OVERVIEWGame StoryShinsen Gumi takes place in the city of Kyoto in Japan, covering events that span several years of Japanese history ( 1863 to 1869; the forming of the Shinsen Gumi, up to their demise). The Shinsen Gumi themselves were a special police force that patrolled the streets of Kyoto (which was at that time the capital of Japan, and home to the Shogunate) to keep them and the Shogunate safe from the rising tide of the Ishin Shishi, or the anti-Shogunate movement. The events that take place in this game are completely based around events that involved the Shinsen Gumi in actual Japanese history. Actual Shinsen Gumi member names are used for the characters.The player controls three different Shinsen Gumi members at different points throughout the game: Captain Serizawa Kamo, Commander Kondou Isami, and Troop Captain Saitou Hajime. In all situations in the game, the player’s mission is to kill members of the Ishin Shishi, keep the streets of Kyoto safe, and protect the Shogunate at all costs. Asthe story progresses, small sub-requirements will be added to the general mission. The game is meant to tell the story of the Shinsen Gumi in a way that the player can interact with.Development SpecificationShinsen Gumi will be developed using Microsoft Visual C++ 6.0, and the DirectX 9.0 SDK. The game will consist of three different scenarios, with completely textual story breaks in between. The artwork and animation will all be original. Sound effects will be taken from Andre Lamothe’s sound library, and the music will be taken from various sources as noted in the bibliography.PRODUCT SPECIFICATIONProduction Team DescriptionAll programming will be done by Brian Clark. Artwork and animation will be developed by Molly Wegener.Target AudienceThe target audience for this game is age ten and above. While the game play will be uncomplicated and not cater to any particular age range, the game itself revolves around stories of very violent events. While a lot of violence will not necessarily be depicted within the game itself, the historical events themselves are of a violent nature.Game PlayThe player will control a different member of the Shinsen Gumi in each of the three scenarios, from a side perspective. Each character’s weapon will be a sword, and the player will be expected to control this character on whatever mission the character is assigned before their scenario in the game begins.The beginning of the game will have an introduction to the history of the Shinsen Gumi, and will introduce the first character. From there, story breaks will be featured after each mission is completed. The purpose of these will be to both fill in the player of the events that take place from one scenario to another, as well as to introduce the next character that the player will be using in detail.Each character will have a health rating. If the player is hit by an Ishin Shishi enemy, or damaged by any other sort of object, a static amount of damage will be deducted from theplayer’s health rating. If the health rating drops to zero, the character will die. The health rating will not be able to be regenerated once it has dropped. To balance this out though, the player will never encounter impossible amounts of enemies at one time, nor will the scenarios be extremely long and tasking on the health rating. The goal of completing a scenario without losing all of the character’s health rating will be a very obtainable one.In order to “win” the game, the player must complete the scenarios of all three characters,and defeat the boss at the end of the game. The purpose of completing the game is more to see the story of the Shinsen Gumi play out, more so than winning the game to obtain any sort of item or status. The difference in the missions of the three characters will be varied enough, to where the player shouldn’t feel like he or she is merely just killing IshinShishi as the story progresses around them. The player should feel as though, to an extent, that he or she is actually helping the member of the Shinsen Gumi that he or she iscontrolling to accomplish their goals.The artwork found throughout the game will be presented in an cartoon like way. The characters are not necessarily supposed to look like actual people, but rather animated, cartoon-esque versions of real people. Every character will be depicted as wearing the actual outfit worn by the Shinsen Gumi. The music will also be a great contributor to the player’s experience, as a lot of traditional Japanese music will be featured throughout the scenarios. This should create a degree of authenticity for the player, to balance out the light hearted look of the character art.Production ToolsThe programming of this game will be done in Microsoft Visual C++ 6.0, utilizing DirectX 9.0 SDK. Artwork will be developed in Adobe Photoshop 7.0. Music will betaken from CDs (as credited in the bibliography) using Apple iTunes, and Sound Forge 6.0 for any sound conversions that may need to be done. GAME MECHANICSOverview The game will take place in Kyoto Japan, throughout various points in the seven year history of the Shinsen Gumi. Each of the three Shinsen Gumi members (Captain Serizawa Kamo, Commander Kondou Isami, and Troop Captain Saitou Hajime) will be equipped with a katana sword to dispatch any Ishin Shishi enemies that made get in their way. Each of them has a different mission, so the objective may or may not be to kill every Ishin Shishi in site, though certainly each mission will involve killing them to somedegree.The game will end when the player has completed Saitou Hajime’s scenario, and defeatedthe boss at the end. The ultimate fate of the Shinsen Gumi in Japanese history will then be told. This game revolves very much around making the story of the Shinsen Gumi an interesting one to the player, and unfolding the story before them as they play a part in it themselves. Traditional Japanese music will play throughout the game, in order to make the player feel as though they are taking a journey through an animated version of the streets of Kyoto back in the late 1800s, to defend Kyoto’s streets and the Shogunate.Camera PositionThe camera will be on the side the main character during action sequences, making the action part of this game a side-scrolling game. As the character moves to the right, the scenery of the game unfolds before them. Before and after each action sequence will be