Game Design: Theory and Practice (2nd Edition) (Wordware Game Developers Library)

Melee Weapons

Shiv

A shiv is any sharp weapon crafted by a prisoner to serve as a weapon within the prison . The Shiv found in Unspeakable is made out of metal support for a bed, with one end sharpened and the other end wrapped in cloth for a makeshift grip.

The player is able to do three types of attacks with the Shiv. The first is accomplished by lightly tapping the Attack button, and produces a slash attack. If the player taps the button up to three times, he will do three different attacks, creating a combo, with the final attack being more powerful than the first two. The second attack is accomplished by heavily pressing the analog Attack button, and this produces a lunge / thrust motion. This second attack does more damage and stuns the target for longer, but takes longer to pull off. The third attack is a jumping attack, performed when the player hits Attack while jumping with the Shiv readied.

The Shiv is an effective melee weapon, with a skilled player able to inflict more damage with the lunge attack at close range than with a pistol at a far range. The Shiv also has an advantage over the pistols in terms of stopping power and stunning.

Fire Axe

[ ]

Stun Stick

This weapon is typically used by prison guards as a means to subdue targets without actually causing any permanent damage to them. The Stun Stick looks a bit more stylized than real-world devices, but is still believable. While the weapon is in use, electricity will arc over the length of the weapon.

Attacking with the Stun Stick involves a simple lunging motion. As soon as a target is touched by the stick, it will become immediately immobilized in its current position/pose for a certain period of time. Immobilized creatures will appear to twitch. If the player keeps the Attack button pressed, the Stun Stick will remain extended and will continue to stun the target, with the total time the target will be immobilized directly proportional to the amount of time the Attack button is held. While a target is being stunned, electricity arcs over its body. Though the Stun Stick is battery powered , it never runs out of charge.

The Stun Stick is effective for temporarily blocking creatures that have gotten too close to be dealt with any other way, and will need to be used in conjunction with other weapons. For instance, the player could stun a creature and then switch to the Shiv to get in a number of damaging melee attacks before it becomes mobile again. The player could also stun a creature and then reposition to a more distant location from which to use his projectile weapons.

Projectile Weapons

Pistol

This Pistol is an extremely large revolver-style handgun. On reload, the revolver s chamber rotates outward from the body of the gun, allowing all the spent shells to be ejected simultaneously . The Pistol is fired in an arm-extended pose. For the purposes of Unspeakable , the reloading of the Pistol will be unrealistically fast, allowing the player to fire his six shots with only a slight pause before being able to continue firing. The player is also able to use two Pistols simultaneously, resulting in a slightly reduced accuracy but with a double rate of fire. Even with two Pistols, the player can still only target a single enemy at a time.

The Pistol will fire a single shot for each press of the Attack button, meaning the player will have to repeatedly press the button in order to keep firing. The Pistol is the most accurate and thereby has the longest effective range of any of the game s projectile weapons, except for the Mounted Machine Gun. The Pistol has extremely light stopping power and no stunning capabilities.

The Pistol is the core weapon in Unspeakable , and will likely be the weapon the player uses the most. The Pistol also has the most available ammunition .

Shotgun

Unspeakable features a pump shotgun with a shortened barrel and a small grip, of the type that might see use in a prison or in other aspects of police work. The Shotgun is fired from a lowered position, with both hands holding the weapon mid-torso. After each shot is fired the player will automatically re-cock the weapon, forcing a noticeable pause between each shot. When the weapon is out of shots, the player will very quickly be seen shoving more cartridges into the weapon, which will result in the longest reload time of any of the projectile weapons.

When the Attack button is pressed, the Shotgun will fire a number of shots simultaneously, with each shot s direction randomized such that it creates a spread pattern on whatever it hits. Similarly to the Pistol, the player will have to repress the button to fire a second group of shots. Because of its multiple shots fired, the Shotgun has extremely effective stopping and stunning capabilities.

The Shotgun will be a more effective weapon against enemies who are in close range to the player, especially with its stopping power. However, because of its inaccuracy, players will be wasting their bullets if trying to hit distant targets.

Machine Gun

[ ]

Flame Thrower

[ ]

Thrown Weapons

TNT Stick

The TNT Stick is typical of the type routinely used in mining and other construction projects. A stick of a processed compound of gunpowder and nitroglycerine is packed into a cardboard tube. The explosive is fairly stable and will not tend to explode from being jostled but will explode when shot or set on fire. The stick has a long piece of detonation cord trailing out of its end, which can be lit, with the stick exploding once the wick burns down. The wick will visibly burn down as this time passes .

