Survive the Day: Level 1

Dave's Coffee

Can you help Dave avoid Chatty Cathy while getting his coffee so he can Survive The Day?

Instructions

• Turn on a computer to lure Chatty Cathy out of the breakroom
  
• Avoid entering Chatty Cathy's LOS (line of sight)
• Get Dave his coffee
  

I hope this is intuitive and apparent when starting the game, but I know I am not perfectly clear sometimes. Please let me know any feedback in the comments if you didn't think this was clear when playing.

Duck!

Try ducking behind a cubicle or something while Chatty Cathy is passing!

The LOS is divided into two types:

• Full Vision
• High Vision 

The Full Vision is blocked by low-lying cover. For example, when standing up, your head sticks up over a cubicle. Therefore, Chatty Cathy can see you when standing behind a cubicle. But she cannot see you when ducking behind a cubicle.

You might not need to duck on the first level, but be prepared for the following levels!

Controls

• Keyboard
• Gamepad

Touch/Mobile controls are not available now. Considering if and how to implement

Controls are customizable!

Go to Settings Menus -> Controls (Press P to Pause, if playing)

Movement Controls are not customizable right now, but there are multiple movement controls setup:

• Arrow Keys
• WASD Keys
• Controller Gamepad/D-pad
• Controller Joystick

Dialogue

Dialogue is intended to be a big part of my games. Though I do understand when people say "I hate reading" haha, because a lot of people play games to relax!

Therefore I tried to implement my dialogue where it doesn't prevent gameplay; the game is not paused while reading dialogue.

The goal of this is that you can stop to read or continue on your way, but hopefully still catch a few things on your way by!

Dialogue Controls

Due to the dialogue being implemented this way, "Dialogue Controls" were added. 

• The player can pause the current dialogue, which can be especially helpful if you walk up on someone who is already talking. 
• The player can also skip to the next dialogue, which is also great for people who aren't trying to read everything anyway

If language learning mode is enabled, there is also a button to translate the dialogue.

Dialogue Timer/Speed

There is a dialogue timer at the bottom right corner of the dialogue bubble. If a character has multiple bubbles active, the timer is located only on the bottom bubble.

When the timer expires, the bubble will either close or the next bubble will appear.

The timer length is based on the text length in combination with the text speed setting. The player can adjust the text speed in the Text/Dialogue Settings menu.

However, as noted above, the player has the dialogue controls to pause/proceed even if the setting isn't fine-tuned to their reading speed.

Languages/Language Learning Mode

There are multiple languages setup in the game for dialogue. Note that menus and even cut scenes have not been translated yet, but hope to in the future. The focus first is on dialogue.

Language Learning Mode

There is a language learning mode implemented that can be turned on inside the settings menu.

When this is turned on, dialogue text will be shown in the "learning language," which is the language you want to learn.

When the player holds the translate button, the text will be shown in the native language chosen.

The concept is that this will force the player to attempt to read and understand the text first. If they don't understand or want to double-check, they then hold the translate button.

Note that the dialogue timer is paused while the translate button is held down.

Languages

The following languages are available for dialogue:

• English (EN)
• Spanish (ES)
• German (DE)
• Russian (RU)
• Chinese (ZH)
• Portuguese (PT)
• French (FR)
• Italian (IT)
• Korean (KO)
• Japanese (JA)
• Polish (PL)

Note that the translations are currently computer-translated. I am aware this is not usually ideal, but went ahead with it for two reasons:

1. Test out both functionality and demand
2. Better than nothing

Basically, if this works out well here, on a larger project with a budget, I could then pursue native speaker translations. Also, if there is demand for it.

On the positive side of the current setup with computer-translated dialogue, it would actually be fairly easy to add an additional language. So feel free to make any requests and I will consider them!

Notes

This is meant to be a small game that will always be a free game; as in there is no intent to turn this level into a full game. This is however a part of my "Survive The Day" franchise* which I (hope) to make multiple free "levels" and multiple commercial games. 

I give this info to provide some context on what feedback would be helpful. I am not looking to add content and length to this level, but feedback on mechanics implemented in this level can be very helpful for shaping the future.

*franchise: used in a self-fulling way. As in, there is not much of  "franchise" right now, in case you go searching for it, but using that term because that is my vision

This game collects some data from events to give the developer feedback to improve the game. This is to track gameplay events, such as level completion and failure, not collect player data.  Player info is anonymized and cannot be traced back to individuals.