The audio will have to be converted into .wav files to insert them into the game, with each piece of audio having its volume edited to be consistent with the rest of the games audio.

As well as hearing any of the tracks being played in the background of the game (depending on the are the player is in) the player will also hear any noise they generate in the world such as hitting objects with tools or jumping and falling from a large height. 

Depending on the area the player is in a background song will be constantly playing, the volume of these songs wont be affected by proximity or distance. The music in the starting room will be unspectacular and constant while the music being played in each of the other worlds will be full songs. Also, i'd like to have the gates/portals that lead to each world emit a humming noise, which increases in volume when you get closer to it. This can also be done with the games collectibles.

There wont be any background music for the splash screens, I think this can potentially take away from the impact of the rest of the games soundtrack, which will be a focal point of the game.

When the buttons are clicked in the menu they'll make a basic clicking sound, also when the player is being loaded into the game there will be a warping sound effect to facilitate the transition.

In total there will be 5 levels in the game, not including the starting area that the game begins in. The key element of the game will be its visual elements as well as its immersive soundtrack that changes depending on which area of the game the player is in. Overall the game will feature about 20-30 minutes of gameplay, the game will be more of a one time play-through game as opposed to a sandbox game with multiple possibilities. I also don't want to make it too long out of risk of boring the player.

The main story of the game is going to be open to interpretation, the player wont actually be given a lot of context, although they may be presented with a small narration in the intro of the game. While open to interpretation I've attempted to shape the game in a way that correlations can be made to "the players journey to heaven" or any kind of spiritual journey. This is due to the dream/fantasy-esque imagery i'll be including which may even make the player draw comparisons to that of an actual dream, that the players character may be in. Long story short there isn't much plot at the moment and most of it is going to be very vague.

The player will start off in a kind of small circular area made up of runes. The player must then travel through 4 gates, each with their own unique map and collect the collectible in that world that will emit a bright light into the sky that's visible to the player as a way to track it down. The player will interact with the collectible which will then see them teleported back to the starting area, where they can place the collectible on an alter in the middle of the area, before repeating the process 3 more times in the other unique worlds.

The controls for the game will be fairly simple. Both the WASD and the arrow keys will be used for movement as this allows for the players other hand to use the jump/interaction keys with their other hand, regardless of which hand is their dominant one. The jump key will be the space bar and the interaction key will be E, the player can interact with weapons to pick them up and then press R to use them, as well as being able to press T to drop them.

There will be 6 areas in total within the game.

Starting Runes

The starting are that the player begins in, it will be a circular area surrounded by runes, with an alter in the middle to place collectibles the player has picked up.

Earth Realm

A heavily forested area featuring trees, rivers and potentially forest wildlife.

Wind Realm

An area featuring floating landmasses as terrain, the player will have to traverse these floating pieces of land to ascend the realm and reach the collectible. The player may potentially die if they fall off a landmass and into the empty sky below.

Ice Realm

An arctic region made up of ice mountains and frozen over bodies of water, these frozen ponds and rivers will contain gaps/fishing holes that the player can fall into and die in if not careful, cracks will also be present, indicating a stretch of ice that may give way should the player walk over it.

Fire Realm

A region made up of volcanoes and pits of lava, the player must time their jumps careful or risk falling into lava below, killing them.

Dark Realm

A mysterious final area of the game, it will mainly be made up of black terrain with low visibility. Its hazards are still to be decided, but this may range from a mysterious creature hunting the player down to asteroids appearing from the dark sky above and crashing into the terrain the player is on.

Each of the 5 realms will progressively contain more hazards, scaling the difficulty as the player progresses.

Neutral objects like trees and other terrain will differ from realm to realm, each will likely have a different static background representing the realms element.

The boundaries will also vary, with an impassable river of lava being present at the edge of the fire world, impassable ice river in the ice world and so on.

The artwork of the game wont be in picture perfect detail, it will looks partially cartoonish but still visually pleasing. However, a large quantity of trees plus their shadows that feature in the game may cause some issues in regards to graphical limitations.

The games HUD wont be overly complex, it will feature a small white dot as a cursor, which will change in shape and size when the player hovers over an interactable object such as a collectible or a tool and a prompt will pop up indicating how to manipulate the object. Four transparent symbols will be present in the top-left hand corner of the players screen, these will indicate how many of the four collectibles the player has acquired. When acquired the symbol representing that collectible will become opaque, indicating to the player that it is no longer required. Finally, the HUD wont feature a health bar, the player effectively operates on 1 hp, so on first contact with a hazard they will die and a health bar will serve no purpose.

The Player

There wont be any named characters within the game, simply the unnamed character that the player is controlling, and potentially an unnamed narrator. The reason for this is because I don't want the player to just think they are controlling a pre-made character, I want them to feel as immersed as possible in the game and I feel like having an unknown character that they can project themselves onto will help to serve that purpose.