The Pitch

Last Escape

"In Last Escape you play as a group of survivors trying to escape a zombie apocalypse but need to travel deep into an unknown city to radio for rescue."

Feelings to evoke: Suspense, dread.

Types of fun: Discovery, collaboration, & challenge.

Goal: Call for evac at the Radio Tower, then use a Signal Flare to be rescued via helicopter.

Opposition: Zombies.

Theme: Zombie-infested city.

Starting at the Top

A major goal I had while designing Last Escape was creating a "top-down design." This meant nearly every decision was made starting from the concept. In this case it meant leaning into the zombie apocalypse. Here's an overview of how I designed & iterated on the exploration mechanic to evoke the feeling of exploring a zombie-infested city.

Click to zoom! [Credit](https://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/2129/game_design_cognition_the_.php?print=1#:~:text=Typical situations in which top-down game design cognition,from other media%2C such as books and movies.)

Exploring an Unknown City

I decided to evoke the feeling of exploring an unknown city by drawing from a deck of location cards. Each card would represent a location that could be found in any city. Gas stations, hotels, gun stores, etc.

How The Mechanic Works

• Players start on a card drawn from the location deck.
• Each turn, players have the option to move in any cardinal direction.
• If a player moves in a direction that has no location card, draw a new card and place it in the desired direction.

My Goals For The Mechanic

• Players feel like they're exploring the unknown to evoke suspense.
• Hide subgoals in the deck to give players a sense of progression.
• Players build out a unique city every gameplay session.

Getting Creative For Rapid Prototyping

Using a poker deck as a location deck was a great randomizer. Numbers represented the location.

Our survivors, represented as chess pieces. Each piece represented a different class.