This document describes the overarching gameplay concept. It is the plan for the alpha release of the game. Later on there may be additional maps and gamemodes.
Spies:
- The spies kill all of the other players.
- A machine is sabotaged to completely break or kill all players.
Scientists:
- All of the main tasks are completed.
- All spies are removed from the game by voting in meetings.
The core idea of the gameplay is that there are two teams: one larger team and a small team. Only the small team knows who is in which team and while they are trying to kill the others, the large team tries to find out which players are in the small team and trying to kill them.
Whenever a traitor is within a small enough distance from a player of the main team, that traitor can instantly kill the other player.
Killing is done with a gun that may be disguised as a common item like an umbrella or a pen. The gun needs to be reloaded after every kill, which takes some time and is obviously viewable by other people in the vicinity.
If you carry an item, you can't kill (see task system).
Meetings are parts of the game where all remaining players have the opportunity to discuss their suspicions and ultimately vote for one player to be removed from the game. As the main team has more players, they will try to select the spies here, while they should pretend to be on the main team as well and not draw suspicion on them, as they cannot win a vote just by themselves.
Players can start a meeting by interacting with an intercom placed in the map. There are multiple intercoms in the map. When a meeting is called, the screen fades to black and a short cutscene of everyone walking into the meeting room plays. Now, after the discussion has taken place, all players get to vote on who should be removed from the game. It is an option to vote that no one gets removed. After everyone voted or after a timeout the result of the vote is shown and the game resumes.
In between meetings the players get assigned tasks to complete. This gives them something to do as well as an alternative win condition.
The main team has a number of main experiments to complete. That number depends on the number of players and can also be adjusted manually before starting a game. Each of these experiments requires other tasks to be completed first to be started. These prerequisite tasks will either output an item that is needed for that task or have an output value that needs to be within an acceptable range (maintenance tasks). These tasks can have dependencies themselves, creating a dependency chain that needs to done in the right order, ending with the main task.
All tasks are shared, meaning every player can do every task (main tasks as well as prerequisite tasks). Spies can also complete any task, counting towards the main team's goal. To organize the players there will be an initial assignment of tasks for every player, but it is only a voluntary guideline and can be disregarded. If a player dies, their share of tasks will have to be done by the remaining players.
Imposters can do tasks badly, break progression, steal resulting items from tasks
There should be a display that is shown at one or more points in the map. It shows the progression of all the tasks, and where tasks have gone wrong. Draft:
The machines (Machine [1-3]) correspond to main tasks with the lights below indicating their current status. The elements below show the status of maintenance tasks.
Items are created by doing tasks, and are destroyed when they are used up by other tasks. Spies can steal an item from the output of a task, forcing the scientists to redo that task.
One person can carry one item at once to move it from one task to another. They can put it down anywhere in the map or in a task, but only if that task requires that item.
Items on the ground can be picked up by players in range.
Maintenance tasks cannot be "started" or "completed", they are always running and continuously emit a value. That value fluctuates randomly over time and can be adjusted by settings at that task. The maintenance task has an acceptance interval associated with it. Machines that depend on a maintenance task can only run while the output value is within that accepted interval. Two machines that depend on a maintenance task cannot require different acceptance ranges.
Players will have to regularly adjust the settings for the output to stay accepted. Spies can deliberately misconfigure the task, requiring others to fix it again. If the value moves outside of the accepted range, any tasks dependent on it that are currently running will be cancelled, deleting any input ingredients.
- Chemicals storages - pick up the chemicals from the lists and take them to the lab(different chemicals can be in different storage rooms, which one is needed in a specific round could be randomized.)
- Equipment storage - pick up lab equipment for the experiments
- Prepare a solution - mix together two chemicals slowly (requires 1. and 2.).Multiple types of mixing could be done:- If mixed too fast, the test tube explodes and you have to bring the ingredients again- You can mix the stuff together but have to wait until the reaction is over (color change?). If waiting too long, the task fails.
- Start up the machine for the experiment - press buttons until the machine turns on(Multiple experimental machines could be available)
- Begin experiment - bring the solution to the machine and press start, and the experiment begins (requires 3. and 4.)
- Pick up the printout of the experiment results (maybe 2 minutes after 5.).
- Take the experimental results to the office, and stamp it with the stamping machine (after 6.)
- Unlock the tube post room - two people simultaneously needs to turn the keys
- Start up the vacuum pump - press buttons and the vacuum gauge starts going down (after 8.)
- Place the message in the carrier pellet and put it in the tube post to send it (after 7. and 9.) --> Victory!
- (alternative to 10. for the Yugoslav spies if they play: put the stamped experimental results into a box somewhere to steal the documents and win)
- In case of a low number of players, it is randomly selected, which experiment has to be done, in case of large number of players, multiple experiments could be prerequisites.
- There could be a limited number of chemicals available in the storage, so if the experiments fail too many times, players can run out and lose.
- A trash that allows impostors to throw away stolen items.
If everyone can always call a meeting these might become to often, interrupt the task game and potentially make it very hard for the spies. This is one possible way around it:
- Nearest intercom to body is lit up after a dead body is clearly in sight
- Telecoms can be used without a dead body nearby
- Outlined yellow when being used for meeting calls, red for murders
- Voting happens in game by clicking on a player
- or with an overlaid GUI.
Either an item gets immediately used up when delivered at a task – it cannot be retrieved or stolen – or all items can be removed again from a task before it is started, for example a spy can steal an ingredient while the scientist is fetching another needed item.