Documentation + User Guide

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Overview:

Epic Field Battles is played by countering your opponent’s forces with an army of your own. The troops you choose to play will decide the fate of the field!

Every time the spawn timer hits 0 (shown at the top centre of the screen), a burst of up to 35 troops will be spawned. For each troop to be spawned, its cost will be subtracted from your gold (shown near the bottom centre of the screen). After a burst of troops has been spawned, both player will receive an amount of gold for the next round. Both players always receive the same amount as each other, but two more gold than given in the last round. At the start of the first round both players receive four gold.

Controls:

For a single player game, you control the left crystal. To select a troop, you can click on its icon (shown near the bottom left side of the screen) or switch the selected troop with the “A” and “D” keys. While a troop is selected, its stats (cost, HP, attack, speed, and range) will be displayed on a banner on your side of the screen The selected troop will be spawned when the timer hits 0.

For a 2-player game, the left-hand player uses “A” and “D” to select their troops, and the right-hand player uses the left and right arrow keys.

Aim of the game:

The aim of the game is to march your troops onto the opponent’s side of the field and attack their crystal (where their troops spawn from) to reduce its HP bar (shown at the top of the screen) to 0.

Additional features:

A game can be paused at any time during a match by clicking the pause button to the left of the spawn timer. During the game, a brief description of the controls can be accessed by clicking the button to the right of the spawn timer labelled “Help”. Doing this will also pause the game.

Difference between the game and the concept

The key difference between the game concept and what has been created (so far), is the lack in diversity of the troops due to time constraints. Originally, the intention was to have other types of troops to add more depth to the game. For example, troops that had more or less cool-down between attacks, or troops that could deal area damage. Apart from this, development of the game has gone as planned.

User feedback

During testing, I requested feedback on:

How hard people found the game
Was the time between spawns correct?
Did camera movement and zoom feel right?
Did the game feel balanced (what needed to be buffed/de-buffed)?
Did the crystal’s HP seem right?
Game play in general
Graphics and UI

From the feedback gathered, a short “to do” list of features was created containing:

Making the instructions available from the game mid-round. Occasionally, people would skip the instructions on the menu page, and then without being able to go back, didn’t know how to play.
Nerf the spear soldier. (Game has entirely been rebalanced now).
Have an indication of what is selected beyond its image appearing on the side banner.
Add shadows to troops.
Add sound effects for when a troop attacks or is spawned.
Add a BGM to the battlefield.
Make the time between spawns shorter.
Make the background more varied and zoomed in.
Move the camera by clicking on the mini map.
Add a difficulty setting for 1-player mode.

So far, only items 1-7 on the list have been implemented. Also during testing, I found that there was a wide range of result in regards to how hard the game was to pick up and play. To help with this, a basic hint has been added to the help menu to try to give all players a fundamental idea about how to win. Also, people indicated that the game was a bit slow, so the speed of most troops was increased in addition to the time between spawns being shortened.

List of assets:

Sprites

Knights sprites: Free 2D Fantasy Knight Sprite by 2D Game Assets on Dribbble

Warrior sprite: Free 2D Fantasy Woman Warrior Sprite by 2D Game Assets on Dribbble

Wizard sprite: Free 2d Wizard Character Sprites Sheets by 2D Game Assets on Dribbble

Troll sprite: Free 2D Fantasy Trolls by 2D Game Assets on Dribbble

Wizard lightning: Download LIGHTNING Free PNG transparent image and clipart (transparentpng.com)

Grass tile: Spraytime | (makoweruk.com)

Crystal sprite: Made a Crystal Sprite! : PixelArt (reddit.com)

Background of menu: 50e70f33f5409f4ebb0fdc40414f4cda.png (1280×640) (pinimg.com)

Background of start screen: Pin by 混沌•DmC on bb | Studio ghibli background, Anime scenery, Fantasy landscape (pinterest.com.au)

Red square used in mini map (pencil round shape): Cladding - Canadian Western Red Cedar | Vetraland Selective Timber (vetralandtimber.london)