This document provides an overview and design details for a 2D platformer game called "First Impact" where the player controls an alien named Jeremy who is escaping from the FBI. The game has three levels - Area 51, Earth, and Space. It describes Jeremy's backstory, gameplay mechanics, controls, enemy/boss designs, cutscenes, and more. The goal is for players to guide Jeremy through each level collecting items while avoiding enemies to ultimately escape back to his home planet.

1. Design by: Group 2 Productions
For PC/Mac
Rating: 10+
Ship date: TBD
Will H, Sam M & Sam H

2. Game story:
Jeremy is an alien visitor from an unknown planet he crashes his
spaceship on Earth and he is immediately taken away by the FBI to Area
51. Jeremy has to escape before this dark corner of the government kills
him and dissects him for their research. Jeremy manages to escape his cell
but the bunker he’s trapped in is alerted to his presence, Jeremy dodges
patrolling guards, bullets and top-secret defensive lasers booby-traps.
Along his way Jeremy also notices that this facility has files on him and his
spaceship knowing he can not allow this evil species to come after him
with the information they have gathered he collects the files.
He eventually finds an exit point and escapes the underground bunker
completely, with the feds hot on his tail Jeremy makes his way through a
near by town where he hijacks a sports car from the locals and drives
towards a pillar of smoke in the distance that he knows to be his
spaceship.
Arriving at this hillside Jeremy sees the place surround by large white
tents and more security and at the top of the hill where people in white lab
coats are he spots his craft. Thinking that these being are more scared of
him then he is of them he creates a large shadow of himself and starts to
drool from the mouth baring his teeth and growling.
All but a few scream and run, fleeing in all directions leaving Jeremy free to
simply climb the scaffolding surrounding the mountainous hill to his space
ship while avoiding getting shot or tackled by agents. Jeremy also notices
some strange creatures on the hill known locally as sheep, fearing for
these animals safety Jeremy takes them aboard his ship.
He escapes Earth but his still damaged ship crashes in the local system’s
asteroid belt. The ship’s crash has caused many parts to separate, Jeremy
seeing a rocket coming from the horrible planet he just left coming straight
towards him, rushes out to collect the parts for his ship but too late the FBI
Astronaut Division lands equipped with laser guns. Jeremy knows he must
collect some the parts of the parts for his ship so he can at least get to the
next nearest service area the AAA (the Alien’s AA).
Gameplay:
In First Impact you play as Jeremy, an extraterrestrial beingwho is running
for his life from the FBI. Jeremy is a peaceful alien, so therefore he does not
carry any form of lethal weapon, instead he relies on his wits to outsmart
the simple guards’ patrol patterns and solve puzzles to escape. Jeremy is

3. also gifted with having three lives, which will reset on a New Game, if all
three are used up though, Jeremy will die.
These lives work as a type of checkpoint, upon being hit, Jeremy will
respawn nearby in a safe location (if all three lives have been used up and
he is hit, game over).In each level Jeremy has something to collect, in Area
51 he has to collect documents with information about his species that
humans have recorded so they never find out, on Earth he has to abduct
cows to experiment on, and in space he must collect new parts to repair
his ship.
Elevator Pitch:
Platform game, 3 levels, character is an alien. First level: Area 51, Second
Level: Earth, Third Level: Space. Score obtained in levels.
Game Flow
As Jeremy progresses through the game, he will unlock bonuses such as
increased speed and the ability to jump higher. This will help the player as
each level has an increase in difficulty and the game will become near
impossible without these upgrades.
There are collectables scattered across each level, while these do not affect
the game in anyway, they do add to your score.
To gather these collectables, Jeremy simply has to walk over them.
Above: Designs for the collectables on level 1 & 2.