The TNT Stick appears unlit on the player s belt. When the player presses the Throw button, the player grabs the stick and it becomes instantly lit and then thrown. The TNT Stick will not explode until five seconds after the player presses the Throw button, and the TNT will be seen to bounce off of whatever it hits until that time. On explosion the TNT Stick does a significant amount of damage in a radius around itself, with a large amount of stopping and stunning power to the targets it hits. The TNT Stick will also be effective at blowing objects up as well as blasting down unopenable doors and revealing otherwise inaccessible locations. Due to water-resistant detonation cord, the TNT Stick will still go off if thrown in water. The TNT Stick has a medium effective range when thrown.

The TNT Stick is the most common thrown weapon in the game and when used correctly will be quite effective at taking out groups of enemies. The player will also find it helpful for puzzles and uncovering hidden locations.

Molotov Cocktail

The Molotov Cocktail is a classic homemade weapon. It is constructed of a glass liquor bottle filled with gasoline with a rag hanging out the end. Just before throwing, the rag is lit. Then, on impact, the bottle shatters and the flame ignites the fluid inside, creating a large and persistent flame in the process. In Unspeakable , the Molotov Cocktails appear unlit on the player s belt, and when thrown the rag becomes immediately lit without the player s animation needing to actually light it. If the player shoots or otherwise damages an unexploded Molotov Cocktail, it will immediately detonate.

On impact, the Molotov Cocktail catches whatever it hits on fire, with the fire persisting for fifteen or more seconds. The Cocktail also splashes fluid that creates sub-fires around the point of impact, with these fires being weaker than the primary flame. The fires it creates are of medium damage. The Molotov Cocktail has no effect when it lands in water, since its wick is immediately extinguished. The Molotov Cocktail has low stopping power or no stunning effect, and is most accurate at short ranges.

The Molotov Cocktail is an effective and visually spectacular weapon that will be best used against creatures who are especially vulnerable to fire damage.

Concussion Grenade

[ ]

Shrapnel Grenade

[ ]

Mounted Weaponry

Mounted Machine Gun

This is a military-style, belt-fed, tripod-mounted heavy machine gun, which appears to be ofWorldWar II vintage , such as the Browning M2. This machine gun is too heavy to be picked up and carried around, but the player will be able to use it in a stationary manner through Mounted Weapon Mode. The player holds the Mounted Machine Gun by two grips at its back, though the player will not see this since he can only use the weapon while in a First-Person Mode (see the Mounted Weapon Mode description in the Game Mechanics section of this document for more information).

The Mounted Machine Gun functions identically to the regular Machine Gun when the Attack button is pressed. Pressing and holding Attack will generate a continuous stream of fire, while tapping it will produce short bursts. The Mounted Machine Gun features an even faster rate of fire than the regular Machine Gun, and does significantly more damage. The Mounted Machine Gun also features extremely high stopping power and hitting an enemy enough times will knock it over. Since it is mounted on a tripod, it is also effective at extremely long ranges. The Mounted Machine Gun comes with a certain amount of ammunition when the player finds it, and once empty the gun cannot be reloaded and will become useless. When fired, the Machine Gun creates a heavy buzzing/stuttering sensation in the controller s vibration .

Spotlight

[ ]

Miscellaneous Objects

Ammunition

The player is able to get ammunition for each of his projectile weapons by picking up additional weapons, with Torque automatically removing the ammunition from these found weapons if he already has that weapon. In addition, the player will sometimes find just ammunition. Ammunition is unique to each type of projectile weapon, and cannot be shared between weapons.

Health

Health objects in Unspeakable are instantly used when they are picked up, with the player not picking them up if he is at full health. Health comes in the form of antidepression prescription medication that Torque can consume , of the brand name Dozak.

Flashlight and Batteries

The Flashlight is a special-case item and will be the player s most-used item throughout the game, since it allows him to navigate the dark world of Unspeakable . The player will always be able to turn the Flashlight on and off by pressing the Flashlight button. Turning the Flashlight off when it is not needed is necessary since the player will have a limited amount of battery life. Picking up the Flashlight and its batteries is similar to the player s mechanic for picking up weapons and their ammo: for every Flashlight the player finds after the first one, the player will be able to remove the batteries from it and store them for later use.

Maps

The player will find maps throughout the game that will help guide him through the environments. Maps may cover a specific area of the game or, at one point, the player finds a map that provides an overview of the entire island. Maps appear in the world as folded-up roadmap style maps, though they are not colorful beyond pure functionality. The maps the player can find include:

Quest Items

There are various items that the player will find throughout the game which he will need to pick up in order to solve puzzles in order to progress in the game. These items will typically stay in the player s inventory until they are successfully used, at which point they will be removed from the inventory and cannot be picked up again.

Related

Категории