Game Balance

Fairness

We want to give the game a difficulty curve without it being cheap. In the earlier levels, the caretaker barely pays attention to you and her suspicion level rises slowly. But as the levels progress, she will start out at higher levels of suspicion and will become more suspicious faster. Other children in the orphanage in later levels will fight back against you as well.

Challenge vs. Success

The main obstacle in this game is the caretaker. There isn’t really a reward for escaping from her. But, if the player can escape from the caretaker, they will gain the skill to escape her easier in later levels.

Meaningful Choices

There is a lot of risk and reward used in the game. The player will need to ask themselves, “should I take a slightly longer time to kill this person and not get caught?” or “should I just attack this person directly and take less time, but possibly be caught?” We want to avoid a dominant strategy situation at every opportunity.

Skill vs. Chance

The game as a whole relies more on the player’s skill as opposed to chance. While there is always a chance that you get caught, that chance is much lower when the player uses the skills they’ve applied.

Head vs. Hands

If played in a way that minimizes the risk of being caught, the game requires more puzzle solving than physical action. For example, the player may have the option of outright attacking a character or putting some poison into their lunch. The poison route would require the player to think of how to get close enough without being noticed.

Competition vs. Cooperation

This doesn’t really apply since our game is single-player.

Short vs. Long

I’m not sure how long our game will be right now. But, its length can be affected by the low or high-risk routes when killing targets. Low-risk, environment kills take longer, and high risk kills are shorter, provided the player can avoid being caught.

Rewards

There are few rewards in this game. The player doesn’t get rewarded with new items or achievements. I guess the closest thing would be praise from the Venus Weed for each completed level.

Punishments

Getting caught attacking a kid, but not killing them will result in you being kicked out of the orphanage. This reduces the amount of time you have in order to complete the level. Getting caught with a dead body or will result in an immediate game over.

Freedom vs. Controlled Experience

The player controls the main character and the camera, but that’s about it. The weapons, other characters and places the player is limited to will be controlled by us.

Simple vs. Complex

The game is simple in concept, but there are a couple of complex mechanics, such as the caretaker being able to see bloody weapons lying around and increasing her suspicion. The AI needs to be able to react to the player and what they’re holding or doing. On the development side, it will be a bit complex to implement.