Chasing the Dragons is a business simulator where the player will be assigned a character for the scenario and must make the character achieve a quota of game money to pass the time limited scenario.
The game scenario will advance in time by each day adding or subtracting to the players cash score and adding or subtracting from the players popularity points. How much cash and how many points are added or subtracted depend on the business team members the player hires or fires as surplus to the original scenario character which cannot be hired or fired. There will always be a main character that the player cannot fire and is central to the story throughout the scenario and the events that occur to raise or subtract from the players Popular Points. A quota of popular points will be required sometimes to unlock new contacts and business opportunities in a scenario. This could also be used for in game achievements and secondary objectives to give the player more incentive and a sense of reward to carry on.
In every scenario the player must first pick a product for the character to use to become rich and ultimately come into contact with unseen power structures that will help them progress.
completion of a scenario will give an ending whereby the hidden boss preventing success in the town will give a speech and leave. The aim of the game is to make the gamer realize the completion of a scenario for a particular stereotypical member of society will have unseen forces that work against him or her.
One proposed example level/scenario of this in the game would be a level where you play an aspiring sitcom actor making a choice of 1 movie product. With the product made from the player purchasing it by choosing one of the scenario towns film studios which offer different qualities for story progression, he then has the choice to use different contacts. These contacts range from a variety of choices such as mafia contacts that come with a risk of becoming unpopular and game overing or using religious contacts or commercial contacts to become more popular and famous. The actor at the beginning of the scenario has to pick a studio to make the product used to achieve the money quota for passing the scenario. once the studio has been picked it will set a game story in motion and a set sequence of events that will add cash daily and add or subtract personality points. The team members you can hire and fire will cushion the popularity points loss or gain by adding and subtracting from it each day be events they randomly generate. Even people you hire that have good stats can generate bad events so the game cannot be bugged by hiring a team of all good stats people.
The scenarios will have a game over state, which can reached by becoming too unpopular by choosing to use organizations and contacts that are unpopular such as Mafia. some contacts in the game are also going to make it more entertaining and humorous for the gamer to play e.g aliens, religious cult, etc.
The game will be similar in gameplay mechanics and design to a business simulation with a storyline where it proposes a scenario of making a quota of money. This is done by the player using money to buy services from contacts, buy better products and hire team members to improve earning potentials.
Game Design Document To be submitted via forum link
Bsc(hons) Computing Alexander Phillips – Orcaorcadia – Independent Games Developer, Registered Windows Phone Developer
13/02/2012
