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Venice 1499: Game Design Overview (pg.4)

In 1499, Venice was home to over a hundred and fifty thousand people, and host to many thousands more that came for trade or other business.  These people came from many different types of societies, and filled different roles in the life of the city.  As the player moves through the game they will see many of these people going about their business, and they may need to interact with them to find information that will forward them in their goals.  Characters of varying importance will be drawn from these generic roles to assume positions of importance during the unfolding course of the story.  A sampling of these roles is listed below, there are many more which are neither listed nor illustrated that are equally important in the functioning of the daily life of the city, and which will be represented in the game.

Arsenalotti

Specialist

Senator

The Arsenalotti are the police of Venice. They are drawn from the military units whose service it is to guard and maintain the armory.  The Specialist is any one of a group of people who are the "White Collar" laborers in the city.  They are the goldsmiths, the scribes, and the architects.  While predominantly male, there are women involved in these specialty occupations.  The Senator is a member of the Grand Council, the governing body of the oligarchy which guides Venetian politics.

Artist

Merchant

Gondolier

The Artist could be any one of a group of people who work for the pleasure of others in Venice.  Venice is crawling with struggling musicians, artists, sculptors, and others who are competing for the commissions of those wealthier than they.  The Merchant is a person, male or female, who owns a small shop, or a stand in the market at which they barter their wares.  The Gondolier is one of the ubiquitous boatmen of Venice, who serve as the taxi drivers by which many people and goods move from place to place.  They are known for their singing, and the fact that most are of Moorish descent.

Beggar

Priest

Laborer

The Beggar represents the lowest classes of Venetian society.  While public begging is frowned upon, there are plenty of beggars in the more remote and poorer sections of the city, as well as Water Scavengers and others who make their living from the leftovers of society.  The Priest is a clergyman or monk, a member of the religious orders who either flies in the face of official attitudes to serves the pope in Rome or the displaced Eastern Orthodox faith.  Protestantism is unknown, except for a handful of revolutionary types stirred by the likes of Erasmus.  For women, there are several convents with full compliments of nuns.  The Laborer is a member of the working classes, he is a brick layer, a sailor, or any one of the many varieties of occupation that favor broad backs.

Foreigner

Lawyer

Prostitute

The Foreigner is a member of any foreign group.  Venice was known as the crossroads of the East and the West, and had embassies and delegations from every country within a thousand miles, as well as all the merchants and fortune seekers those countries could provide.  The Lawyer is a member of the educated, legal class of Venice.  They serve to argue cases of law, and to uphold the traditions of government.  The Prostitute is exactly that.  Prostitution was a legal, taxed profession in the city, with one in seven women employed in that service.  Prostitutes know much of what really happens in the daily life of Venice, and can be excellent spies and sources of information.

Mercenary

Servant

Rich Merchant

Young Noble

The Mercenary, also possibly known as a Condottiere, was a common figure in Venice, whose armies were principally made up of foreigners paid to fight for a given battle.  The Servant was a member of those classes whose function in life was spent in the direct service of a master.  This group of people includes those who were paid and those who were owned slaves, both men and women alike.  The Rich Merchant represents a class of wealthy male and female Venetians, who were the bankers, the financiers and other such persons.  The Young Noble is a wealthy young man, too young to enter into civil service, and rich enough not to have to work for a living.  Men of this group were known as troublemakers that were endless sources of mischief, while women of this group were carefully guarded until suitable husbands could be found, lest disgrace befall them.

Game Flow (That Which Is To Come):
The game begins by forcing the player into a situation where they must successfully prove their innocence, or they will be forced to flee the city or perhaps even executed.  Evidence will have to be gathered, and the motive of the real murderer discovered and proven.  In this process the player will have to find places to hide from authority (justice in Venice was swift and blind and almost always ended in a noose) while they build their case.  They will often be forced into disguise, needing to bluff and posture to gain access to the resources and people they need to see.  Simultaneously, events in the world will transpire to bring game characters into contact with the player as they seek their own ends in the game.

The game unfolds over a period of ten days.  On each day certain events which impact the populace of Venice will be scripted to occur as part of the larger world.  War, rumors of war, and acts of God fall into this group.   At the end of ten days the player will have reached one of several game conclusions, ranging from death or exile to having recovered the legendary scroll, innocence, and even freedom.  Those events which do not directly touch the player will be learned about in the conversations the player has with others, or in those conversations they happen to overhear.  Bulletins about major events may also be posted in public places, so that the player has the opportunity to read about them in this fashion.

