• Highlight films—perhaps in a multiplayer session, a demo can be recorded constantly—when the game is exited, the film is compressed so that only "spectacular" kills are recorded and we can then watch the highlight film. Questions: how much overhead does it take to record a whole multiplayer game (perhaps this option is only available on dedicated LAN servers)? How do we determine what "spectacular" kills are (should be fairly easy based upon our advanced scoring system)?
• Net games in which LAN players and Internet players exist in the same game.
• Opening a portal to another server.

No-brainer "golden nuggets"

These ideas really don’t stretch the technology of the game, nor to they pose a design risk—rather, these are fresh ideas that we should implement, simply because they haven’t really been done before and will greatly enhance the total game experience.

General

• We will track the projectile or energy beam accurately down along the barrel of the weapon (as it bobs and moves during a run, for example)—this will make shooting far more realistic.
• You can set certain weapons to overload (like ST phasers), so that they become like time bombs (you can suicide attack or drop it)
• You can shoot at a gun, and it will take damage—enough damage, and it becomes useless. If a gun suffers a critical hit, it can either jam, blow up or be knocked from the player’s grip.
• When you fire a rapid-fire gun, have it creep up on the player, forcing them to adjust their aim (already in Quake 2, in the rapid-fire pistol).
• You can walk, run or sprint. When you walk, your shots are more stable (they’re most stable when you’re standing still, of course), and your footsteps are silent. When you run, your shots are erratic and others can hear your steps. You can sprint—sprinting will place the gun in a "can’t fire" position. Sprinting is faster than running—you can jump farther as well. You can sprint as long as you want, but after x amount of time, you begin losing health—the more you keep sprinting, the faster your health loss. If you die during sprinting, you’ll clutch your chest and tumble to the ground. As soon as you fire your weapon in a sprint, there is a short delay as your weapon moves back into firing position and you slow down to a run.
• Modular interfaces on the screen that the player can move around and position anywhere-the game doesn't pause during the move operation, however. The player taps a key (like Tab) to activate the mouse pointer, and can then click and drag the interfaces--tapping the key again returns the player to normal control.
• Let’s have all vital information for the player (health and ammo), provided to the player in a "non-interface" manner (we’ll still have on-screen interfaces that can be toggled on or off). The health is indicated by heart rate, Talon’s sounds, etc. The ammo for a particular weapon is indicated via an animated texture on the gun.
• Talon makes panicked comments when he’s running low on ammo and is in a battle. When he reloads during a fight, have some comment like "get in there, you piece of shit!"
• Let’s really give a sense of passing time. In certain exterior areas, let’s have it deep night at times and "artificial dawn" at other times. When a player enters a hallway, for example, let’s have it fully lit most of the time, and lit by "emergency" lights at other times (presumably at "night" or other low-traffic times). When it’s lit only by emergency lights, the chance of a random encounter is less than during "normal business hours."
• Instead of having keys for a single door, have some sort of device (key, access card, access bracelet, etc.) that operates a whole class of doors. That way, a player may explore an area, but only certain doors or avenues may be open. In another environment, Talon nabs the access bracelet, so now when he returns to a previously explored level, there are new areas now accessible.
• Armor that protects specific areas of the body (helmet, breastplate, etc.)
• Critical hits (see the working design doc and entity designs for an explanation).

