AWAKENING
OBJECTIVE
Players join either the marines, who are attacking, or the voarex, who are defending, and then switch sides in the popular Assault style. The marines must drive the aliens off this planet, but they need to complete several objectives to accomplish this. For the final objective they must defeat the Voarex queen, who is so huge she literally shakes the ground.

Awakening was created as our project for CSC 481, Game Design, here at NC State. Our original concepts were to create a team-based alien vs marines shooter. We chose an Assault gametype because we liked the way teams have to work together to accomplish objectives and the fight is constantly moving to a new area of the map. Then we added the Voarex Queen as the final objective because what's a savage alien race without a ferocious Queen?
GAMEPLAY
We spent a great deal of time play testing and balancing gameplay. In fact, many of our meetings were 3 vs 3 Awakening games, and we talked about the boring stuff afterwards. Needless to say this was the most fun project I have ever had in college. We designed the game to be as balanced as possible, but both sides will have to use all of their abilities to maintain the balance.

Fear is an important factor in this game. Being killed by a voarex is surprising if you know it's coming, and shocking if you don't. The voarex have some abilities to intensify marine fear. They move more quickly and jump higher than a marine. The voarex have a scent ability that allows them to see a scent trail left by every marine, useful in tracking. The voarex can go partially invisible, which works best in darker areas, but temporarily disables their ability to jump or attack. The voarex can also walk on walls and ceilings, so they can hide in many places that the marines will not suspect until it's too late. One of the favorite tricks of a seasoned voarex player is to hang to the ceiling above a door, invisible. When a marine passes through, the voarex drops down behind him and charges for the kill. These voarex abilities result in 1 vs 1 games being not much of a challenge for the voarex player, as the marine has to watch all directions at once and doesn't get a second chance if he doesn't see his enemy in time. However, when the marines group together they become more powerful than a similarly skilled team of voarex, and are able to complete the objectives. The marines have considerable long range weapons that should be used to keep the voarex at a safe distance. Marines also have a powerful short range weapon, the shotgun.

Most Awakening games are intense, hard-fought and bloody battles. The enjoyability of this game (and any game) depends very much on how close the balance is. The server should make sure the sides are somewhat balanced by adding bots or moving players.
     
MARINE WEAPONS
XM234-A Assault Rifle Shotgun M-99 Sniper Rifle UN MNC Rocket Launcher
This bad boy has a very accurate single fire and less accurate 3 shot burst. Crouching increases accuracy. The primary fire is a one shot kill, and secondary is a grenade launcher. Deadly accurate with a massive recoil. The most powerful marine weapon. This thing will clear a room, but it's blast radius makes it very dangerous to the user in tight areas.
VOAREX WEAPONS
Claws Cloaking Spidering
The only voarex attack, because that's all they need. The primary mode is a quick swipe which will deal significant damage. The secondary mode is a charging attack which is guaranteed to pulverize any enemies in the way, but has a slower reload time. This is enabled by holding the crouch button, which is usually bound to 'c'. This is toggled with the third person view button, which is usually F4. Spidering is most effective when combined with cloaking.
AI
The Voarex Queen is controlled by AI. Completion of the second to last objective will awake her, and she will begin to seek out and destroy the nearest marines. Marine bots are also available, and they can complete all the objectives without player help. Their accuracy and enemy spotting abilities are significantly lower when the enemy is invisible at a distance. Voarex bots are a great addition to the game, although they currently do not take advantage of their special abilities. In spite of this, they are surpisingly effective.
CUSTOM CONTENT
The Voarex models and all the weapons are custom content, created by our group just for this project.

Here are the characters you will see in the game.
CREDITS
TJ Cowhey—Level and Game Designer, Team Lead

Daniel Wright—Gameplay and AI programming
Robert Navarro—Weapons programming
Matt Marum—Gameplay and HUD programming

Ben Huckaby—Voarex and Voarex Queen models, animation and skins, Voarex static meshes
Jeff Poon—Weapons and Marine skin, Marine static meshes
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