Delivery Adventure | Game Concept
this was a student project. The style was inspired by
Eric Kubli's Sketches
Explore island villages by delivering letters and packages, talk to the locals to find a way to the Queen.
The player is a small character/creature. The job is to deliver things. "You" just have moved to the island and got hired. Things you deliver can be postcards, letters, parcels, whatever. The player can also pick up orders for other people. For example, someone wants the main character to pick up a clock that they brought to a clock store for repair.
The location is a group of islands (inspired by Scandinavian houses and fjords). There is one main big island, with streets and shops and houses and smaller islands with 1 to 3 houses on each. The main island has stores and services facilities on it and the biggest amount of buildings.
There is one post office on the mainland where you get some parts of the things to deliver. After completing all deliveries (that the player has on hand), the player has to go back to the post office for more packages and letters, and also addresses where the player has to pick up ‘orders’ (various items to deliver).
The time to deliver certain letters and parcels is limited. When delivery is successful, the player get reviews (star stamps). A higher rate can will be received after the delivery of those limited-time parcels. With those reviews the player will get the boat upgraded, so the delivery process will be a little faster.
Some of the small islands are locked. To unlock them, complete a number of tasks and get a certain rating.
There is a locked(Foggy) path to outer waters. The player cannot swim further than the territory of that group of islands. That path to outer waters is going to have a gate on the water (so it is visible and the user will not forget that there is this interesting outer waters that are locked)
The parcels will have addresses that would indicate the description of the area (eg. Broken Flag Tavern (an Island with a broken flag). The way of getting to those addresses is intuitive.
After unlocking the last small island, the character who lives in the last island will send the player on a special delivery, to the queen of the land (the queen of that country). It is a delivery special challenge. If the challenge delivery is successful, the player will get promoted and become a royal delivery man.
So the player has to go on that special journey to deliver to the Queen and come back.
The map will not show the whole world, only a cluster (village) of the islands. There are 3 village clusters. On the way in-between the villages, the map will not be available. It is a cut-away location and a mini-game of driving the boat and avoiding rocks.
Change of seasons / Transportation challenges
Transportation: boat. At first it is a bit slow. As an additional obstacle, there are small rocks in the sea, they have to be avoided, or it will slow down the boat even more. There is going to be a change of a season. After 15 deliveries, a season will change. But the first change of the season is going to be after 20 deliveries so they player is comfortable enough playing and knowing routes.
Summer: Boat. Can be upgraded to a motor boat and later to a water scooter.
Autumn: strong winds. Winds appear randomly but have a pattern. Winds tilts your boat, and it is harder to go and avoid the rocks in the sea. If bump more than 4 times, a package is lost, thus minus rating.
Winter: Ice skating. Can be upgraded to an iceboat.
Spring: can only use motor boat or something faster (because of melting ice swimming around).
After unlocking 2/3 of the small locations the player is granted with a water scooter as a reward. The scooter has a higher speed than the primary delivery boat.
Side tasks: random lost things around locations can be found.
When delivering and picking up parcels the player will interact with non-playable characters, for example: a character complains that they have lost something, so if the player finds the lost thing, they can be brought to their owners. The NPCs talk partly in riddles. More reviews will be received as a reward.
To get to the Queen, the player must pass through 3 island groups. The way to the group of islands is a long way of passing rocks on water. Eventually, the player will get to the first small island. The map will not be available till the first island. The player will have to stop by on each island to interact with characters and ask for directions. The Queen’s castle-island appears only after a special honk from a horn, that a certain character possesses).
The player is welcome to explore, but the way to the Queen will not be available until all the previous tasks are done. So the player will be forced to ask villagers where to find the Queen. The villagers will only agree to that if the player delivers something for them, or runs an errand for them. It does not matter which of the villagers the player will ask first for the directions. Each of them will have a function, if the player has already asked one of the other villagers about the Queen, then they will not repeat the same thing.
The Queen - plays the role of a final destination.
After the player has asked about how to get to the queen, they will get an answer that there is this special place, called a royal portal, where it is required to pay 7 coins to pass through. Those coins can only be given by the villagers of those surrounding islands because in a way they are all guarding the Queen. Now the player has to go around talking to villagers about the coins and whether he can do any deliveries for them to get those coins.
The villagers have different personalities and some of them give 1 coin, some of them 2, and some of them zero because they are just grumpy and greedy.
