Manufactory
Roles: Gameplay, Balancing and Narration
DESCRIPTION:
Manufactory is a real-time strategy game. The narration of the game focuses on workers of the toy factory breaking the 4th wall. Workers gain self-awareness of being inside a video game as the game progresses. It aims to deliver an emotional experience regarding the capitalist social structure and AI/human rights. The game has a linear non-traditional narrative method that takes roughly 30 minutes to complete.
Year: 2021
Platform: Windows
Genre: Real-time Strategy
Engine :Unreal
Player Goal and Timeline
As a newly hired manager of the toy factory, the goal is to manage the factory and bring profits to the shareholders. The player has to hire workers, build/upgrade machines, and expand factory. However, the player will never reach the max upgrade and factory expansion due to the narrative twist. As the game progresses, every week workers gain self-awareness and by week 4 they will know they are inside a video game. Due to this progressive process, the workers act weirdly and start disrupting as the player's progress. As a result, the player will struggle with management. Every weekend, the player will mee the stakeholder for performance review, which is dynamic with player's progress.
The game runs for 4 weeks which is nearly 30 minuets of game play. Week 5, the factory will be empty and on clicking the hire worker button, a letteral error screen shows up, showing the workers broke the game code and is unplayable.
Special Event 1: In week 2
Randomly, a worker starts looking around like a newborn baby showing the first signs of awareness.
Special Event 2: End of week 2
A cutscene shows one worker trying to escape through a vent.
From then on, workers start breaking the 4th wall by looking at the player's cursor during gameplay.
Special Event 3: In week 3
One worker stops working and starts spamming the hire button depleting the player's money. The workers now know about there exists a player. They try to stop the player from building or selecting workers.
Special Event 4: week 4, last day
The workers are at the peak stage and break the menu UI making it falls on to the ground as a 3D object. The workers start destroying machines making the game unplayable.
Special Event 5:
Workers abandon the factory and leave spray paintings on the walls demanding freedom.
Heading 5
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This is a fast shooting auto rifle. User can Aim down sites with this weapon. The weapon is more stable when aimed down.
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This weapon has a vertical recoil when trigger is pulled.
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This weapon is a projectile based weapon.
Fast shooting Auto Rifle
Special Event 1:
Randomly a worker starts looking around like a newborn baby showing the first signs of awareness. The workers stop working by showing signs of early awareness.
Full Game Play
Ending Cutscene
Gameplay Loop
We wanted the core loop to be simple but meaningful. After understanding the basic work schedule of real-world workers, we have gamified the process.
Player assigns workers to machines. The Raw material machine refines raw cotton. The shell machine creates shells using refined cotton. The workers later take the shells to the stuffing machine. The stuffing machine stuffs the shells with refined cotton. Later the stuffed shell is taken to the stitching station to be stitched and then to the packaging section. The packaging section packages the end product end delivers the product, making money.
For the player to be goal-oriented, a simple objective system was added.
Refinement Machine:
The refinement machine needs 2 workers. This machine will refine raw cotton into refined cotton.
It needs the following:
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2 Workers
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Raw cotton
Upgrading will produce more refined cotton per second.
Shell Machine:
The shell machine makes shells for the plushies.
It needs the following:
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1 worker
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Refined Cotton
Upgrading the machine increases the speed of
shell production. However uses more refined cotton.
Stuffing Machine:
The stuffing machine stuffs the shells with refined cotton.
It needs the following:
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1 Worker
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Refined cotton
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1 Shell
Upgrading the machine increases the speed.
Stitching Machine:
The stitching machine stitches the stuffed cotton. It needs the following:
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1 Worker
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Refined cotton
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Stuffed Shell
Upgrading the machine increases the speed of the stitching process.
Packaging Machine:
The packaging machine
will pack the plushie and deliver, which will in return generate money.
It needs the following:
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1 worker
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1 Stitched product
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Raw cotton
Upgrading the machine the packaging time is decreased and gains more shelf space.
Stakeholder Meetings
Every week there is an investor meeting happens. Here the investor talks about the player's progress and treats workers as tools.
As the weeks pass, the investor starts becoming aggressive. However, aggression is directly affected by the player's performance. The dialogs change dynamically with the timeline and the player performance.
As a player, we observe how money affects shareholders. We see how money makes people in power treat employees disgraceful.
The game makes the player realize and question things like equality and morals.
