BAGD Year 2: XB2001 - Mechanic Sheet: Complete

Game: ArmA 2 - DayZ

Weapon Crafting Mechanic

Description

This mechanic would give a lot of players a fighting chance at survival as currently, players start with no weapon and must risk coming into contact with zombies to find a decent weapon. Additionally keeping a good supply of ammo is very hard and so a crafting system would help players make their own ammunition and weapons like a harpoon gun whereby they are able to retrieve their shots, allowing players to fight in different ways and be more ready for a fight. In order to create items a player must simply have the required parts, with no schematics or skill levels required to match the free style of play DayZ encourages, however to limit crafting to a degree and also to encourage players to encounter each other, crafting is restricted to workbenches found within industrial areas.

Example of a workbench

Programmers

Programmers would have to create a simple script that would simple say if player has required parts at a work bench, they gain the final weapon and lose the parts that they had within their inventory. Additionally they would have to allow projectile weapons such as crossbow bolts to be picked up, meaning that they would have to remain within the game after fired, but disappear after 10mins.

Sound Design

Simple metal hitting metal sound effects with some variation such as wood hitting metal or the sound of a saw cutting through wood etc.

Animators

Some slight animation of arms torso and head of the player hammering things and moving his head to get a better view of what he is doing. This will need to be done as although ArmA 2 is mostly played in 3D person, some players will switch to first person from time to time.

Artists

Artists will have to create and texture extra DIY looking weaponry to give them a very rugged and salvaged look and feel. As well as the weapons however each individual asset of the final weapon must be made as each of these assets must be found and collected separately before assembling. A simple GUI would be created as well so players can simply navigate and place items in a minecraft style with no need for schematics, but rather it would be based upon the player’s own knowledge of if it’s possible.

Example of Crafting UI where a broken M16 + 3 scrap metal (arranged like so) = Crossbow

Power Mechanic

Description

The power mechanic allows players the ability to temporarily restore power to an area such as a town or city to allow the player more visibility at night, if the player is able to make their way to the power source, be it a power station or a generator etc. However this is only a temporary solution as it is post-apocalyptic and eventually whatever is generating the power will run out of juice.

Less light would force players to depend on unreliable

flashlights making the game more tense.

Programmers

Programmers would have to add additionally functionality to certain objects such as light switches, other light sources, generators and power stations to be able to turn them on and off. Additionally programmers would have to create a runtime amount for each power source which would depend on how big a power source it would be, for instance a power station would supply more power to more buildings and for slightly longer whilst generators would provide less power the bigger the building is or the more buildings it’s trying to supply.

Sound Design

Sound designers would need to add low humming noises for active power stations and loud engine noises for active generators. Additionally simple noises such as a light switching off for when a player is switching lights on and off or additionally turning generators or power stations on or off.

Animators

Generic animation featuring hammering movements of the arms and screwing to give the impression that a player is constructing something. This must also be viewable in 3^rd person view so the head and body must also be moving as well for the animation. Custom arm animations may have to be made for crafted weapons if the crafted weapon does not fall into the normal area a gun would go, e.g a bow and arrow.

Artists

3D models and textures of weapons and parts would follow the same style of the rest of ArmA 2 to avoid them standing out from the game. 3D models would have a medium polycount and a very realistic look to them with photo textures. Crafted weapons would have to be able to fall into the same area a gun would fall into in original ArmA 2 as the game uses ArmA 2’s animations. In the case this can’t be avoided animators will create custom animations.