Sample gdd - Bottled Storms

FEATURE GOALS

• Provide players with a way to rapidly return to their vehicle.

• Give players the option to tactically use it, at their own risk.

• Ensure universal access to all players.

FEATURE SUMMARY

Bottle Storms are gadgets that allow players to rapidly return to their cruiser when successfully used. Players can use them in case they get thrown off their vehicle by accident and don’t want to disturb whatever their teammates are doing. Players can also opt-in to use these gadgets tactically if they desire, either to accelerate wreck looting or to get out of a bad situation.

Bottled Storms require a bit of time to be used and are highly discouraged against other enemy players as the timer will be reset upon receiving damage. To do so, players will need to seek shelter or resolve combat the hard way. In addition to being available in limited quantities, using a Bottled Storm tends to reveal the player’s and their cruiser’s location to other enemy combatants.

Bottled Storms are somewhat unique as every player starts with [1] equipped and can acquire more of them over time from a special station inside their cruiser.

RAZOR STATEMENT

• Quickly return to your cruiser with Bottled Storms in case you get knocked off your cruiser or if you want to be more efficient when collecting items!

CORE AESTHETICS

• Camaraderie: Allows teammates to make mistakes and/or take risks without overly punishing/hindering the team as a consequence.

• Freedom: Allows teammates to make more strategic decisions by dividing & conquering if they decide to use Bottled Storms tactically instead of keeping them for safety.

GLOSSARY

• Teleport / Warp: the act of instantly displacing the player from one location to another. They are used interchangeably but the word “warp” is often used for player-facing feedback since it is much shorter to write/display.

USER STORIES

• As a player, I can return to my cruiser without bothering my friends.

• As a player, I can easily understand when someone teleports back to their vehicle if I see them doing it.

Description

Bottle Storms are gadgets that allow players to rapidly return to their cruiser when successfully used. Fiction-wise, they are smaller, human-sized portable versions of the portal storms used by Runners to enter & extract from the battlefield.

Conditions

To use a Bottled Storm, the player must fulfill several conditions:

• The player must have a Bottle Storm gadget in either of their Gadget slots.

  • ✏️ Every player starts a run with [1] equipped. Note that this is the only gadget that players receive for free when entering the Triangle.

• The player must not be inside the cruiser.

• The player must not be in the following states:

  • Holding a heavy object.

  • Performing a mantle.

  • On a ladder

  • KO state.

  • Dead.

If all the conditions are met, the Bottle Storm indicator will become available.

• Otherwise, the indicator will be greyed out to indicate it's unusable (see image on the right).

  • Depending on the conditions, the icon will change to indicate why it is unusable.

Note: The player can use the Bottled Storm while falling from great heights, possibly saving themselves from a fatal fall.

Usage

To use a Bottled Storm, the player must press the corresponding gadget input. Doing so will start a specific Bottle Storm animation that lasts [x] seconds before triggering the teleport.

• In addition to the player character performing an animation, the gadget duration bar is used as a progress bar.

• Players can always cancel the animation by simply moving or performing any action.

  • Canceling the animation does not consume the Bottle Storm.

• If the player is attempting to use a Bottled Storm while falling from a great height, the length of the animation is much shorter.

• If the player is damaged by players while performing the interaction, it is interrupted and the player must start over.

Aftermath

If the player completes the Interaction, a short special sequence plays, during which the player cannot control their character until completed. Visually, this sequence consists of the bottle being broken and the screen fading out completely (see animations below).

• Once this sequence starts, the bottle is broken and the portal storm is released.

  • At this point, the Bottled Storm is considered consumed.

• Until the player is effectively teleported out, it is still vulnerable to damage and can be killed.

  • If the player is falling, his falling speed is slowed drastically during this sequence only.

• Once the sequence completes, the player recovers and regains control, inside their cruiser.

WIP - The Bottle Storm sequence while falling.

Feedback

During the Bottled Storm sequence while engulfed by the portal storm, the player is struck by a crackling lightning strike when it is teleported across the map. This lightning strike effectively happens in 2 locations:

• Where the player used the Bottled Storms.

  • The lightning strike is [x] meter tall and can be occluded by terrain tall enough.

• At the player’s cruiser when it arrives.

  • The lightning strike is always oriented toward where the user came from.

• In both cases, the lightning strike can also be heard from [x] meters away, potentially alerting nearby enemies.

Bottled Storm being used at a distance

Bottled Storm user, arriving at their cruiser

This lightning strike effect is an important piece of feedback that allows anyone else, presumably enemies, to clearly understand that a Bottled Storm was used. This will allow them to potentially make different strategic decisions, better understand the recent enemy actions, or even detect previously unknown enemies.

• It's important to note that both lightning strikes are not physically connected, to prevent giant lightning strikes VFX from being played across potentially kilometers of terrain.

Bottled Storm equipped

Bottled Storm Dispenser

To acquire additional Bottled Storms, players can take Bottled Storms off a rack from the Bottled Storm Dispenser that every Cruiser comes equipped with. Each rack comes stocked with [3] Bottled Storms that are slowly filled over time.

• Players can freely take/swap bottles any time they want by simply interacting with the rack. They behave exactly like every other gadget.

• 🛠️ These Bottled Storm Dispensers may exist as Augments if players desire even more bottled Storms inside their cruisers. TBD

• 🛠️ When a cruiser enters a radiation storm, the charge rate accelerates. TBD

Reminder: gadgets carried by players, including Bottled Storms, are not carried over between games and cannot be moved into the backpack.