Ostrich Rally:

The Race for the Golden Egg

Game Design Document

Chris Hicks Will Bonner

Shawn Stormo

Austin McCarty Jon Moore

Justin Catchens Kohl Houghtaling

Sean Donahoo

Table of Contents

Version ......................................................................................................................................... 3

High Concept/Pitch .................................................................................................................. 3

Gameplay Overview ................................................................................................................. 4

Racing ........................................................................................................................................... 5

Ostrich Stats ................................................................................................................................ 6 Speed ....................................................................................................................................................... 7 Stamina ................................................................................................................................................... 7 Glide ......................................................................................................................................................... 7

The Stamina Bar and Boosting ............................................................................................. 8

Kicking .......................................................................................................................................... 8

Perks ............................................................................................................................................. 9 List of Perks ....................................................................................................................................... 10

The Cups, Tracks, and Game Modes ................................................................................ 10

The Country Cup..................................................................................................................... 11 The Ranch Track .............................................................................................................................. 11 The Countryside Track .................................................................................................................. 11 The Hill Track ................................................................................................................................... 11 The Forest Track .............................................................................................................................. 11

The Urban Cup ........................................................................................................................ 11 Plaza Track......................................................................................................................................... 12 San Francisco Hills .......................................................................................................................... 12 The Subway Track ........................................................................................................................... 12 The Highway System....................................................................................................................... 12

The Extreme Cup .................................................................................................................... 12 Sahara Track ..................................................................................................................................... 12 The North Pole .................................................................................................................................. 12 Mudslide ............................................................................................................................................. 12 Mountain Side Track ...................................................................................................................... 12

The Exotic Cup ........................................................................................................................ 13 Great Wall of China ......................................................................................................................... 13 Jungle Temple ................................................................................................................................... 13 Nasa Landing Pad ............................................................................................................................. 13 Moon ..................................................................................................................................................... 13

Single Player Mode ................................................................................................................ 13

The Farm ................................................................................................................................... 14

Achievements .......................................................................................................................... 14

Version

2.0

High Concept/Pitch

Are you a master Jockey? Put your skills to the test in Ostrich Rally: Race for the Golden Egg. Pick the Ostrich that works best for your play style. Are you sprinter? A long distance runner? Or maybe you have dreams of flight? Compete in races run by the International Ostrich Racing League. Race against both the computer and your friends in the most popular sport around. Can you go all the way? Do you have what it takes to win the Championship and claim its grand prize--the legendary Golden Egg? Ostrich Rally: Race for the Golden Egg is a casually competitive Ostrich racing game planned for release on Xbox Live Arcade and Playstation Network. Offering support for both splitscreen play and online network matches, Ostrich Rally is fun and relaxing way to compete in racing challenges against other players. In the game, players are ostrich jockeys—people who professionally race Ostriches for fun, fame, and wealth. Influenced by classic horse racing in games, Ostrich Rally’s racing mechanics focus on management of a stamina bar—a physical representation of the Ostrich’s ability to sustain running speeds over course-length distances.

Players start out selecting a match type and then the track they want to play on. Once these have been chosen, players then pick out ostriches and perks they want to use for the track. Players will pick then pick the ostrich and perks they want to utilize for the track. This is an important step because certain ostriches are better suited to the obstacles and environments of particular tracks while perks work to augment an ostrich’s performance by maximizing on its strengths or reducing its shortcomings.

Gameplay Overview

Ostrich Rally: Race for the Golden Egg is a quick, easy to learn and fun to play racing game for all audiences. Simple but varied mechanics allow for a diversity of experiences and different play styles depending on player preference and track selection. The main features include: Ostrich Statistics Ostriches in Ostrich Rally: Race for the Golden Egg have three main stats that affect the way they perform: Speed, Stamina, and Glide. Speedy ostriches have a higher top speed and accelerate faster. Tougher ostriches can run longer, take kicks better, and boost longer. Ostriches with high Glide stats can jump higher, faster, and will glide longer and more often. The Stamina Bar One of the core racing mechanics of the game is the management of the Ostriches’ stamina bar. Ostriches can only run for so long before getting tired, so players will have to plan and time their boosting and running in order to make sure their ostrich doesn’t get too tired. Tired ostriches will run very slowly and be more receptive to kicks from other players. Perks As players play through the singeplayer game, they will unlock perks that they can use to augment the performance of their ostriches. Perks may increase abilities of Ostriches by increasing the potential of their strengths (e.g. “Born to Fly” allows ostriches to boost while gliding, giving gliding-heavy ostriches an further leg up against their opponents when in their own element) or reducing their shortcomings. (e.g. “Sprinter” removes the initial stamina cost of boosting, allowing lower stamina ostriches to boost more frequently) Multiplayer Players may play against their friends and computers both locally in splitscreen and online in networked play. If you like racing with your friends against others, you can even bring your splitscreen party online to race against others. Additionally, to balance multiplayer and make the game quick to pick up and play, all players will

