Souls & Sails

Game Statement

Souls & Sails is a 3D survival adventure game set within the pirate era. Harvest wood, stone and metal that can be used to craft new equipment and upgrade your own pirate ship. Your character is tasked to locate and retrieve long lost artifacts that have been rumored to possess an ancient curse. The player is forever chased by an unnatural Soul Storm that consumes souls trapped inside. The player needs to manage resource gathering and speed to be able to safely retrieve artifacts and avoid the Soul Storm.

Timestamps

UI Navigation - 0:00

Resource Gathering - 1:20

Crafting - 7:00

Exploration - 7:30

Ship Sailing - 9:52

Technical Design

Mechanics

Inventory System:
The player has a full inventory system that is displayed in a grid format. Items can be added using functions which will populate the inventory from bottom to top if no other items of that type are found, If that type is found then it will add to the existing slot. The player can drag items across the inventory as well as into other inventories such as a storage chest and a smelter.

There are 2 different interaction types when equipping an item from the inventory.
Holding - Holds the corresponding item in the hand such as tools and artifacts which can have actions of their own.
Consuming - Removes 1 quantity of the item to gain the benefits of consuming that item, typically gains an amount of health.

Ship Sailing:
The player can interact with the ship's helm to gain control of the ship. The sails can be lowered or raised with the W and S keys, when lowered the ship travels forward.

A side plank can be toggled to allow for easy access on and off the ship.

The buoyancy was sourced as an asset however I made tweaks to create settings to fine tune the sensitivity and max rotation angle of the ship to improve it's handling.

Crafting + Smelting:
Use fuel (wood, charcoal) to smelt metal ore into ingots which can then be used to craft unique tools and upgrades. The furnace only ignites when attempting to smelt an item that does result in a smeltable item. It also continues to smelt while the player leaves the furnace until all fuel is consumed.

Combine materials to create new tools which improve resource gathering and upgrade your ship with benefits such as increased movement speed. There is an indicator letting the player know if they have enough materials or not to craft each item. There are also ship upgrades that require previous upgrades to be crafted beforehand.

Resource Gathering:
Use various tools to gather materials such as wood, stone and metal, or dig up dirt mounds in search of treasure.

Soul Storm:
After collecting the first artifact, ending the tutorial, the Soul Storm will appear. It is a slow moving storm that will chase the player for the rest of the game. The player will need to plan their route to complete objectives while avoiding the storm.

Player Attributes:
Health is slowly drained when the character's anxiety bar has reached it's limit, use food to regain health back. Once the character's health reaches zero the game is over.

Stamina is consumed when performing actions such as sprinting and swinging tools. Stamina begins to regen when not being used after a short delay. The player cannot perform these actions without stamina.

Anxiety is slowly gained when inside the Soul Storm. When full, health will start to drain until the player lowers their anxiety.

Quest Objectives:
During gameplay a HUD element will display the current objective for the player. These objectives will update whenever tasks are completed such as collecting a new artifact.

Other

Island Designs

Design 1:
This is my first design; I liked the idea of having the player spawn on a small island separated from the mainland which gives the player more incentive to quickly explore the large island. I also want to have large rocks extruding from the water to act as barriers that prevent the player from docking their ship at that location, this is so I can predict the player’s entry point to the island and design points of interests accordingly. The player would have to follow a narrow path that winds up the mountain leading to an enclosed area where there will be the buried artifact and rare metal deposits.

Design 2:
I kept the same smaller island idea for this design but made it feel more closely attached to the mainland. The mountainous area would only be approachable from a hidden path on one corner of the island to encourage exploration. Once at the top you would have a clear view of the whole island and specifically a great view of the small island the player spawns on to warrant achievement of where they got to from where they started.

Assets

Pirate Ship

1/5

Matthew Mckenna

Souls & Sails

Game Statement

Timestamps

Technical Design

Mechanics

Resource Gathering:
Use various tools to gather materials such as wood, stone and metal, or dig up dirt mounds in search of treasure.

Soul Storm:
After collecting the first artifact, ending the tutorial, the Soul Storm will appear. It is a slow moving storm that will chase the player for the rest of the game. The player will need to plan their route to complete objectives while avoiding the storm.

Quest Objectives:
During gameplay a HUD element will display the current objective for the player. These objectives will update whenever tasks are completed such as collecting a new artifact.

Other

Island Designs

Assets

Pirate Ship

Player Equipment

Souls & Sails

Game Statement

Timestamps

Technical Design

Mechanics

Resource Gathering: Use various tools to gather materials such as wood, stone and metal, or dig up dirt mounds in search of treasure.

Soul Storm: After collecting the first artifact, ending the tutorial, the Soul Storm will appear. It is a slow moving storm that will chase the player for the rest of the game. The player will need to plan their route to complete objectives while avoiding the storm.

Quest Objectives: During gameplay a HUD element will display the current objective for the player. These objectives will update whenever tasks are completed such as collecting a new artifact.

Other

Island Designs

Assets

Pirate Ship

Player Equipment

Resource Gathering:
Use various tools to gather materials such as wood, stone and metal, or dig up dirt mounds in search of treasure.

Soul Storm:
After collecting the first artifact, ending the tutorial, the Soul Storm will appear. It is a slow moving storm that will chase the player for the rest of the game. The player will need to plan their route to complete objectives while avoiding the storm.

Quest Objectives:
During gameplay a HUD element will display the current objective for the player. These objectives will update whenever tasks are completed such as collecting a new artifact.