Assignment 3 - Document 1 Heavens Loom

Game Concept Document – Heavens Loom (Working Title)

Introduction

 Heavens Loom is a 3/4 top down World War 2 based survival horror where the player has five days to save the world from the threat of an alien invasion, and will be able to use time and recordings of previous playthroughs to explore their surroundings and change the flow of events in the game world.

Story Overview

Heavens Loom is a relatively peaceful town out in the countryside of North West England, largely self reliant and isolated on the coast during the Blitz of World War 2. Out of the way from the full brunt of air raids across the larger cities, Heavens Loom is a place where very little happens. At least, until one fateful day when the unspeakable happens during an air raid.

A UFO is shot down and crash lands near the rural town, and almost overnight rumours and strange events start disrupting life in Heaven's Loom. With agents from London and reserve soldiers being dispatched overnight to investigate the ruin, the town is cordoned off and it's citizens prevented from leaving, rumours initially rumbling about a German plane having crashed in the nearby woods. It is on this night that the game's protagonist Evan Lume awakens with no memory, with nothing but the clothes upon his back and a mysterious LP Record in an empty briefcase. Dazed and confused, Evan stumbles toward the nearest sign of civilization before lapsing back into unconciousness.

Rewakening in an air raid shelter on the first day of what would soon be a full blown alien invasion, he soon finds himself to be a stranger within the rural town of Heaven's Loom, either being ignored or viewed with suspicion – several townspeople believe him to be a german spy, including the town's warden. When the second day begins, rumours fly about a farming family on the outskirts of the community that have disappeared overnight, with suspicion being pointed squarely at Evan. He also discovers that his LP is useless, only playing static when put into a gramophone.

After more disappearances on the second night and rumours starting to fly about tall grey men in the woods, and panic begins to spread through the community. And the third night marks the beginning of an invasion, air raid sirens ignored as the people of Heavens Loom face an attack by mysterious creatures fighting their way into the outskirts of town, trapping the population. With panic spreading and the townspeople turning on themselves in a fight for survival, the protagonist continues to try and find a way out of the town, an increasingly futile goal.

By the final day, the aliens have managed to reach the town's radio tower, using it to summon a larger alien fleet with which to overrun and conquer Heaven's Loom. Desperately fighting for survival, Evan ends up stealing an unknown device from a fallen alien, believing it to be a weapon... only to discover that it is something far more powerful. When he tries to use it, he instead finds himself bathed in white light... before waking up in the same air raid shelter he had been in 5 days before.

At first thinking that he'd just had a nightmare, the protagonist discovers that he still possesses the device he had used in his 'dream'... and also that his LP record has begun glowing. When he puts the record into a gramophone once again, instead of the static from the last time he'd tried to play, he instead discovers a 'recording' of himself wandering off and following his path and actions from the last few days.

Bearing the terrible knowledge of the town's fate, and wielding the tools that can allow him to change the flow of events, Evan Loom finds himself with little option but to use his mysterious ability to use time to alter history and save himself and the people of Heavens Loom.

Description

“Heavens Loom” is an isometric survival horror set in an alternate post WW2 universe in the north of England, where you play as a stranger who soon discovers he is trapped in a vicious time loop endlessly repeating the fall of a close knot community still living in fear of the second world war as a super natural threat makes itself known.

After a plane crashes in the nearby moors, you play in the role of a stranger waking up with no memory of how you've come to be in a cycle reliving the same 5 days in an isolated english village in 1945. With the mysterious ability to record and coexist with your past self, you must use both the past and the present to dig deeper into the dark secrets hidden within the village community of Heavens Loom and the surrounding countryside, and discover a way to break the endless time loop at any cost.

Key Features

-  Use your ability to rewind time and record your past actions to come up with creative solutions to solve puzzles and affect how events evolve within the game world. 

-  Explore and interact within a deep 1940's world that lives and breathes. Npcs follow out their daily lives and deal with personal tragedies through the countdown to the end of days. Use this knowledge to change how the game unfold and learn how to counter the alien threat. 

-  None-linear Gameplay - Freedom of choice on how to survive and explore the horror of the game environment. Use your powers to save and learn about the people of Heavens Loom, or use them instead for personal gain and self-preservation.

Genre

World War 2 Blitz themed Survival Horror set in an alternate universe.