Design Document for:

The Final Girl

The Unofficial Clock Tower Sequel

Designed By Carlos Ramírez

Prototype Developed By

Carlos Ramírez Andrés Vázquez Pablo Márquez

GDD Written by Carlos Ramírez

Version # 1.00

Sunday, August 23, 2015

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Game Overview

Philosophy The idea of The Final Girl comes from two different sources of inspiration. First, I was reading up on articles and essays on the state of horror video games for my first published book called Masters of Interactive Horror (Editorial Síntesis, 2015) when I ran into Men, Women, and Chainsaws: Gender in the Modern Horror Film, a book by Carol J. Clover which focuses on slasher films from a feminist perspective. In this study, Clover introduces the notion of The Final Girl, that refers to the last woman alive to confront the killer. Clover argues that this is a common cliché found in horror films like Alien, Halloween, Friday the 13th, A Nightmare on Elm Street, and so on. Second, I started to play and analyse classic horror video games for the aforementioned book. One of them was Clock Tower (Human Entertainment, 1995), a Japanese survival horror game inspired by Dario Argento's cult horror movie Phenomena (1985). I observed that Jennifer, the main character in Clock Tower, had been designed following the guidelines of The Final Girl stated by Clover.

Common Questions What is the game?

The Final Girl is an horror-adventure game where you have to escape from a serial killer with no other help than your inventiveness using the items at hand. Why create this game? The Final Girl is a tribute to both the Clock Tower series and the typical slasher movies mentioned by Clover where a teenage girl has to survive a serial killer, or a monster acting as such. Where does the game take place? The Final Girl takes place at Sarah's house. Her parents are away for the weekend. While she's watching TV, suddenly the lights go out, followed by the sound of footsteps coming from the second floor. Sarah cannot escape from the house, but she can flee and hide from the stalker. The setting is a typical American two-storey house including kitchen, living room, bathroom, vestibule and two bedrooms, with stairs connecting the two floors and a small cupboard under the stairs. What do I control?

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You control Sarah Bailey, a 16-year-old teenage girl in pyjamas. She is a bit rude, but she has a survival instinct. You may not like her but you must protect her from the serial killer, so give your all! How many characters do I control? Only Sarah, but this is just a prototype. The idea for the full game is to include several levels, each with its own main character (always a girl). These levels would become increasingly hard and be set in different places, like a cabin in the woods or an old mansion. What is the main focus? The main goal of Sarah, and therefore the player, is to survive the serial killer. There are two possible endings for each level: you can flee and hide until the countdown reaches zero or try knocking the serial killer out using a clever combination of the items at hand. If the first goal is achieved, you will beat the level, but the serial killer will run away when the cops arrive at Sarah's house, alerted by the neighbours. If the second goal is achieved, cops will find the serial killer knocked out by Sarah. This can only be achieved before the countdown reaches zero. The main goal is always to stay alive until cops arrive. If you just flee and hide that's OK; you beat the level. But if you make a special effort and find the way to knock out the serial killer, you will unlock precious achievements. So start training your out-of-the-box thinking! Throw objects at the killer, use certain hiding spots and, above all, always close the door behind you, since that will keep the killer busy smashing the door with his axe. What’s different?

There aren't many point 'n click adventure games which are fast-paced instead of giving the player a lot of time to figure out the right combination of items. In The Final Girl, players have to think fast and act faster. If there's a genre that suits The Final Girl, that would be "against-the-clock adventure game".

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Feature Set

General Features Suspense provided by game mechanics References to classic slasher movies Replayability and unlockable achievements SNES-style 2D graphics Original 16-bit background music

Gameplay Fast-paced point 'n click adventure game Inventory management Emergent gameplay Puzzle-solving under pressure Same level, different outcomes

Multiplayer Features (Full game only) Cooperative multiplayer (2 players against the AI) PvP multiplayer (Player 1 controls the main character and Player 2 controls the serial killer)

Development team Márquez, Pablo: 2D animation Ramírez, Carlos: game design, background music, dialogues, additional programming Vázquez, Andrés: main programming, 2D art

