For the moment, this readme will serve as concept and design document for One Thing, the game I'm designing as part of the Ludum Dare 46 Jam.

Keep It Alive

If something has to be kept alive it should have a value, primarily for your existence, then for your surrounding.

If something's existence is in a critical state, it means that you have to make critical decisions to keep it alive.

The reason you want to keep something alive is because you care about it (keeping ideals and cultural practices out of the equation, the level of care you have for something should be linked to how much that impact to your own existence).

One Thing is the game about a person who only has one thing to keep herself alive: a burning fire. All she wants to do is to find resources and tools to keep it alive and well, for her own life depends on it.

Beyond the flames lights there are predators, harsh environment and deep uncertainty, and the fear of the unknown will make the person struggle in order to maintain the only tool that is keeping her existence safe.

But loneliness, hard decisions and compromises start to take a huge toll on the person mind health, to the point of no more realizing who is the tool of what.

Decision making will the be core mechanic of the game.

The game is divided in parts and each one will have a set of decisions paths that will make the player advance to future parts.

Wrong decisions will not lead to any lose state, but will put the player back into the beginning of the game part.

In every game part, object to interact with on the screen will have a highlighted outline. Every interaction will pop-up a message and might evoke and activate more interaction elements.

Interaction elements can come and go (they're part of the decision path), but messages will be left rendered on the game screen. In brief time, the game screen of will become full of messages, sometimes describing the situation, sometimes with confusing and delusional talking. More wrong decisions will result in a more messy game environment.

A music will outline every game part. With the advancement of the game or during particular state changes, the music score will entice the feeling of unquietness of the player.

• Unity
• Visual Studio
• GIMP
• Audacity