have equal access to ostriches and perks in online mode, regardless of their completion of single-player mode.

Racing

Racing in Ostrich Rally: Race for the Golden Egg is a bit different from most other racing games. Each track is designed around a Bezier curve, which all players (both human and npc) follow. Players can strafe left and right to a limited degree to either side of the curve, but are redirected onto the path if they move too far off of it. Strafing is useful for avoiding obstacles in the track or kicks from opponents, and to collect special power-ups that give a free boost or refill your stamina. To move, players must hold down the accelerate button, which causes their ostrich to start running. This movement is known as “normal acceleration.” This basic acceleration will drain the ostrich’s stamina slowly, but not enough that ostriches using only normal acceleration will run out of stamina during their run around the track. Players can also activate a “boost” which gives them a speed boost for short period of time. The stamina burn rate of the ostrich during this time is doubled, and just activating boost requires a stamina cost. As ostriches have different statistics, some ostriches may be fast enough to run all the way around the track without having to use their boost much and stay in the lead. Others may be slower, but have a greater stamina, allowing them to boost more frequently to catch up to their faster opponents. Ostrich statistics and the stamina bar are explained in further detail below. As racing is competitive, opponents may do their best to slow others down by kicking them to decrease their speed. Kicking is a function of the Jockey, and all players have that ability. Proper perk selection can make kicking a play style all of its own, and a well-placed kick could mean the difference between winning and losing. Kicking is explained in further detail below. Perks are special abilities or qualities that players select to augment their play-style. Perks have varied abilities (almost all positive), and proper perk selection will contribute greatly to the creation of a successful playing style. Perks are explained in further detail below. Using the racing mechanics, players battle throughout the course, struggling for good final positions. When all players have completed all laps of a track, the race ends. Players are then given points based on which position they held in the racing order when the crossed the finish line at the end of the final lap. Higher positions are awarded more points. A player placing first in all races will achieve the maximum possible within the game. Similarly, a player placing last in all races will achieve the lowest score possible in the game. Score is important because it is tallied together between each race in Cup or Championship mode and determines players’ final

position in the ranking race order after a Track, Cup, or Championship is completed. Thus a player who consistently places second place will have a higher score (and correspondingly higher rank once a mode is over) than a player who places 1, 1 4, and 4, respectively in position over a Cup match. For more information on Track, Cup, and Championship mode matches, see the Cup, Track, and Game Modes section below. The number of points awarded per position (1-6 respectively) are as follows: 60, 55, 40, 35, 20, 15.

Ostrich Stats

Ostrich racing performance is dictated largely by their stat distribution. Ostriches will generally compete better on tracks whose environmental features match heavy stat distribution in the stat that allows the features of that environment to be overcome or even benefitted from. For example, in the San Francisco Hills track, ostriches with a better Glide stat will generally perform better than ostriches with a high Stamina stat because they will be able to take better advantage of the terrain and glide longer and faster than the other ostriches, who will glide more slowly, and not as often. Similarly, in the Mudslide track, ostriches with a high Glide stat will perform worse than ostriches with a high Stamina stat because they will not have as many opportunities to glide, and the mud will slow them down more, while the high Stamina ostriches will be able to boost frequently enough to overcome the speed decrease caused by the mud. There are three main stats: Speed, Stamina, and Glide. Ostriches will have their stat points spread between these three stats, with their stat distributions favoring one or two stats over the third. This creates distinct play styles, and makes certain ostriches more optimized for racing on certain tracks, as befitting their stat distributions. Average ostriches, or ostriches not as distinctly focused on one certain play-style will also be available, but may be outperformed by more specialized ostriches in the more specialized tracks. These ostriches, however, will be more flexible between levels, and competitive because their performance will not vary highly between levels as the performance of more specialized ostriches will. All ostriches have the same base stats. Their points in the three attributes are extra bonuses that are then added onto their basic stats. All ostrich stats are out of a maximum of 10. Base Ostrich Stats: Top Speed: 30 m/s Stamina: 40 Normal Burn Rate: 1 per second Boost Burn Rate: 2 per second

