Jacob Mott

Rescisco is a networked multiplayer sandbox-style game currently being developed as an independent project for senior year’s Advanced Seminar in Game Design class.  It uses the Unity4 game engine and Exit Games‘ Photon Cloud plugin for remote networking services.  The project itself is an experiment in player driven stories, interaction, and exploration.

Project Details:

Team Size: 1 (Independent project)          Duration: 4 months (January 2013 – April 2013)

Engine: Unity 4

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• Telekinesis
• Environment Progression and the Sense System
• Network Structure

Overview:

After an apocalypse-level event, a city is encapsulated from the outside world, and its inhabitants sent into suspended animation.  After the passing of a vast period of time, the city prepares to wake its inhabitants.  Unfortunately, as so much time has passed, citizens have forgotten everything about the world.  Everything about history, the concept of objects and senses, everything has been forgotten.  Players take the role of a digital representation of the population’s consciousness, given free roam of the still encapsulated city.  Using the power of telekinesis, players explore the mysteries and history of the city, while relearning the use of the senses and comprehension of the world.

Telekinesis:

• Runs off mass, force, and endurance.
• Has two interaction types: instant and sustained.
• Mass – The mass of an object.
• Force – The max force the player can exert.  A player can only manipulate an object if their current force is greater than an object’s mass.  Using instant telekinesis increases the player’s force stat.
• Endurance – Determines how long a player can use telekinesis.  Drains (current force) amount per use with instant telekinesis, and (current force) per second with sustained telekinesis.  Using sustained telekinesis increases a player’s endurance stat.
• Endurance constantly regenerates.  If reduced to zero, the player must wait until it returns to a usable level.
• Players can target the same object to combine their force, allowing them to lift heavier objects than they would be able to alone.

Telekinesis is the core mechanic through which players interact with the environment, and runs off three stats: force, endurance, and mass.  Additionally, telekinesis comes in two main forms: instant and sustained.  All objects have a specific mass, as assigned using Unity’s physics engine.  In order for a player to influence an object, their force must be greater than the object’s weight.  Instant telekinesis applies an instantaneous force to an object, allowing players to throw objects and propel themselves.  Sustained applies a continuous force to an object, allowing players to hold objects and suspend themselves.  In order to interact with the heavier objects in the game, players must train their force and endurance stats.  Using instant telekinesis increases a player’s force stat, while sustained telekinesis increases a player’s endurance stat.  As a player uses telekinesis, their endurance is drained by an amount equal to their current force every second when sustaining, or once per use, when using instant.  Endurance constantly regenerates, but can be reduced to zero, causing the player to wait a short period of time for it to return to a usable level.  By targeting the same object, players can combine their force, allowing them to manipulate objects they otherwise would not have been able to on their own.

Environment Progression and the Sense System:

• Alters the environment as players discover mysterious objects.
• 4 senses: sight, touch, sound, and scent/taste.
• The ‘level’ of a sense is shared between all players in the world.
• Sight determines the amount of ‘fog’ in the world, altering how far the player can see.  Increasing sight removes the level of fog.
• Touch determines the distortion of objects in the world.  Increasing touch causes object to have more recognizable geometry.
• Sound determines the volume and clarity of a sound.  Increasing sound decreases the amount of garbled noise, and increases the volume.
• Scent/Touch determines the visibility of particle effects.  Increasing scent/touch increases particle size, color, and overall visibility.

As players explore the environment, their characters rediscover how to use their senses.  When the game first begins, fog and distortion–representing sight and touch, respectively–make objects difficult to understand, while quiet, garbled sounds, and small particles–representing smell and taste–make it further difficult to locate objects.  Mysterious objects are hidden throughout the city, which offer glimpses into its history, and increases the capabilities of the player’s senses.  The ‘sense level’ of players is a shared stat, meaning that all players progress together.  Viewing such an object increases the effectiveness of players’ sight sense, reducing the amount of fog that occludes the screen, while listening to it increases players’ perception of sound, reducing the garbling and increasing the volume of the sound.  Being in the presence of the object’s scent increases players’ perception of scent, which increases the size and visibility of the particles it emits.  Finally, using telekinesis to interact with any object increases players’ perception of touch, which causes all objects to become more recognizable.

Network Structure:

• Mainly client-server, some peer-to-peer styled 
• Player position data is sent directly from clients to all other clients
• Object manipulation is sent from client to the master client, which then sends the updates to the remaining clients
• Physics is handled independently per client, though the master client will issues updates is objects become greatly out of sync
• Player stats and object position data is saved out on exit, allowing the game to started from its previous state

Rescisco uses a network architecture very similar to the standard client-server, though some peer-to-peer is mixed in.  Exit Games’ Photon Cloud plugin hosts the server instance of the game, allowing the original creator of the game, the master client, to only have to run a single instance of the game on their computer.  When it comes to player positional data, Rescisco uses a peer-to-peer style setup, sending to all other clients, without having to check with the master client.  When an object is manipulated, whether through telekinesis or a player bumping into it, the client’s updates are sent first to the master client, who then relays the data to the remaining  clients.  Additionally, though each client takes care of its physics updates on its own, the master client has the final say, and will update clients if objects become greatly out of sync.  Finally, the game saves out both world and local player data on exit, allowing a session to be continued from its previous state.