1. Executive Summary
High School: Survival Edition is a game centered around 5 teenagers at a Ledermann high school in their junior/senior year of high school. Amber is a girl living with social anxiety and because of this finds it hard to live out her days as a high school girl. She wears makeup to give herself a confidence boost but is generally quiet
and quick to lash out when she feels she is being judged. She also has no idea that she has this disorder and is in complete denial of her symptoms.  Another girl named Carli is the stereotypical popular girl but was not always that way in the beginning. Carli tried to reach out to amber at the beginning of freshman year. Not knowing that Amber has social anxiety she assumed that Amber was just not into being her friend and after getting noticed by the more popular crown Carli snubs Amber for her new crowd of friends. Amber takes up substance abuse drinking and because of this her anger and suicidal thoughts have become more of a problem. Her grades are slipping and she doesn’t know what is wrong with herself. Carli’s group of friends is very hierarchical and would only allow people they deem worthy to talk/associate with them. When Carli has a crush on a boy named Nathan her group is less than thrilled that she chose a Burnout (under- achiever who does drugs). Carli not knowing the struggle that Nathan goes through, to maintain her status in the group she pretends to let go of her feelings and create distance between her and Nathan. This leads them to forcefully initiate a relationship between her and a guy named Devin, a jock and the only boy on the football team who hasn’t hooked up with anyone. Devin often picks on an openly gay boy named Chris, someone that his clique considers a loser. Chris and Devin have many things in common and get along quite well when his friends aren’t around. Despite having nothing against Chris the peer pressure of maintaining social status Devin continues to bully him. Devin has his own struggles with sexuality which Chris helps him with. Making him befriend him in secret.
1.1. Objective
The objective of this game is to show how certain things effect teenagers in their formative years, wether it be for better or worse.
1.2. Goals (of project)
I wanted this game to give a inside look to adults on how stressful life is a teen and show the younger audience that certain things they do can affect others in big way, no matter how small they feel the issue is.
1.3. Target Audience
The Target Audience for this project are mostly women ages 18-45 but i do feel that the game could reach a male audience that is very open minded and unconventional.I feel that the individual that would be drawn to my game is very engrossed in all types of media.Someone who is very into social media activism with at least an hour a day to spare.
1.4. Problem (social issue)
My problem is that teen issues are taken very lightly to adults and sometimes because the individual has forgotten what it is like to be a teenager or what high school is like, they tend to brush it off as something as simple as a phase without seeing the hidden signs of other maybe more serious issues.
1.5. Solution (how the game will address)
1.5.1. Elevator pitch (1-2 sentences)
“Five lives in the palm of your hand. Only you can
decide who they become.”
1.5.2. Core features (unique selling point)
This game runs on the butterfly effect. One small change can make a huge difference.
2. Proposed Game Concept
Overview: High school: Survival edition is a game centered
around 5 teenagers at Ledermann High school in their Junior/Senior
year of high school. They’ve done nothing but stick to the status quo
and just want to know. Was it worth it?
2.1. Overview (high level concept)
High school: Survival edition is a game centered around 5 teenagers at Ledermann High school in their Junior/Senior year of high school. They’ve done nothing but stick to the status quo and just want to know. Was it worth it?
2.2. Background ( )
The main movie(s) that inspired this game were “The Heathers” and “Jawbreaker” which are two movies that focus a lot on high school hierarchy and big issues such as suicide and peer pressure, and horrible pranks gone wrong but below i have listed some others that also tackle a few of these issues as well.
The Heathers
Jawbreaker
Mean Girls
Mean Girls 2
Cyber Bully
2.3. Informing Elements (influences, type & examples)
Two games influenced this project. Those games are Until
dawn and Life is Strange. I loved the idea of having a butterfly effect
in the game and centering it around teens and their high school
years. I also wanted the game to feel more like an interactive movie,
much like Telltale games do.
2.4. Game Synopsis (description, POV, goal of game,
genre, platform)
This game is a single player interactive drama/adventure game. In this decision-based game, you the player will affect the outcome of these characters’ lives.The five characters Devin, Chris, Carli, Nathan and Amber are struggling with their own individual issues.
This game will be on Steam, PlayStation 4 Pro, Xbox One and The Nintendo Switch.
2.5. Game Mechanics (key features)
The Butterfly Effect is a gameplay mechanic in High School: Survival Edition which forces the player to make decisions which will affect the outcome of the game. Depending on their choices, a certain character could die or the relationship between characters could change, bringing them closer or further apart. Once you already make a choice, you cannot go back, or change it, as the game automatically saves your decisions. The player will play as each of the characters.Each character will have parts in the game where major decisions will be made by the player.After the player has made the major decision for that scene, the game will cut to another characters arc where once again the player must make a decision that will affect that persons story/character development.
2.6. Game World (structure, plot, characters, setting)
The game will be set in a small conservative town.The people of this town are very close so their lives are very intertwined, making it hard for information not to spread around.Their high school is no different.
There are five characters: Devin, Chris, Carli, Nathan and Amber. Each of them are in different circles but are connected through various interactions.
Devin: 17, Jock, struggling with sexuality, good looking.
Amber: 17, Loner, social anxiety, thick makeup.
Carli: 17, Popular, affected by peer pressure, nice personality.
Nathan:18. Druggie, High functioning Schizophrenic, seemingly
normal.
Chris: 16, Gay, Good grades and personality. Not effeminate. Very
masculine.
2.8. Tech Spec (target platform, front end, back end, db)
The target platform for this game would be either PC or Playstation 4.The game will run on Unreal engine 4. The front ends i will use are HTML and CSS.(For my back end i would use Photon but i may not need one due to this being single player.)
3. Recommendations
3.1. Suggested Team (roles & name, bios)
Writer: Deanna Denman
Composer(s): Jason graves, Jonathan Morali
Artist: Brandon Kosinski
Designer: Nik Bowen
Developer Studio: Supermassive games or Dontnod
entertainment and myself.
3.2. Estimated Budget (for all phases, design & dev)
the budget for this game would have to quite expensive. A rough estimate would be about 50 million dollars.
3.3. Rough Timeline (for all phases)
The Project should take about 2-3 years to develop.
4. Appendix
PowerPoint
4.1. References
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_Is_Strange
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Until_Dawn
http://www.supermassivegames.com/
http://www.lifeisstrange.com/agegate.php