Jump Height: Jump Speed: Glide Speed Bonus: 0 Boost Factor: 20 m/s (Explicit numbers in this section subject to change based on game play-testing and balancing)

Speed The Speed stat controls an ostrich’s maximum speed and their acceleration towards that maximum speed. Speedy ostriches are less reliant on boosting than other ostriches because their normal acceleration speed is higher than that of less speedy ostriches, meaning that they naturally outpace other ostriches. These ostriches tend to conserve their boost for times of dire need--such as recovering from a kick—or to occasionally keep the distance ahead of boosting opponents racing up from behind. Each point of speed increases an ostrich’s max speed by 2 m/s.

Stamina The Stamina stat determines an ostrich’s maximum stamina and their resistance to kicks and collision with course obstacles. High Stamina ostriches will boost frequently, and hardly ever run out of Stamina from normal acceleration. They will perform reliably throughout each course because they will be continue to run along while other ostriches run out of Stamina and fall behind. Additionally, the frequency with which they will be able to boost will allow them to competitively race against other ostriches even in specialized courses. Their higher resistance to kicks and collisions also helps keep them from falling too behind, despite their normally lower speeds.

Glide The Glide stat actually controls a number of different ostrich physical stats that together make up and contribute to the Glide play-style. This list includes: jump height, jump speed, and glide speed bonus. Whether or not an ostrich is labeled as gliding is determined by measuring how far an ostrich is off the ground and then initiating the ostrich’s glide state if he is at or above that level. Once the gliding state is active, ostriches remains in it until they touch the ground again. Gliding ostriches retain the velocity they had before they started gliding, but ostriches with a high Glide stat will actually increase in velocity as they glide. Jump speed allows ostriches to jump faster, so ostriches with a higher Glide will be better at jumping over ostriches or taking advantages of gliding points in levels. Higher jumping heights increase the chance that an ostrich will successfully clear an obstacle, even if the timing is a bit off. Also, since the gliding state is determined by how far the ostrich is off the ground, ostriches with higher Glide stats (who can jump higher) will glide more often as they will jump above the glide level more often than ostriches with lower Glide stats. One downside of gliding is that when Ostriches are gliding, kicks

are more effective, as gliding ostriches have nothing solid to brace themselves against. Effectively, kicks hitting gliding ostriches are 25% more effective, and have a chance to end the ostrich’s gliding state. Kicking gliding ostriches may be difficult, however, if the ostriches are at different heights.

The Stamina Bar and Boosting

One of the main mechanics of Ostrich Rally: Race for the Golden Egg is management of the Stamina bar. The stamina bar is a physical representation of an ostrich’s stamina, or energy. An ostrich that has no Stamina left is tired, and will run slowly and be more receptive to kicks from other players. Once an ostrich runs out of Stamina, they can only regain it through having the proper perks selected, hitting a Stamina power-up, or crossing the finish line. Perks will give a small, constant regeneration or a triggered amount, depending on the perk. Crossing the finish line entirely refills an ostrich’s stamina bar, as does collecting the Stamina Refill power-up. All ostriches have the same base amount of Stamina, but ostriches with a high Stamina stat will gain additional points in their Stamina bar. Normal acceleration constantly drains the stamina bar slowly. Boosting is a special, activated ability that all players have. When boost is activated, the boosting ostrich’s speed is increased by a static number for the length of the boost. While boosting, the Stamina burn rate for an ostrich is doubled. Just activating a boost also has a static initial boost cost in Stamina. While there is no hard cap on the amount of time an ostrich can boost, or a player can activate boost, there is a practical cap from the ostrich’s Stamina. Ostriches with no Stamina cannot boost, activating boost too much will quickly wear out the Stamina of an ostrich. The burn rates of the Stamina bar from normal acceleration and boost--as well as the initial stamina cost to activate boost—are alterable through perks.

