DESIGN DOCUMENT

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SPECTER is a 2D action adventure game. The game follows a mysterious being, conceived from the birth chambers beneath the bowels of an eternal evil. Our mysterious hero will be venturing through the void-lands, uncovering ancient secrets, absorbing power, and destroying those that stand in their way. All in the name of reaching their unspeakable final form. The accused crown sits idle. Waiting.

MOOD & ATMOSPHERE

The game should feel mysteriously enticing above all else. We want the player to feel motivated by their curiosity and desire to progress through that curiosity. This means sprawling levels that may feel like puzzles themselves with a Zelda-like design ethos. Locked doors are opened by switches in other rooms. Shortcuts are discovered by overcoming challenges, defeating enemies, and solving puzzles. Creative problem solving is rewarded with progress. Visually and sonically, these environments should invite you in like an evil witch, promising a delicious stew but not telling you that you’re the one who will be cooking.

INSPIRATIONS & GENRE

I would like this game to mix genre in a unique way. This is a game I want to make because I feel like an experience like SPECTER doesn’t currently exist, and I want to play it. In terms of movement mechanics and combat, I want the game to feel effortless. You play a character that is powerful beyond comprehension. This means the challenge will come from exploring and solving puzzles. We want the world, level, and puzzle designs from Zelda, the power fantasy combat of God of War, and the dynamic, intuitive movement of Mario. Other games I’m looking at for inspiration are Hyper Light Drifter, Signalis, Portal, and Mega Man Zero.

PLAYER FEELING

We want players to play this game for 2-5 hours at a time. The intention is that player comes back to play the game with a goal in mind, even if it’s as vague as “go through that next door I just opened last time I played.” We want progress to feel satisfying enough that a play session feels rewarding at the end of it. We also want the player to understand there is more progress to come as they make their way through the game all the way through to the end. We want the player thinking about what comes next while they’re at work. As a single player adventure, we want the player to feel like they can settle into this world as a lone adventurer.

SCOPE

I am looking to keep the team size to 3 people. One programmer, one sound designer, and me directing the game and doing art/animation. Initially, the goal of this project is to expand the first area/level of the prototype as a demo. This demo should take 1-2 hours to complete. Once we have a solid team of 3, I want to set a timeline of one year to complete this demo. With out a budget, we’ll all have to be working on this in our free time, but I still want the project to be making progress on a bi-weekly basis. This means meeting as a team 2-3 times per month to discuss progress, goals, and design in general.

MOVEMENT & COMBAT

We want the player to feel powerful and confident in how they move and fight. This means giving them an easy-to-understand toolset early in the game and expanding on it incrementally throughout the game.

Movement in SPECTER revolves around 4 core abilities

RUN
JUMP + DOUBLE JUMP
DASH
CLIMB + SLIDE

These 4 abilities will all flow seamlessly between each other. Combat abilities gained via the sword will be extensions of the 4 core movement abilities. Combat and movement should feel intertwined, and going from a movement to an attack or vice versa should feel fluid and natural. The sword will allow the player to interact with destructible objects such as certain doors, boxes, etc. and attack enemies.

SYSTEMS DESIGN

As touched on already, meaningful progression is at the core of SPECTER. Rather than a game with levels that start and end, this is a game that starts and ends only once, with nuanced, bespoke pacing, and a narrative world that funnels open into the second act and funnels closed at the end of the game.

LEVEL DESIGN

We’ve placed importance on what I’d call productive, dynamic progression. Our leading mantra for the game is that the game itself should all feel like an extension of the player and the players actions. Our intention is to design our levels as puzzle box dungeons. The player will have long term goals laid out in front of them that are broken up into series of shorter term goals. There is a large scale view of the game that generally as the player progresses through the game world, they move upward. In this prototype map, the player starts in the bottom right and will progress upward to the final boss room in the top of the map.

HELP WANTED

We are currently looking for a programmer to help us expand on this prototype. We are making the project in Godot 4.3, thus we are looking for someone that is either familiar with the engine, or at least will have the experience required to pick it up quickly.

Movement, combat, and puzzle mechanics are at the core of what will make this game great, so we need a programmer who is confident and comfortable with complex character controllers, puzzle logic, and 2D puzzle platformers in general.

Specter will feature a lot of large scale puzzle dungeons, so being passionate about puzzle design and having the ability to rapidly prototype puzzle mechanics will go a long way. The team meets frequently to discuss game design ideas and we want someone who wants to share in passionate discussion.

Once we finish the demo, the intention is to leverage the demo to acquire the necessary funding to create the full game. That may be via a crowdfunding source, or through signing with a publisher. Once funding is secured, the team will operate as a co-op, with everyone on the team sharing our funding resources equally.

We are looking to get someone on board for the long haul. Right now we are a team of two - director/designer and sound designer. I’ve listed some more details about what we’re looking for in a partner below. If you feel like you’d be a good fit, or if you are interested in learning more, I'd love to set up a call where we can get into the nitty gritty of the game, answer any questions, and talk game design!

Our most pressing need at this point in time is refactoring. No one on the team at the moment is an experienced programmer, and soon we will reach a point where the game will become difficult to scale without a more experienced programmer at the helm. We have some systems set up already that we are pretty happy with, and we are definitely starting to scratch our heads about how we’re going to keep things organized as the game grows in size.

We’re looking for:

experienced game programmer who either knows godot and gdscript or will be able to pick it up quickly
experienced at creative problem solving
experienced at refactoring
cares about reducing bloat while keeping code tailored to what we need
experienced with pixel art games and understands the intricacies of resolution