"Critical Mass" Video Game
Design Document



FIGURE: "Critical Mass": Retrospective Level #8: "Virtual Creature"


INTRODUCTION

I have long dreamed of designing video games that would be implemented and published by talented programmers and artists.

I used some of my spare time in the years 2000 and 2001 to write my first game design document, for a game I called "Critical Mass".

My original concept for "Critical Mass" involved a "game within a game". The main character was Mr. Ca$h, the shifty, con artist president of a video game company. The game begins in a courtroom, with Mr. Ca$h on trial, the target of a class-action suit brought against him for a series of terrible games produced by his company. The plaintiff side is represented by three notorious video game critics. A mass of critics also participates via online chat. Mr. Ca$h must defend himself by playing all 16 of his games in the courtroom. So, the player controls the Mr. Ca$h character, who in turn spends most of the game playing one of the sixteen video games published by his company. After each mini-game is completed (essentially like a level in a conventional game), our perspective changes to the courtroom and the critics make comments. I initially thought that Mr. Ca$h would simply win the case in the end, but having him thrown in jail would create more need for vengeance for a possible sequel.

I discussed the game idea with my friends, and some said that the indirection (you control Mr. Ca$h, and Mr. Ca$h controls some anonymous game character) was confusing and lacked the focus that mainstream games have: a strong, distinctive character that fulfilled some of your fantasies.

I thought the Mr. Ca$h character was great, and I liked the whole plot of the game, but I decided to try to do exactly what some of my friends suggested: focus on a single character, make this main character a real hero, and simplify the plot.

So, I eliminated Mr. Ca$h, the critics, and the courtroom scenario, and focused on a guy I named Mr. One, who is forced back to the year 1979 by the evil Dr. Zero (who is spherical and made entirely of dark energy). Mr. One must fight his way back to the future to ultimately defeat Dr. Zero, going through the history and present of video game genres. Dr. Zero's minions are determined to blast Mr. One in to pixels and bits.

When I was writing this game design document I sometimes couldn't stop laughing, and I thought this would be the funniest and most fun game ever. I am still very confident that this game would become a legend.

Anyhow, when I read a book on screenwriting I came across this piece of advice: Throw away your first script, because it's bad and cannot be fixed. Ouch!

I am posting my game design document on this web site in the hope that a company with a proven history of producing games discovers this design and offers cash and royalties to use the design. If the game idea really is a dud, then maybe people can learn from my mistakes.



COPYRIGHT

Please read the copyright notice contained in the game design document. It basically says that you may freely copy the document as long as it is copied as a whole. You cannot publish a game based on this design without coming to some agreement with me. You cannot extract and publish parts of the document without my permission.

Basically, if this game design has any merit, I'd like to be rewarded for the effort I put in to creating it. It is always my goal to free myself from having to be employed to survive.



DOWNLOAD

The document was created using Microsoft Word 2000, has a total size of 19,326,464 bytes (18.4MB), and is saved in the *.doc format. The document is 147 pages, 34,895 words, and was revised 95 times over a total of 4765 minutes (79.4 hours) of actual edit time.

I strongly suggest switching the view mode to "Print Layout" instead of "Normal" or "Outline" view if you intend to read the document in Microsoft Word. Go to the "View" menu, and select "Print Layout".

WARNING: The compressed size of this document is still pretty large (roughly 7MB), which could take an hour with a phone-based modem!


FIGURE: "Critical Mass" document first page. 
[1] Critical Mass GDD (6.8MB *.ZIP) ZIP archive
[2] Critical Mass GDD (7.2MB *.EXE) Win98/NT/2000 Self-extracting ZIP archive


CONTACT INFORMATION

Colin Fahey
cpfahey@earthlink.net
www.colinfahey.com
2002, Irvine, California