Single play

• Talon's default weapon, the wrench, will also come in handy during some "fix it up" puzzles and operations
• Many of the enemies use the same weapons that Talon can use—he kills them, he can get their weapons.
• Talon finds crystals clusters in certain areas of the game (probably saurian or insectoid), emitting dynamic light. Talon can smash them with his wrench or crowbar, and some of the pieces that break off are "prefect crystals" which he can pick up and use as ammunition/energy for his crystal-powered weapon.
• Let's have a "necklace of kills" that the play sees before loading a new play session (once he's played for a while). It will be filled with fingers, ears, etc. (done in cool 3D) of critters he's killed. It'll let the player see at a glance where he's at and the proud killin' he's done. As an aside, we could have a button that the player can click that will make this necklace, plus some other cool Prey stuff, into a .bmp image that it loads into the Windows directory and makes the current wallpaper.
• Mystic Walking -- After Talon first meets his grandfather, a plainwalker, he gets a medallion, which his grandfather says gives him a special ability, but doesn't say what. That ability, to be discovered by the player, is "mystic walking." The player presses a key that puts Talon in this mode, which allows Talon to leave his body and move in any direction, including up. This allows Talon to see in places he might not be able to see otherwise, and preview look around corners to see what awaits. When this mode is activated a Mystic Meter appears which shows how much time is left to do this. The whole while Talon's real body is motionless, but still open to attack. Any attack automatically pulls Talon back to his body. The journey back to his body is swift, and done using the spline method, so it'll look cool. Talon's mystic energy recharges slowly, so this is not an ability he can use often to great effect. Like a ghost, I don't think Talon should be able to in any way affect his surroundings will out of his body.
• We should have a "training" level, much like the introductory level in Lara’s house in Tomb Raider. This training level can take place in a canyon outside of the reservation—it begins with a 3^rd person pan around and zoom into Talon’s head. Through voice-overs from Talon, we can learn a little back story—like why he’s here—what his "spin" on life it, etc. Then, Talon (the player) can explore the canyon, run, jump, climb, pick up and through and object, etc. He can have his Colt Peacekeeper and he can shoot some cans—we could even have him hunt and kill a coyote. When he leaves the canyon, we get a voiceover of him saying something like "gotta get back to the garage to finish some work"—that gets him back for the real start of the game.
• Let’s have a room—like a cell. You’re trapped in it, and you hear sounds—only one light in the room, the walls are made up of a strange metallic substance. Then, the walls begin to fade away (we change their alpha), revealing beasts out in a larger arena (great for one of the arena levels)—finally the walls disappear absolutely, and you must face the creatures.
• Talon gets to a certain area of a level—on his way he heard shouting and shots. When he gets there, he sees a dead Indian captive and some guards who’ve just committed the execution. If Talon had run there right away, the would have had the chance to stop the guards from killing the individual—he might then get some vital or useful information (perhaps it unlocks a secret area, for example).
• In one level, Talon walks past an observation deck—below is an arena with some mega-creature wailing on some smaller creatures. Talon can’t get down there. In a level a little further on, Talon opens a door, only to find out that he’s opened the door to that arena and now has to battle the mega-creature.
• Scott’s example of evoking emotion: You talk with one of the other Indians, will say Bob, when you are on the Trocaran shuttle—he goes off to do something for you. Once you are on the Trocaran mothership, you run into him again, he’s in a cell and you talk about getting him out. Later, you come to a place where you can look through a window into an operating room—he’s screaming as he is being dissected. He sees you and screams for your help, but you can’t do anything.

MultiPrey

• You can "target" a player and tap a key to bring up, floating above their head, their trophy image, name, kill count, and a colored icon to indicate their health (green, yellow, red).
• A MultiPrey variation: all the time, the players are losing health. When they kill another player, an "ethereal spirit" rises up out of the corpse and remains there for 5 seconds or so. Running through this spirit cloud will give a 10% health boost. There are no other health powerups. Other players can run through the spirit of a kill you just made.
• Detailed scoring system—let’s have a very detailed, very cool multiplayer scoring system. One cool area to highlight could be suicides that you take someone else with you—either weapon overload or jump into lava or something like that. We also want to reward "most excellent" kills with some special score, like taking out someone with a pistol when they have a rocket launcher, or you have virtually no health, etc. Frags could be scored based on the difference between weapon types—if you have a rocket launcher and your target has a pistol, you don’t get much at all, but if you have the pistol and you take out a guy with a rocket launcher, then you get mega-points. You get bonus points if you have low health when you make a kill. Question: should you earn points just for damaging someone and not killing them? What about the times when you "soften up" an opponent and then some bozo comes in and gives him the final shot to earn the kill.
• Celebration animation: after a multiplayer game, the winner gets to showcase his character’s "celebration animation." All players in the game get to see this animation pseudo-cinematic. All characters that we allow players to play in MultiPrey will have a celebration animation, but players can create their own as well, both for existing characters and for their own characters that they create from scratch.
• Loyal will have animated texture swatches—actually just additional swatches that will serve as animation frames. A MultiPrey tribe can then create their own team model, animation and skin (or just reskin Talon). Then, they can have something like 8 "frames" of faces—these would be the faces of each tribe member—in the game, the choose their face. Too cool!