Fixed Events:

Day 1 - Tomaso Foscari is murdered, forcing the player into hiding.  The Arsenalotti begin to search for the player, word of Foscari's death slowly spreads through the city.

Day 2 - No major events occur on this day.

Day 3 - News that the Turks have crushed the Venetian fleet reaches the city.  The heads of the military prepare to leave town. Those Turks and Persians which are in Venice lay low to avoid any unfortunate sentiment. There is an unusual late-season rainstorm.

Day 4 - The trading Galley of Alexandria suffers devastating losses at sea.  The financiers of this expedition go bankrupt, and one of the Rialto banks crashes.

Day 5 - Large bands of mercenaries begin to flow into the city, returning from unsuccessful campaigns in Italy.  Rumors fly that the western Venetian front is crumbling, but this is officially denied.

Day 6 - Feelings against western foreign powers runs high, the French embassy is torched.

Day 7 - A messenger brings word of Vasco de Gama's voyage, which spreads like wildfire through the city.  People buzz with this information, everyone who can begins to withdraw money.  Many merchants become concerned that they will soon not have a livelihood and make plans to leave the city.  Financiers deny that there is any crisis. 

Day 8 - One bank after another collapses as they go bankrupt.  Crime skyrockets as people are relieved of all the loose cash they are removing from the banks.  The Grand Council declares a state of emergency and seals the city, attempting to create a state of martial law.

Day 9 - There are several suicides among bankers, and inter-family violence reaches new levels.  The markets close, and the city prepares for the worst.

Day 10 - If the player has not been killed or fled the city by this day, they will be captured and brought to trial.  Though they might have previously been in prison, this will be the first (and only) time they are brought before the full Council of Ten.  The game will be resolved based on the outcome of this trial, that outcome will depend on the persons who are called to witness and the documents that the player has acquired to prove their innocence.

The player receives payoffs for progress through the game.  Small payoffs occur when the player solves a puzzle or gains access to a place they had never been before, just in terms of game experience.  Larger reward payoffs come in the form of animated cutscenes which show the results of certain key events.  For example, the player may be treated to an animation which depicts a famous nobleman being tried, an event which the player helped to make possible.  There are a variety of these animations, dealing with the primary game characters and with the overall story of events in the city.  At the end of the game, there is a final payoff animation.  This animation either details the player's exile, or the ending state of affairs after the player's trial.  If the player was successful in getting the proper testimonies, evidence, and recovered the mysterious scroll, they will achieve the ultimate outcome, in which it is made plain that Foscari left the player their freedom, and a substantial amount of money to begin their own life.

The game has many elements which contribute to its replayability.  While there are fixed, scripted events which must occur in a given order, the player is free to go to different locations in any order they desire, and to speak with people differently than they have before.  As the game is based on a simulator engine, it is much like life itself: there is no one path to victory, and no one path to failure.  There are many shades of partial success, and each player may choose an entirely different route, interacting with different persons and participating in different events along the way.  At the beginning of the game, one of the major characters is randomly chosen by the game to be the party responsible for Foscari's murder, and they are the person who presently knows where the scroll is.  This random choice will describe a different set of starting behaviors for one of the characters in the game, which will have drastic consequences to the events that unfold as the game is played.  While it is unlikely that very many people will play the entire game again once they have achieve a complete victory, as in a simulation, it is likely that it will take a few tries for someone to achieve this level of success.  As such replayability is critical to the game, and forms a fundamental construct of its creation.

Technical Issues:
There are two real technical issues inherent in the creation of Venice: 1499.  The first is the point-of-view engine.  This issue is not tremendous, as many such engines exist which may simply be licensed.  Also, should such an engine be developed internally, it would have application to several potential designs, so that other products could benefit from the efforts put forth here.  The second issue is larger, and deals with the intelligent characters in the game.  At first this may seem to be a severe challenge, but on further consideration the most effective approach is to build a simulation engine which handles these characters.  Such "real time" simulations in which a "character" is subjected to external stimuli and a personal agenda have been created many times before in games such as SimCity.  They are not tremendously complicated constructs, and if they are allowed to interact and react with actions subjected to the uniform rules of a simulation engine, nondeterministic behavior soon emerges that creates the illusion of true intelligence and machiavellian motivations.

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