Kicking

When the competition gets tough, a little sabotage goes a long way. Players who need a leg up on an opponent can give them one—literally. Jockeys may attempt to kick the ostriches of opponents to slow them down. While it is the Jockey who kicks, the strength of the kick is a function of ostrich statistics and the player’s selected perks. Kicking an opponent causes the opponent’s speed to decrease, allowing the offensive player to slow down competition in a tight spot, either allowing for an opportunity to overtake the opponent, or hold to the opponent back.

Stronger kicks have a greater affect on the speed decrease of an opponent than do weaker kicks. Kick strength is determined by the ostrich’s statistic that determines kick strength, and can be augmented by perks. Perks can also give kicks special abilities, like the ability to deal stamina damage. Kicking is an activated ability of the player, but one with limits on the frequency of activation, unlike boost. Players cannot repeatedly kick opponents to keep them back. Further, kicking is direction-oriented, so the player must kick in the appropriate direction to effectively hit opponents. Players can kick either left or right, and either direction also affects the areas to the front and back of the ostrich on those sides. The activation frequency of kicking is for kicking as a whole and does not take direction into account. Therefore, a player cannot quickly kick to one side and then the other, but must still wait for the timer that governs how frequently the player can kick to reset. Kicking can be triggered in all ostrich states (normal, tired, gliding) Incoming kick damage is reduced by an ostrich’s Stamina. Ostriches with a higher Stamina suffer less harshly from incoming kicks than do ostriches that have lower Stamina. This effect also applies to the potential special abilities that kicks can do from players who employ the appropriate perks. Thus, a high Stamina ostrich would take less Stamina damage from a kick dealt by a player with the stamina damage kick perk.

Perks

Perks are special abilities or qualities chosen by players to augment their play styles. Perks may be activated abilities, added functionality, or triggered or constant bonuses to stats. Each player will have 3 perk slots, each of which must be filled by a perk. The same perk cannot be chosen twice by the same player, so all of a player’s perks will be unique. Perks are unlocked through buying them in the Barn in single-player, or all equally and fully available in multi-player. Perks help create play styles by empowering players with new abilities or bonuses to either further specialize, or to round out their play style. Proper perk selection is essential for competitive success in multi-player, and very beneficial in single-player. As perks are an important part of gameplay, and necessary to help develop play styles, player perks can changed between races. This allows for strategy adaptation

to maintain racing performance despite track changes, or to switch to play styles more effective against opponents.

List of Perks Racing Heart: Your ostrich’s acceleration is a function of its Stamina rather than its speed. Weathered: Ignore terrain conditions. Underdog: Scaling speed bonus based on position. Being in the lead causes a small speed decrease. Sprinter: The initial Stamina cost of your Ostrich’s boost is removed. Getting hit reduces your Stamina. Massive Kick: The strength of your kick is increased by your Ostrich’s Stamina stat. Swift Kick: The strength of your kick is increased by 1/5 of your current speed. Agility: Reduce incoming kick strength by 1/5 of your current speed. Tough: Reduce incoming kick strength an amount determined by your Ostrich’s Stamina stat. Adrenaline: Gain a small Stamina regeneration based on race position. Born to Fly: You can boost while gliding. Footwork: Reduce speed penalty from colliding with obstacles by 50% Aeronautical: Gain bonus to your Glide Speed Increase as a function of your Speed stat. (More forthcoming)

The Cups, Tracks, and Game Modes

As a racing game, and in a style similar to Mario Kart, the race tracks of Ostrich Rally are organized into four separate cups, each with a certain theme. Each cup has four racetracks that follow the general theme of the cup. In Single-player, the player plays a more interactive version of the Championship mode, whereby they unlock perks and ostriches through winning races and getting to know how the game plays, and how the different ostriches and perks exactly function. Playing Single-player is also the only way to unlock certain ostrich skins or other bonus content. More information on Single-player is in the relevant section further on. When playing Multiplayer, players may choose which type of Match they’d like to play. They may choose Championship, Cup, or Free.

