Game Concept

2024-09-13 by carnej

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Lost In The Woods

When night falls, you must make it back home to your cabin, as the dark forest becomes a maze and will try and stop you.

The game is a 2D top-down maze-like game, similar to Berserk (1980).

The player will spawn into a level with a limited field-of-view, indicated by a circle around the player. The rest of the level will be very dark or completely black, making it difficult to navigate the forest. The goal of the player is to get to the end of each level without dying to hazards, which will take the form of traps that can kill the player, areas that can slow the player to mislead them, or enemies that might slowly follow the player through the level. Once the player reaches the end of the level, they will move on to the next level, which will be randomly selected from a list of premade mazes. The player will have to be careful, as dying to a hazard will result in a game over. Once the player completes a certain number of levels without dying, they will reach the cabin and beat the game.

The influence for the style of the game was trying to put a spin on Berserk, as it is something I believe to be achievable, yet has the potential to continue to expand should I reach my initial development goals.

As the game will have simple mechanics, it can be enjoyed casually by anyone, and hopefully will be easy to understand and play for even non-gamers, meaning you don’t have to be good at games to enjoy it. The game will not have any sort of combat mechanics and is largely just trying to navigate the character through maze levels. The ‘man in the woods’ style I am trying to achieve is also something that I think is easily accessible, as the simpler style fits the simple mechanics.

You play as a lumberjack who had recently gone out to chop wood for his fire, but it has gotten dark, and he needs to traverse the forest (maze-like levels) to return to his cabin. However, the maze is largely dark, and the lumberjack carries a light-source that limits visibility to an area around him. The levels will contain hazards that can kill the lumberjack and stop him returning home. Instead of shooting enemies to traverse through the levels, the goal is to instead avoid the hazards and make it home carefully.

The hazards will include things such as:

Traps that can injure or kill you on your way to the cabin
Zones that can slow or push the player
Slow enemies that will chase you and prevent you from getting home

There will be many levels of the forest that you will have to go through before reaching the cabin, and the levels will appear in random orders, so you never know what’s coming next. You have to be cautious, however, the darkness of the night will make it hard to see the forest around you, and even the simplest of traps can become dangerous with your limited vision.

Concept Art:

This is an example of how a single game level might be laid out. The player will spawn at the entrance and will have to make it to the exit. Making it to the exit will move the player on to the next level, and once the player has made it through enough levels then they will reach the cabin, and the game will be won. There may be multiple exits on some levels, particularly levels where there may be enemies, so the player has a chance to get past the enemy. The pink area highlights an area that may impact the players movement and may be placed in levels to slow the player against enemies, or to possibly mislead the player to a dead end. The red area shows how a trap might appear, and the player will have to time their movements as to not get killed by the trap if they choose to use that exit. Of course, there is no knowing how many exits there are, so there may be easier options available if the player can find them.

Here is an example of the field-of-view might look for the player, with the idea to make it difficult to see the rest of the level, so the player never knows what is ahead: