Page 1 of 11
Peachleaf Pirates Design Document - v. 0.1 - December 2019
Intro
This game-design document is used for internal purposes only, and serves to guide
development of Peachleaf Pirates. I’ve chosen to include it in my pitch-submission, as I
believe in complete and full transparency in a potential partnership. Honestly, it might not be
of much value to you as a publisher, but it’s invaluable to me as a solo developer, in order to
ensure congruence between gameplay-elements, and ensure direction in development. It is
an ongoing work in progress, and is updated as development progresses.
Intro 1
Overarching Rules of the Game Design: 2
Specific Rules of the Game Design: 2
Storyline 2
Audio/Visuals 2
Core gameplay-loop 2
Gameplay Elements 3
Crafting, Building & Processing 3
Farming 4
Farming phases: 4
Combat 4
Resource gathering 5
Player-motivation 5
Customization 6
Point N Click 6
Storyline 7
Synopsis 7
Current Development Status 8
Timeline 10
1
Page 2 of 11
Peachleaf Pirates Design Document - v. 0.1 - December 2019
Overarching Rules of the Game Design:
- Never force the player to do anything.
- All aspects of game-play must feel rewarding and offer meaningful progression.
- The game must be fun to play in long stretches, as well as fun when playing for a
little while after a long day at work.
- The game must offer some defined goals in the form of storyline progression, but the
intrinsic motivation of the player must be the main drive behind the core gameplay
loop, both short-term and long-term.
Specific Rules of the Game Design:
- Storyline
- There must be foreshadowing of major storyline events.
- The story must hold up on its own, and humor must be the main driving force.
- The game must end openly but still offer a satisfying conclusion to the
storyline, while leaving the door open for future installments.
- The main story should not be significantly influenced by player decisions.
- Sub-plots and minor story-lines are potentially affected by player decisions.
- Audio/Visuals
- The visual style must be consistent.
- The visuals must be quirky, cute, and have a relaxing palette.
- The audio must add to the impressiveness of the game.
- The soundtrack must be musical-like in the sense of having distinct hooks,
with variations of them being implemented across tracks to quickly establish
familiarity across tracks.
- The soundtrack must hold up on its own.
- Core gameplay-loop
- The core gameplay-loop must be: Gather resources. Craft and build items.
Farming.
- The story-progression must never force the player to play the core
gameplay-loop. Playing the core gameplay-loop must be intrinsically
motivated.
- Sub gameplay-loops must be: Combat & Story-progression. Player
progression must be driven by a desire to optimize the main and sub loops,
as well as enabling the player to creatively build their farm the way they see
fit.
2
Page 3 of 11
Peachleaf Pirates Design Document - v. 0.1 - December 2019
Gameplay Elements
Crafting, Building & Processing
Crafting is the act of crafting buildable items, structures, or consumables. Building is the act
of placing crafted or built items in the world. Processing is the act of putting an item in a
device, which creates a new item. Processing can require several distinct items to be placed
in the device together.
Crafting and building should be intrinsically driven, with no craftables being explicitly
necessary to progress the main story-line.
Crafting is progressive in nature, with craftable blueprints being obtained via research or
purchased, with research points unlocking as the player levels up their homesteading skill.
Crafting is not a skill in itself, and craftables have a predefined set of ingredients required.
Crafting happens instantly.
Building is creative in nature, but also serves as a way to optimize farming.
Crafting, building, and processing consumes no stamina.
Crafting must never get too complicated, and never require more than 6 crafting steps. This
is ensured via a weighted back-end formula for creating recipes, relative to the number of
steps required to craft an item. The maximum required different items to craft any item is 4.
Crafting or processing an item counts as 1 step. The quantities of items required are not
taken into account.
E.g:
Item 1 is a crafted item, from 2 basic resources. Step-value: 1
Item 2 is a processed item, from 1 crafted item and 1 basic resource. Step-value: 2.
Item 3 is a processed item, from 1 crafted and 1 processed item. Step-value: 3
Item 4 is a crafted item, from Item 2 and item 1. Step-value: 4.
Item 5 is a crafted item, from Item 1 and 1 basic resource. Step-value: 2.
Therefore, any final item cannot require Item 3 + Item 4 to craft, as it would exceed the
step-limit. Any final item could, however, require Item 2 + Item 5 + Item 1.
The step-value is, therefore, the total sum of step-values in its required items.
3