Blueshift Game Design Document

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1. Game Overview

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1.1 Concept

Blueshift is a sci-fi space exploration game that takes place in a faraway star system. Players take on the role of a pioneer as they navigate through an unknown star system.

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Story: The player has been tasked with exploring a certain star system 12,000 light-years away from their homeworld. Piloting one of the first spaceships capable of faster-than-light travel, reaching the faraway system in a few short months. They arrive only to find something has gone very wrong in the last 12,000 years, and the star system is very different to how it appeared from their homeworld. Orbits have changed, atmospheres have changed composition, and some planets have completely disappeared.

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To find out what happened and how the star system could have changed drastically in such a short time, they must seek out clues from the traces of life hidden within the star system. However, they will quickly discover they aren’t alone; other civilisations are just as interested in the system, and they aren’t all friendly.

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1.2 Target Audience

Primary demographic:

16-30 year olds, with a core focus on 20-25 year olds. Moderate to advanced experienced gamers who enjoy space exploration games like Elite Dangerous and Avorion.

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Psychographic Profile:

• Strategic Thinkers who enjoy managing and optimising large and complex systems.

• Players who enjoy investing time early on in paving a way for their own future progression.

• Gamers who appreciate a moderate level of customisation and creativity.
   

Market Position:

• Primary market: Existing fans of space exploration and factory automation genres.

• Secondary market: Strategy gamers looking for something with more creative freedom.

• Tertiary market: Sci-fi enthusiasts interested in exploring a new world through lore.
   

1.3 Unique Selling Points

• Creates an expansive world that feels alive using various NPC ships and factions with lore. To contrast with games such as Elite Dangerous and Star Citizen, which feel large and empty.

• Realistic Scale, Keeping distances, sizes, and speeds accurate to real star systems.

• Carefully crafted environments in a single star system, instead of featuring thousands of procedurally generated stars that all feel the same.
  
  
   

2. Gameplay

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2.1 Core Loop

The fundamental gameplay loop consists of:

1. Finding a goal to reach, such as reaching the next planet, unlocking a certain item, or defeating a certain enemy.

2. Collecting resources or defeating smaller enemies to upgrade your ship or station, helping you conquer these objectives.

3. Collecting rewards for completing objectives. Then, using them to unlock new locations, abilities, or automation capabilities.

4. Discovering more about the star system and its history with each new accomplishment.
    

This loop drives engagement by rewarding strategic thinking and careful planning. The payoff for investing in accelerating future progression and distant goals encourages players to look forward and dream big. Giving them the motivation to play longer sessions to reach these goals.

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The exploration aspect also drives engagement. Feeding small amounts of lore to players through ruins found in new areas they unlock creates an interest in the story and gives them motivation to find out more by progressing through the game.

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2.2 Game Mechanics

Key mechanics include:

• Faster than light travel: Players can quickly travel to anywhere they have unlocked in the open world in under a minute.

• Progression System: Players slowly make their way towards the centre of the star system, upgrading their ship to survive the increasing amount of radiation and heat as they get closer.

• Resource Management: Players use their ship to mine resources, process them, and create useful components and technologies to further their progression.

• Expansive Automation: Players can create a space station as a home base, which can automatically process certain materials that ships cannot, and even create new ships that can be sent off to gather resources, defend locations, or scavenge for rare loot.

• Technology Progression: Destroying hostile ships can drop semi-random blueprints that are related to the type of enemy. These blueprints can then be constructed using resources to create new weapons, abilities, or permanent buffs to the player’s ships.
   

2.3 Controls

The control scheme is designed to be simple and intuitive, instead of including unnecessary functions and control difficulties that most space games include.

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WASD - Basic horizontal strafing, including forward/backward and left/right.

Spacebar - Ascend.

Shift - Boost
Control - Descend.

Mouse XY - Rotating the camera. The ship will rotate to face the same direction as the camera.

Tab - Enable/Disable Autopilot

Enter - Hold to aim jump function, release when a valid jump path is calculated to begin jump.

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3. World Design

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3.1 Setting

Blueshift takes place in the Cronus star system, 12,000 years after the system was discovered. The system was originally home to 3 habitable worlds, one of which is now missing, along with one of the gas giants.

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3.2 Environments

Players will explore locations around several planets, starting from the edge of the star system and slowly making their way closer as they find new ways to combat the increasing heat and radiation.

• Cronus VII - Chiron: A desolate planet on the edge of the system, with large rings where players can mine for ice.
   

• Cronus VI - Zeus: A large gas giant that has gone missing. The player must visit two of its moons that have been scattered throughout the nearby asteroid belt. It is here that players first encounter the Prismata enemies.

  • Cronus VIa - Dionysus: A moon with a strong magnetic field, near the edge of the asteroid belt, players can find useful metals like iron, cobalt, and nickel near this moon.

  • Cronus VIb - Hephaestus: A moon hidden deep in the asteroid belt, surrounded by rocks rich in precious minerals that the player can mine.
     

• Cronus V - Poseidon: A large gas giant with strong gravity, attracting any stray asteroids that would otherwise hit the inner worlds. Players can find large clusters of asteroids with various common materials near this planet.
   

• Cronus IV - Hera: The second missing planet, originally a rocky world on the edge of the habitable zone, is now completely gone. The player cannot go to the planet, but they find remnants of an advanced war-faring civilisation from this planet. It is around these areas that the player discovers the Aegis fleet.
   

• Cronus III - Demeter: A planet that was once flourishing with plant life, now in an elliptical orbit with a strong tilt, creating a chaotic climate only habitable on the surface during certain times of the year.
   

