This document specifies a design for the gameplay of Dustership, a sci-fi action adventure.

Game overview

Dustership is an exploration of the Zelda-like action adventure game genre, featuring top-down 2D graphics and real-time combat.  It's also an exploration of the space western genre, which takes the tropes of a western narrative and puts them in outer space. I'm solo developing Dustership, thus it is also designed to be an exploration of the Godot game engine and of pixel art created in Aseprite.

Gameplay

Dustership is an action-adventure, and so the objective of the game is to advance the game's narrative-- through combat, through completing tasks for people and through solving puzzles.

The game has multiple protagonists and a party system. A level of Dustership may have the player taking control of 1 to 2 player characters at a time. On occasion, a level may feature 3 or 4 player characters, depending on the narrative's needs.

A level of Dustership is completed upon completing the main objective of the level, which is revealed to the player through the story. A typical objective would involve exploring a dangerous place, defeating a powerful foe, or solving a puzzle.

As the game progresses, the player unlocks more varied gameplay options. Playable characters are unlocked by advancing the story. Items and ability improvements are purchased using in-game currency, which is gained from killing monsters or through exploration.

Mechanics

The player controls the player character by moving, attacking, dodging, using a special attack or by interacting with objects. Each move is unique for each playable character.  Attacks may do damage, push or stun and special attacks are bigger abilities that require mana or ammunition. These resources can be obtained by killing enemies or by exploring. Dodging provides invulnerability frames and moves the player in the inputted direction.  Interacting with objects allows the player to open doors, talk to NPCs or inspect game objects. These four actions are mapped to the four main gamepad buttons.

The player may switch between party members by pressing a shoulder button on the gamepad. The active party member is controlled by the player and inactive party members follow behind in a line.

The player starts with 3 hit points. Enemy attacks typically do one hit point of damage. If the player is killed, they are sent to the beginning of the area or level that they are on.

Killed enemies may drop steel, a unit of in-game currency. Steel can be used to buy items and ability upgrades. Items include health potions, lump sums of steel, keys and unique quest items. Items are stored in the inventory, which is accessible from the pause menu. Certain items are usable and can be combined with other items to solve puzzles.

Narrative

The world of Dustership was borne out of a tabletop role-playing game session I conducted for my TTRPG group, which took place on the titular dustership: a class of ark-sized spaceships that were used by an ancient galactic civilization to "iron out" wrinkles in meta-dimensional space, which would facilitate faster-than-light travel between star systems. In the current age of the game's universe, the dusterships are derelict shells of their former selves, lost among the ruins of the civilization that created them.  The game Dustership takes place on one dustership that has remained operational for hundreds of years, thanks to the maintenance of a group of space nomads that are now the ship's caretakers and residents.

The story of Dustership revolves around the technology of this ancient galactic civilization, called the Eremite empire. The Eremites dominated the galaxy, called the Gaucho galaxy, over 1,000 years ago and were very technologically advanced; the Eremites were close to a “Type III” civilization on the Kardashev scale. The empire ended in a period of unrest called the Wars of Meaning. In the current age, vast sectors of the Gaucho galaxy where the Eremite civilization once flourished remain inhospitable to life, as a result of the Wars of Meaning.

The Dustership game takes place at this point in Gauchan history, at the fringes of civilized space near the core of the galaxy where the Eremite empire once stood. The ancient dustership, traveling through this dangerous and uncharted part of the galaxy, is one of two main settings of the game's action. The other is the Echelon, a highly advanced virtual reality created by the Eremites, and whose invention is thought to have triggered the Wars of Meaning that became their downfall.

Characters

There are four playable characters in Dustership: April, Telitz, Cube and Mates.

The story starts with April, a retired government officer for the Ammellan administration. She was a member of the Preservers, an elite squadron of intelligence operatives who directly report to the Ammellan emperor. Those days for April are long past, and she now works as a bounty hunter who plies her trade on the outskirts of so-called civilized space.

Telitz Denz is the leader of a group of scientists, archaeologists and explorers who research the Eremite civilization. They call themselves the Remembrancers and they were classified as wanted criminals in Ammella for their work many years ago. But the Remembrancers have only grown in numbers in recent years as more and more people become curious about the powerful technology that the Eremites once wielded. It's rumored that they have re-discovered the Echelon and have found it to be operational.

Cube is a combat droid whose memories have been erased by an unknown agent. April finds Cube while inside the Echelon.

Mates is a pilot and accomplice of April. He will be introduced as a playable character in a later release of Dustership, not in the demo.

Levels

The demo for Dustership will consist of the first 3 chapters of the story. The first chapter, a prologue, will introduce the character April and set the scene for her traveling on the dustership. The second chapter takes place in the Echelon, where April meets the characters Cube and Telitz. The third chapter will switch perspectives, and the player will take control of Telitz back on the dustership.

Each chapter is broken into levels, different areas that the player should explore to advance the narrative. Level transitions happen at doors or at transition areas at the edges of the map.

Levels can be broken up into different elevations-- stairs and ramps allow the player to move between layers of the tilemap. Player collisions are updated if their elevation is changed.

Levels are sometimes blocked off by doors or moving platforms that require the player to find a key or battery.

Progress may be blocked by dynamic obstacles that trigger when the player is in combat. This is to prevent the player running away from combat encounters.

UI

The user interface is made of four components: a resource counter, the active party member indicator, current health and the pause menu.

The resource counter keeps track of steel collected by the player.

The active party member indicator displays the portrait of the active player character. When the player switches characters, the portrait changes.

Next to that is the current health of the player, represented by hearts. The health of the player is shared across all party members.

The pause menu has two screens, an inventory container and the map. The inventory container shows a grid of items that the player is holding. The player has a maximum inventory size, which may be upgraded. Interacting with items shows a pop up of the description of the item, and if it is usable, a Use button is shown. The current party is displayed, with each member's name, sprite and abilities. 

The player may switch screens between the inventory and the map screen using a shoulder button. The map screen shows a minimap of all the levels in the current chapter, with a pin indicating where the player is. Additional markers will show where key items or characters are located.

Development

Dustership is built in Godot with the source code stored on GitHub: https://github.com/gaboma19/dustership

Sprites and animations are created in Aseprite.

Sound effects are created in bfxr, with music contributed by Chris Doucet, who I've collaborated with on my previous game.

Work is prioritized and tracked on Trello: https://trello.com/b/ix9ysXq2/dustership