4. Player Character:
Jeremy. Jeremy’s appearance remains the same throughout the game and
if the game is completed without loosing one life, you unlock a new skin
for Jeremy, which features an extra life. You can upgrade Jeremy’s abilities
however, such as his speed, and the height he can jump.
Player Controls (PC/Mac):

5. Main Gameplay Concepts and Platform Specific Features
First Impact is a 2D platform game that can be classed as an arcade,
adventure game. The game-play is split into levels, these levels are
designed around the story that Group2Productions wrote. The first level is
set in a top secret bunker run by the FBI and the second is on a hillside
near a crashed alien ship, this is then followed by a level in the solar
system’s asteroid belt.
The aim of this game is to escape from capture and flee back to space. As
there are significant gaps in the locations being shown there will be comic
strip scenes showing the in-between stage journeys and making the
stories progression easy to follow by the player.
The player will be engaged in a non-violent, puzzle solving role, the idea is
to have are target audience find ways around a maze filled with threats
and succeed in getting finishing point without injury. As the game
progresses on the mazes the levels have become more difficult to navigate
and the desired collectables that every player should want to get become
much hard to collect without the level restarting.
Designs for platforms.

6. Game World
In First Impact we have three levels for Jeremy to navigate through; each
one increases in difficulty. Level 1 is set in Area 51, Level 2 is outside on a
hill with the spaceship crashed at the top, and the final level is set in space
on an asteroid.
We aim to make it self-explanatory why we have each level, as the idea is
Jeremy is working his way up through a base, then up a hill to his
spaceship.
In level 1 we want to create a tense Sci-Fi feel that keeps the player
engaged and makes them think tactfully, level 2 will be a lot more
colourful and cheerful, as it is set against a lush background and not grey
and metallic like level 1.
For level 3, we want a dramatic and suspenseful atmosphere, as Jeremy is
navigating his way across an asteroid, we want it to have the ‘big dramatic
final level’ feel to it that games have.
Above: the background for level 1 and the concept design for level 2’s
background and layout.
Flow chart
for a
working
game level/

7. Interface
The interface of First Impact is simple to navigate and understand the
main menu has labelled buttons, which can start the game, show the
controls and rules or show the credits.
On each scene within the game there is always a menu button allowing the
player to exit to the main menu at any point, for the controls and rules
menu as well as the credit scene the main menu button is allocated in the
top right corner.
However for the game’s playable levels the menu button is to the bottom
left side with a pause game button alongside it. The game’s interface has
been designed in a uniform manner the playable levels and the other
scenes have the same position for their button links with the exception of
the main menu screen, which is positioned centrally.
The scenes of First Impact all include music the Main, controls and credits
menus have a generic sci-fi beat that’s fits the game perfectly and is
practically unnoticeable so your able to listen to it for hours without
getting irritated. The music changes once you start the game, the
introductory scene that tells the player the game’s story has a faster pace
and more stellar sounding sci-fi track than the main menus.
Level one is set in a secret government bunker so the tone of the backing
sound had to be a science fiction type soundtrack, the music has a strong
base with a quieter high-pitched keyboard on top it feels like a light heart
chase scene and works well with the escape scenario the alien is in.
Level two is completely different to level one the alien is now outside and
within reach of his spaceship, the music had to be cheerful, up beat, with
an outdoors quality and as this level is difficult it had to be cheekily
irritating after a player failed so many times.
The soundtrack was successful in this respect with a light-strumming
guitar, light tapping on some drums and the occasional bellowing
trumpets. The loading screens are the only screens without a musical
soundtrack.

8. Mechanics and Power-Ups
The unique mechanics within the game are using “A” to move left, “D” to
move right, “W” to climb up a ladder and “S” to climb down a ladder. These
buttons are used because they are close enough to each other to all be
pressed by one hand.
On both levels there are also collectibles, which the player can choose to
pick up. To pick up a collectible the player just has to walk through it, we
did this as it is simple for the player and there won’t be any need for any
extra instructions such as “Press B to pick up collectible”, also adding an
extra animation could have slowed down the pace of the game.
On the first level these collectibles are in the form of secret documents that
the FBI agents keep which has information about Jeremy’s species.
On the second level these collectibles are in the form of sheep that Jeremy
can experiment on.
When Jeremy walks into the FBI document he collects it and the silhouette
version of the document in the top left part of the screen, part of the HUD,
turns into a picture of the document, notifying the player that they have
collected it. There will also be a unique high pitch sound played signalling
that when then player went through the collectible something good
happened.

