Island Escape Game: First Draft

Photo by SCREEN POST on Unsplash

Island Escape Game: First Draft

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SUMMARY

Basically, Island Escape as the title projects is essentially about you playing a rough and tough vehicle race trying to win money and fame, but basically to escape the island. You win races by driving faster than your opponents, taking them out (with various weapons), or by beating the living daylights out of them with your fists or kicks. Just escape the island!

STORYLINE/GAMEPLAY

There are two game modes in Island Escape. Quick Escape mode*. This is a limited version of the game, where players just want to get a feel of what the game is about, meaning that they don’t select characters, don’t choose vehicles, and don’t choose weapons. They just play the game based on the lowest default and accessories the game has to offer. Their progress is also not saved*.

While Planned Escape mode. In this mode, you select which character to play from a list of nearly a dozen "interesting" individuals, each of which has different fighting and racing characteristics, as well as a different model of vehicle choices (probably add accessories based on coins or cash owned) and their own cash reserve (which they can increase by buying or by winning races).

The island is split into three categories in form of levels. You start Planned Escape mode on level one and must place first, second, or third to progress to the next level or category. To progress to the next category, you need to have the required vehicle which can be acquired by purchasing or replaying the same category/level and winning money until you can afford the vehicle.

There are several points in the race courses where the road forks into two distinct paths (the original road-which is longer with fewer obstacles) and (the beach-which is shorter with loads of obstacles) which rejoin before crossing the finish line.

Fighting in Island Escape is relatively simple. You can punch, kick, or target the other escapers with guns and different weapons if you have one. Some racers start each race with a particular weapon, but anyone can steal weapons from the other characters during the race. Each racer has a health bar that decreases as they crash, get beaten, or shot at and it increases over time. When a racer's bar is empty, he/she falls off their vehicle. There is also a bar that indicates the current condition of their bike. When this bar reaches zero, it's all over. Both bars are replenished automatically before the start of a new race. There is also a bar that indicates the level of fuel in your vehicle (we all know what happens when there’s no fuel in your vehicle).

At times while racing, a jungle policeman (or wild animals) on a motorcycle will appear and try to knock you off of your bike. If at any point you fall off your bike and he catches up to you, you're "busted" and you lose the race (minus several hundred dollars for the fine and if caught by animals, for treatment).

You can select between a simple on-screen display of your current ranking in the race, or you can opt to view graphics that show your speed and RPMs. In both cases, however, you can see yourself on your motorcycle or bike (with the exception that you’re in a vehicle).

Saved games are handled reasonably well. There are ten save slots, and games are saved on a character-by-character basis.

Lastly, there are noticeable pauses in the game,

There is a ten-second pause before each race starts.

THE HUT: This pause provides a (how long?) window for racers to refuel, get treated/heal, buy weapons, check the leaderboard, meet other racers/join gangs. The hut is essentially the options menu, allowing you to change the game mode (quick or planned escape), multiplayer mode, choose your game level (only in planned escape mode), individually turn the engine sounds and in-game music on and off, and load and save games. Then the game restarts, when the game restarts, you can steal the vehicle of other racers as far as you get to the parking lot first (including their accessories, weapons, etc.)

The Finish and Escape:

There is a helicopter to be boarded, in other to actually escape the island. The helicopter is on a mountain, that vehicles cannot get to, so players have to climb the mountain to get to the helicopter. This excites me, because it creates another form of chaos and murder, to get to the helicopter and escape.

  • Should there be a MAP that is necessary for a player to access the helicopter?

  • Where will the players find the MAP?

  • Or all these are not needed, since there will be a pilot waiting for the surviving players?

  • So, as soon as players get off their vehicles to approach the helicopter, should there be a sort of countdown indicating how long before the pilot takes off?

ADDITIONS

A way to get back to the initial selection screen once a player has entered planned escape mode. This means that the player can select a new character once they have started playing without rebooting the machine.

Analog Controller?