A Survival Game
I am required to create a survival game within 4 weeks as an assessment. It should only be a simple game and be an alpha representation of what a full game would look like. It requires an inventory system, stats, pickups, and menus. If there is enough time, I plan to include some desirables such as basic AI, crafting, and to cause the player's stats to do more than simply killing them on depletion.
The game which I plan to make will be a farming survival game. The player must maintain a farm in order to survive. They must grow food, and gather resources in order to survive. Stats will include health, stamina, hunger, thirst, and warmth. These will all immediately kill the player upon depletion initially (as outlined by the project brief), but I might make them more interesting if I have the time.
Priority Tasks
All stats can kill the player.
Health lowers if the player takes damage.
Stamina decreases if the player sprints, and regenerates when the player isn't sprinting. If the player eats or drinks, it is filled.
Hunger goes down over time, and is replenished by eating food.
Thirst goes down over time and is replenished by drinking.
Warmth depletes during the night, unless the player is indoors or by a fire. It regenerates automatically during the day.
Mood (required), which depletes over time but is increased as the player eats or warms up. Depletes at 1.5 times the rate at which hunger, thirst, and warmth is currently depleting at.
Pickups include food, water, materials (including wood, rocks, and metal), and health.
Player might collect things by exploring, however I like the idea of the player choosing what they want to gather when they exit the farm, and tools they are carrying might help them to collect more materials than they would have otherwise.
This saves having to create much of a world, and I can focus instead on adding mechanics and other more interesting things to the game, because exploring a bland environment isn't much fun anyway.
Menus, including a main menu, pause menu, and a game over menu.
The ability to save the game, and resume from a later date.
Desirables
I plan to have basic day/night cycles by adjusting the brightness of lights as time progresses, so that it resembles a sine graph.
A high score showing the longest time survived. Ideally this will remain every time the game is opened.
AI which the player must deal with, such as enemies, or even something as simple as birds which destroy crops.
The farm will start with some basic resources inside the house, but these will not last long and are just to get the player started.
Make the stats will be more interesting. Ideally health is all that will kill the player, and health gradually lowers if any other stat is empty.
Allow for crafting to be done. Players can make things such as scarecrows or water catchers to help gather resources. Allow for crafting of meals by combining different food products. Allow crafting of simple weapons.