Championship Mode is a match type where players will play through all the levels in all the cups in a linear fashion. Player scores are collected and track for every race, with both individual track and Cup scores being calculated, as well as overall scores. At the end of every race, players see their position and the score they get. This is then added to the tracking lists. Players who do not win the overall Championship may still be #1 in individual cups or tracks. Cup Mode is a match type similar to Championship, but focused on only one cup. The players will vote on which cup to play, and their positions and score for each track in additional to the overall Cup position and score will be tracked and available. Free Mode is a match type where players may play and race on courses regardless of their cup or linear order. Stats are tracked for as long as the match is ongoing, and will show the position history and score of each player after each race, and their current equivalents.

The Country Cup

The Ranch Track

The Countryside Track

The Hill Track

The Forest Track

The Urban Cup

Plaza Track

San Francisco Hills

The Subway Track

The Highway System

The Extreme Cup

Sahara Track

The North Pole

Mudslide

Mountain Side Track

The Exotic Cup

Great Wall of China

Jungle Temple

Nasa Landing Pad

Moon

Single Player Mode

In Single-Player mode, the player will play through a more interactive version of the Championship mode. They will be able to move about the farm, the central navigation screen of the game. Certain parts of the farm have varying functionality depending on whether single-player or multi-player is currently being played. Certain bonus content—like ostrich colorizations and single-player only perks—are only available in the single-player version of the Farm’s barn. More information on The Farm is available below. It is racing in Single-player mode that earns players cash they can use to unlock this bonus material that is only available through single-player. Completing a race in single-player is awarded by the allocation of money to the player’s account. The amount of cash awarded the player is dependant on the position the player placed in the race, the difficulty setting of the AI on the track, and other criterion—like a bonus for finishing 4 races in a row in 1st place. Starting out, in single-player, only a few ostriches and perks are available. However, as the player wins more races and collects more cash, they will be able to unlock everything available in multiplayer and even some extra, single-player only content.

The Farm

The Farm is the hub of activity from which all the player’s options will spring. The main features and corresponding buildings of the Farm are as follows. The House: The house is where game management is done. Games are saved and loaded, and game-modes switched. Race position and score records are also viewed through the house. The Barn: The Barn is where players store their unlockables. Here, they can select which of their unlocked skins they wish to put on their ostriches, listen to the game’s music, or equip their perks. The Stables: The Stables are where players can view and select their ostriches, and then start racing. Ostrich stats and descriptions are viewable. Once an ostrich is selected, players may then start. When a player wishes to switch the ostrich they are riding, they must return to the stables.

Achievements

As achievements are becoming more widespread in popularity, and both XBLA and PSN support them, it seemed fitting to add them as an extra draw for players, and to reward their faithful playing of the game. A list of current achievements is as follows: All the Stuff: Unlock everything in Single-player mode Birds of a Feather: Get first place in every race in single-player mode Odd Bedfeathers: Complete at least one race with each ostrich available The Eagle Has Landed: Make the Moon landing with your ostrich wearing the “USA” skin Infernal Machine: Win first place in each race with the Mechanical Ostrich Freebird: Complete a track without hitting a single obstacle Fowl Play: Kick 100 opponents Fly-By: Kick an opponent while gliding Front-to-Back: Kick a player who is behind you at an intersection Forward Momentum: Kick a player who is ahead of you at an intersection Golden Egg: Complete Single-player Clumsy: Hit 50 obstacles

Blind: Hit 200 obstacles Career Careener: Hit 500 obstacles Eggsellent: Win 100 races in any mode on any difficulty Who Says Ostriches Can’t Fly?: Rack up a total glide time of 9000 seconds Head in the Sand: Lose 10 races to a single player Almost, Accidentally the Whole Great Wall: Complete the Great Wall map 50 times Country Life for Me: Win the Country Cup Big City Livin’: Win the Urban Cup Extreme Skill: Win the Extreme Cup Best Vacation: Win the Exotic Cup Exit Through the Gift Shop: Buy all possible perks in single-player More Colorful than a Peacock: Unlock all Color Customizations