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The Game World

The Physical World Overview The Final Girl takes place at Sarah's house. Her parents are away for the weekend. Sarah cannot escape from the house, but she can flee and hide from the stalker. The setting is a typical American two-storey house including kitchen, living room, bathroom, vestibule and two bedrooms, with stairs connecting the two floors and a small cupboard under the stairs. Key Locations Living room This is where you start. Once you gain control of Sarah, you have to use the phone to call 911. This is how you get instructions on how to play the game. After the call, the countdown begins and the serial killer starts chasing you. In the living room, you can turn the alarm and the TV on. The killer doesn't want the neighbours to wake up by the noise, so he will destroy whatever you turn on with his axe, giving you time to escape. Make good use of this strategy, since once the alarm or the TV are destroyed you won't be able to use them again. Kitchen In the kitchen you can find almost every element needed to knock out the killer. If you open the tap, you will spill water on the floor. See that toaster over there? Wonder if you can electrocute the killer with the wire? Well, you can. You just need some pliers to chop the wire and place it on the wet floor, then wait until the killer walks over. Just remember to be on the opposite side of the trap or you'll be caught between a rock and a hard place! Sarah's bedroom Just like the TV and the alarm, you can turn on the stereo to attract attention of the killer. Apart from that, you can hide in the wardrobe when the killer is not watching you, but if you spend too much time inside he will end up noticing that you are hidden. Bathroom There's a bottle of gel you can spill on the floor. When the killer walks over, he will slip and fall. Parents bedroom At first glance, you don't have much to do here. But wait a minute, how about having a look inside the bedside table? There you go, the key to the cupboard under the stairs! Now you can pick up those precious pliers.

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Second-floor corridor Don't forget to use the switchboard to turn electricity back on. Otherwise, you won't be able to electrocute the killer in the kitchen. Weapons You can pick up certain items and throw them at the killer to gain some precious time. The table below shows how many seconds the killer is stunned by a successful attack. To attack, you must face the killer and press the spacebar to throw the preselected item from your inventory. Remember: Sarah will throw the item in the direction she is facing, so make sure you're in the right position!

Name Vase Lamp Frying pan Knife Gel (on

the floor) Damage 3 seconds 3 seconds 5 seconds 7 seconds 7 seconds Location Living room Parents

bedroom Sarah's

bedroom

Kitchen Kitchen Bathroom

Game Engine Overview The game engine used for this prototype is GameMaker: Studio, by YoYo Games. For now, the game runs only on Windows.

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Game Characters

Sarah Bailey You control Sarah Bailey, a 16-year-old teenage girl in pyjamas. She is a bit rude, but she has a survival instinct. You may not like her but you must protect her from the serial killer, so give your all! Her skills include running, going up and down the stairs, interacting with certain objects, picking up items, throwing and dropping them, and hiding in places such as the wardrobe.

Enemies and Monsters There's only one enemy in The Final Girl: the serial killer. This character is inspired by serial killers from slasher movies such as The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, Friday the 13th and Scream. Why does he want to kill Sarah? Well, he's just an archetypical character. He enjoys chasing and slashing immature and naive young girls, specially when they're blond. The killer from The Final Girl won't stop stalking Sarah until one of them is defeated. We have already seen how Sarah can accomplish this, but what about the killer? If he gets too close to Sarah, he will catch her. He will let her go the first two times because he's a maniac who's delighted by someone else's suffering. However, the third time he catches her will be the last one.

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User Interface

Overview

1 Inventory Whenever you pick up an item, it will appear here. You can carry up to four items at the same time. Press 1-4 to select an item, with each number corresponding to a slot, from the left to the right. Then press the spacebar to throw that item. 2 Printed text These are pieces of informative text. If you hover the mouse over interactive items, the name of those items will be displayed here. Besides, there are other pieces of text that give a hint about what to do next, much like Sarah's thoughts. 3 Countdown If it reaches zero and you haven't been killed, you win. 4 Mouse cursor Use it to interact with certain items.

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5 Dialogue box You can press the spacebar to skip any dialogue box.

6 Action buttons Right-click on an interactive item to display the action buttons, then left-click on the action you want to perform.

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Controls

Overview