• Cronus II - Hestia: A warm, stable planet hosting numerous species of plants and animals, yet no sign of intelligent life can be found here. Asteroid clusters found nearby are rich in materials players will need to generate power and sustain their ship. Yet for some reason, there are no enemies to be found here.
   

• Cronus I - Hades: A volcanic planet, stripped of its atmosphere and tidally locked to Cronus, with one side in perpetual sunlight and the other in darkness. Nothing could survive here, but the player is convinced that this planet carries the remains of the last civilisation born in this system. Players can find extremely rare and valuable resources in asteroids nearby, but the proximity to Cronus makes it difficult to stay for extended periods of time.
   

3.3 Narrative Structure

The story is structured as 7 chapters, one for each planet.

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Players begin the story by jumping into the edge of the system near Chiron.

Each chapter involves introducing new resources and technologies to the player and discovering the history of the planet.

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Chapters are considered completed when the player has reached a certain goal in the area, such as unlocking a specific technology needed to survive in the next area, or finding clues about the ancient civilisations that point to the next planet.

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4. Factions and Characters

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4.1 Playable Character

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4.2 Prismata

The first hostile faction the player encounters. The Prismata are an ancient hivemind of mechanical drones shaped like prisms. They disguise themselves as asteroids and debris by connecting and forming shapes.

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The Prismata have no goals and no intentions; they are all that remains of an ancient civilisation that once visited the Cronus system, attacking anything they see as a threat to their existence and mining resources to make up for lost numbers, but otherwise remaining dormant.

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4.3 Aegis Fleet

The Aegis fleet is a large fleet of ships from another visiting civilisation. Their homeworld is very close to the Cronus system, yet the fleet itself has lost contact with their homeworld.

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Being close to the Cronus system, they witnessed far more of its recent history and have a far better guess on what happened to the missing planets, but they don’t seem willing to give up that information.

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The Aegis Fleet’s intentions seem to be to protect the secrets of the Cronus system until their dying breath.

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4.4 Veilguard

a small faction that split off from the Aegis fleet but found much more advanced technology relating to stealth and speed. They have been relatively passive towards other factions, but they appear to be working on something in the shadows.

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4.5 Aetherians

The Aetherians are a civilisation with extremely advanced technology that seems magical. Their ships feature a white and gold aesthetic with halo-like structures that make the ships seem like angels. Their main form of weaponry is summoning flying swords that seek out other ships. Some of their ships also have an inversion feature, which inverts the colours of the ship and changes its attacks.

The Aetherians are remnants from a civilisation originating in the Cronus system. They are found at the innermost planets of the solar system.

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5. Art Direction

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5.1 Visual Style

Blueshift has a semi-realistic art style, with high resolution and detailed textures for asteroids and environments, while using smooth, simple metal materials for player ships to contrast and make the player feel as though they don’t belong there.

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5.2 Colour Palette

The colour scheme of the game heavily features the colour blue. It is used in UI elements and is the colour shown in front of the player during jumps to simulate the “blueshift” effect when moving at near light speeds.

Player-made objects will mostly be grey metals and a dull blue to appear modern and industrial.

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5.3 User Interface

The UI is mostly blue and grey with a dark blue hexagonal background. This is to make it appear as though the player is not interacting with their HUD, but instead is interacting with the ship's systems.

Most user interfaces are shown inside the ship on screens that can be clicked on. Clicking on a screen brings up that interface on the HUD and lets the player interact with it. This allows the player to quickly access the information they need from the UI without needing to find or open any menus.

This also makes the implementation of UI for future modules and attachments easier, as they can simply be attached to the object, and the player can bring them up on the HUD.

The interfaces opened onto the HUD can be dragged around and closed like windows, and can also be opened with keybinds instead of clicking on a screen.

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6. Audio Design

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6.1 Music

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6.2 Sound Effects

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7. Technical Specifications

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7.1 Target Platforms

Windows PCs using a Mouse and a Keyboard.

Most UI will be designed with controllers in mind, but there are several limitations due to the nature of using a draggable window-style UI

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7.2 Requirements

Minimum Requirements

• OS: Windows 10

• Processor: Intel Core I5-10600k / AMD Ryzen 5 3600

• Memory: 8GB RAM

• Graphics: NVIDIA GTX 1070ti / AMD Radeon RX 580

• Storage: 15GB, HDD

Recommended Requirements:

• OS: Windows 10/11

• Processor: Intel Core I5-12400F / AMD Ryzen 5 5600X

• Memory: 16GB RAM

• Graphics: NVIDIA RTX 3060 / AMD Radeon RX6600

• Storage: 15GB, SSD

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Storage is expected to be no more than 15GB, as high-resolution textures will be limited to asteroids and planets. Audio will likely take up the majority of the game's memory.

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9. Monetisation

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9.1 Business Model

Blueshift will have a demo featuring the first planet and a full game containing all planets with a price of $24.99 NZD.

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9.2 Pricing Strategy

Base game price: $24.99 NZD

Similar game prices:

• Avorion - $30.99 NZD

• Astroneer - $44.99 NZD

• Satisfactory - $56.99 NZD

• Elite Dangerous - $28.99 NZD
   

Blueshift features a much lower-than-average price compared to these games, as the amount of content is far less. The budget of production does not allow for high-quality trailers and advertisements that would keep buyers interested at a high price.

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10. Appendices

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10.1 Concept Art

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10.2 References

Inspirations for Blueshift include:

• Elite Dangerous - https://www.elitedangerous.com/

• Dyson Sphere Program - https://store.steampowered.com/app/1366540/Dyson_Sphere_Program/

• Avorion - https://www.avorion.net/

• Astroneer - https://astroneer.space/

• Satisfactory - https://www.satisfactorygame.com/