Working Title

Treasures in the Deep

Concept Statement

Treasures in the Deep takes you through a dungeon to find the valuable treasure hidden deep inside. Will you fall to the secrets of the dungeon? Or will you use them to your advantage and escape with the treasure.

Genre(s)

The Game will fall under the following genre/subgenre(s)

• Action
• RPG
  • Rogue-like
  • Dungeon Crawler

Process of concept development

The initial concept of delving through a hostile dungeon type environment in search for treasure was influenced by popular movies and film franchises like Indiana Jones, Alien vs Predator and Prometheus, where the cast of the movie are exploring some kind of mysterious labyrinth in search of something valuable to them. 

The idea to turn the game into a rogue-like was brought around by inspirations from Binding of Isaac and Hades as they take a simple game concept and turn it into something with great replayability with the randomly generated rouge-like system. Other inspirations in the roguelike genre that are less similar but share many of the same general concepts are the Everspace franchise and the Risk of Rain franchise.

Target audience

The target audience for the game is hardcore gamers of either gender who are young teens or older. 

The game will feature some violence with clearing rooms of enemies and so is not appropriate for very young children but won’t feature any over the top violence so as not to restrict to only older gamers. 

The reason for the choice of hardcore is as the game will feature a perma-death type system it can be very unforgiving to casual players, whereas hardcore players tend to enjoy a challenge. 

The type of gamers who will enjoy the game the most will be those oriented more towards action games as there will be very little focus on story in the game, with the story mainly just being the setting and your character wanting to reach the treasure.

Competitive Analysis

Similar successful games include Hades and Binding of Isaac Rebirth. The most recent large success in the same genre is definitely Hades, being a critically acclaimed hit game from september 2020 with “Overwhelmingly Positive” reviews on steam at 98% recommended (Steam, 2020)

Treasures in the Deep’s unique selling points are an endlessly replayable experience with randomly generated levels and an evolving fast paced action experience where no two games will be the same thanks to the randomised pickups.

Game Treatment

Setting

Treasures of the Deep is set inside of an unexplored dungeon where you are trying to obtain the mythical treasure deep inside. The theme of the dungeon will be similar to the tombs of ancient civilisations like the Egyptians or the Aztecs.

Game World

The game world is a series of rooms, each one being randomly generated and made out of tiles. The rooms will be themed like the inside of ancient tombs with statues and traps and inscriptions of cryptic characters on the walls.

Overview of Mechanics

In Treasures of the Deep you progress through a series of rooms with the ultimate goal of being to get to the final “Treasure Room”. Each room will be randomly generated with enemies and items being scattered within. Each time you run out of health and die it is game over and time to restart from the beginning of the dungeon. As you won’t be able to save and reload to before you died, the consequences of failing are higher but the feeling of successfully completing the game becomes much more rewarding. After successfully finding the treasure room your game time will be tracked in a leaderboard, with the goal of subsequent playthroughs being to beat your previous best time.

Your player character will always start with the same basic slash attack and simple wasd movement. As you progress through the rooms you will encounter random pick-ups which can alter the attack, movement or health of your character or even give special abilities like a second life on fatal damage or temporary invincibility.

The enemies will be split into 3 tiers. The first tier being the “basic” tier, second being “advanced” and third being “boss”.The enemies in the basic tier will slowly move towards the player trying to hit them with melee attacks. These enemies will look like skeleton warriors of ancient civilisations. The enemies in the “advanced” tier will take the form of statues that have come to life in the dungeon. They may have ranged attacks and their movement will be less predictable to you as a player. The final tier being the “Boss” tier will have a maximum of one of this type of enemy in a room. They will have higher health and hit much harder than the previous 2 tiers with the ability to quickly charge towards the player or attack them from afar. Boss tier enemies will be the greatest challenge towards you as a player.

Concept Art

Binding of Isaac (Gamespot 2014)

Binding of Isaac Rebirth Level (Polygon 2014)

Hades level design (Rock Paper Shotgun 2020)

Reference List and Inspiration references:

Gamespot. 2014. The Binding of Isaac Rebirth: Review. [ONLINE] Available at: https://www.gamespot.com/reviews/the-binding-of-isaac-rebirth-review/1900-6415971/. [Accessed 29 August 2021].

IMDB. 2004. AVP: Alien vs Predator (2004) - Plot. [ONLINE] Available at: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0370263/plotsummary [Accessed 29 August 2021].

IMDB. 2008. Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008) - Plot. [ONLINE] Available at: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0367882/plotsummary [Accessed 29 August 2021].

IMDB. 2012. Prometheus (2012) - Plot Summary. [ONLINE] Available at: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1446714/plotsummary [Accessed 29 August 2021].

Rock Paper Shotgun. 2020. Supergiant lay bare the building blocks of Hades' underworld. [ONLINE] Available at: https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/supergiant-lay-bare-the-building-blocks-of-hade... [Accessed 29 August 2021].

Steam. 2014. The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth. [ONLINE] Available at: https://store.steampowered.com/app/250900/The_Binding_of_Isaac_Rebirth/ [Accessed 29 August 2021].

Steam. 2020. Hades. [ONLINE] Available at: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1145360/Hades/ [Accessed 29 August 2021].

Steam. 2020. Risk of Rain 2. [ONLINE] Available at: https://store.steampowered.com/app/632360/Risk_of_Rain_2/ [Accessed 29 August 2021].

Steam. 2021. EVERSPACE 2. [ONLINE] Available at: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1128920/EVERSPACE_2/ [Accessed 29 August 2021].

Polygon. 2014. Best of the rest of 2014: The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth may be my most-played game in 2015. [ONLINE] Available at: https://www.polygon.com/2014/12/27/7455023/2014-year-in-review-the-binding-of-is... [Accessed 29 August 2021].