Dead Man’s Hand– game design document

Name/Uco: Sebastián Novák / 536339


Target Audience:                casual to experienced players who want addicting game to pass time

Gamer Type:                        number junkie

Target Platform:                 PC, Consoles, Mobile

Genre:                                   Wave-Based Auto-Attaking Survival with Card Powerups

Number of Players:            1-4 (co-op)


High concept statement

In "Dead Man’s Hand," you embody a Western gambler who finds themselves entangled in a high-stakes
poker game with the Devil. As you start to gain the upper hand, the Devil abruptly halts the game
and unleashes an endless horde of demons and undead. Fortunately, you manage to steal his deck of
enchanted cards. Now, you and up to three fellow gamblers must confront the Devil's army and
outplay him in his own game. The name of the game: "Dead Man’s Hand."

Core Mechanics: Fight enemies -> Collect cards -> Level Up -> Lose / Win loop -> Collect new cards
/ Gain permanent upgrades


Feature Set:

-          Fight enemies with automatic attacks (Vampire Survivors inspired). You can (and should)
use your enchanted playing cards to gain short term power-ups, summon AI allies or apply effects
(e.g. poison) to enemies.

-          Collect cards troughout the game loop. Before each loop you must choose cards for your
deck. These cards will then become rewards for killing minibosses. Different characters can hold
varying number of cards (and different cards).

-          All characters will have Health, Attack Speed, Damage and Speed. Once they’ll have
enough EXP to level up, they can add one point to one of those categories.

-          You can win by progressing trough the loop (== Surviving waves of enemies, kill mini
bosses that spawn once in a while, kill a few bosses) you’ll get to the final boss. If you beat him
you‘‘ll win this loop. If you die In a loop you’ll lose and can try again.

-          Metaprogression happens by leveling up your character after the end of a loop. Once
you’ll reach new meta level you will unlock new cards that you can use. And you can choose
permanent upgrade for your character. Every character has it’s own unique meta progression.

Player experience goals:

-          Addicted to numbers => progress trough the loop introduces tougher enemies => you will
need to do more damage => higher numbers on screen (can get absurd, easily above 1M DMG)

-          Just one more => The game does not want much attention to be played. The player can
easily make the decision to play another game and get further

Team Roles

-          Coder (everything)

-          Artist (concept, enviroment , characters, enemies, effects, cards, UI) using 2.5D,
cartoony style

-          Tester (endless playtesting, one loop can be quite long, hard to find bugs and edge
cases)

-          Designer (damage scaling, level scaling, meta progression, power up scaling, difficulty
scaling)

The Competition

Inspiration is a Vampire Survivors for it’s gameplay and Bounty of One for it’s aestetics. Cards
are borrowed from games like Slay of Spire, Monster Train, and Gwent. Using cards as a one-time
power up is direct inspiration from Neon White. These could be the competitors of the game namely
the Bounty of One, because it also implements co-op. However I have not heard of Vampire Survirors
like game with cards.


Compeling aspects

„Dead Man’s Hand“ tries to merge casual/idle aspects of Vampire Survivors with strategies from card
games and meta progression. It’s unique gambling-themed aesthetic could also be considered a
compeling aspect.