9. The very same thing happens when
Jeremy collects the sheep although instead of having a pitch sound there
will be the sound of a sheep, then one of the silhouettes of the sheep will
turn into a picture of a sheep.
When Jeremy gets caught by the guards, or they collide with/touch him,
they respawn at the beginning of the level and have to redo the entire
level, including collecting all of the items again. This is to ensure that the
game is not too easy.
Not only does this happen when Jeremy gets caught by one of the guards
but it also happens when a guard shoots a gun and the bullet hits Jeremy.
The guns get fired at different times to each other but all have a timer set
so that they get fired every few seconds, some are every 5 seconds and
some are a different number, this is so that the player will have to quickly
guess when it is safe to climb/run and avoid the guard whilst getting to the
end of the level and, if they choose to, get the collectibles.
All of the collectibles are located at different heights, i.e. the player will
have to climb up or down a ladder to pick up more than one. This has been
done to make the game more challenging and get the player thinking about
what they will have to do and when they can move to certain parts of the
level.
There are currently no power-ups in the game, nor do we have any plans
to have any in the future as we think that power-ups will just complicate
things for the player, we think that the collectibles within the game are
enough “added features” to entertain and challenge the player without
adding anything else.
Enemies and Bosses:
The main opposing enemies in the game are the FBI agents, some of which
shoot their guns and others, which move from left to right around parts of
the level which need accessing to continue e.g. ladders. The FBI agents are
much bigger and physically stronger than Jeremy.
While the guards are ruthless the fact that they merely patrol back and
forth on levels in a simple fashion means that with intelligence and

10. patience,by watching and learning their patterns for a brief amount of time
the player should be able to out-smart them and avoid their patrols.
We wanted to have more than just the “walking back and forth” guard to
make the levels a little bit more interesting and challenging.
Above: Old and new concepts for the FBI agents.
On the left is the very first design for our agents, our original intent was to
go for a block/”Minecraft” look but after some negative feedback we
decided to change it to the design on the right.
We changed it to look less like squares and more like an actual person. The
designs on the right were of three different coloured agents, we went with
the darkest one in the middle for the final game.
The other main challenge/enemy Jeremy will face in the
levels are the laser traps, these will kill Jeremy instantly
upon contact and send him straight back to the
beginning of the level with all of their progress reset.
Some lasers are triggered by stepping on buttons and
require a separate button turn off and others are set to
turn on automatically for a specific amount of time and
turn off automatically for a specific amount of time.
These laser traps only appear in level 1 because it is
The only environment it makes sense for them to be in, they
can’t be connected to wooden platforms outside. (Level 2).
Because of the lack of laser traps in level 2, there will be more
patrolling guards and a more complex level layout to ensure the
level is harder than the previous one.

11. Cut scenes, Bonus Material, and Competitions
The cut scenes are going to be drawn in Photoshop using a graphics tablet.
These are going to be individual drawings with text either underneath
them or beside them to explain the story and there will be between 2-4 at
a time. It will be a little like a comic strip.
The cut scenes will be between the main menu and level one explaining
who Jeremy is, why he’s on earth, what he has to do etc.
The cut scene between level one and level two will explain how Jeremy got
from Area 51 to the farm and the cut scene between level two and three
will explain how Jeremy gets into his spaceship.
The cut scene at the end will explain that Jeremy has made it past all of the
cards and is returning to his planet.
At this time we have not planned any bonus material nor are we planning
any. We have also not planned anything for the player to unlock at any
point in the game.
The player will want to play again because not only will they most likely
find it fun but they may want to attempt to get more collectibles than they
got in a previous attempt at the game.
There wouldn’t be any major competition on release.
There will also be no competitions associated with this game. We don’t
think there needs to be.