Finished Game Project

How it turned out

Big Sword did not come out exactly as I envisioned it, but I think it covered a lot of the core gameplay mechanics that I wanted to cover. It is still a top-down wave survival game, and the swordplay works nearly as well as I'd hoped.

The game is not actually finished at the time of writing this. The sword, while able to grow upon killing enemies, does not have a changing hitbox, it is relatively tiny actually. Additionally the player cannot actually take damage from enemies. Finally, the timer is bugged and does not properly end the game. 

The main differences are in terms of polish, I was hoping for more nuanced combat and more interesting enemies however I wasn't able to achieve this goal in the time frame.

Originally the player would grow bigger as the sword did but this didn't pan out as I discovered that the sword fit better as the focal point of the game and it made more sense for it to outgrow the player. Additionally finding the right balance of sword to map size proved difficult. 

Big Sword as described and envisioned initially was meant to be a difficult game, something to master, but as it stands right now its not actually that hard to play. I think this is because I needed to do more research and planning into overall movement and combat, and find what exactly makes it difficult. 

I also originally envisioned some form of powerups but this didn't pan out as developing the combat and sword took enough time.

Asset List:

Images/sprites:

  Sword asset (https://opengameart.org/content/game-weapon-long-and-short-sword) used to create the sword and the logo

  Healthbar (https://opengameart.org/content/pixel-health-bar-asset-pack-2) used for the sword progress bar

  Player sprite, created by me

  Enemy sprite, created by me

Audio:

  Menu SFX (https://opengameart.org/content/menu-selection-click) used for the clicky sound in menus

Scripts:

  All scripts created and written by me with the exception of:

  EightWayMovement.cs, Mover.cs, Seek.cs, Movement.cs, SceneLoader.cs

  Which were all adapted from the 109 Practicals.

Some of the more specialized scripts (excluding utility scripts) include:

  SwordSwing.cs which manages the Lerp function of the sword as well as the swinging motion using physics,

  EnemySpawner.cs which spawns enemies with random weights every x amount of seconds,

  and ColliderChanger.cs which updates the collider of the sword to match the new size when needed.

Other:

  Upheaval font (https://www.dafont.com/upheaval.font) used for logo and UI

  Tile map (https://assetstore.unity.com/packages/2d/environments/pixel-art-top-down-basic-1...) used to create the map

User Guide:

Big Sword

In Big Sword you play as a little guy with a big sword. You must survive 3 minutes while fending off enemies with just your sword. As you kill more enemies your sword will grow bigger allowing you to more easily defeat your foes. Be careful as your sword also directly represents your HP.

Controls:

UP - W

LEFT - A

DOWN - S

RIGHT - D

SWING - Space

Main menu & Settings screen (both the help and controls screen aren't finished):

The volume slider controls the master volume.

This is the main game screen:

This is your sword:

It is your main weapon, you can swing it using the space bar.

This bar shows how many enemies you've killed, and once it fills up the sword will grow in size and the bar will reset.

This is the time remaining:

Located in the top left hand corner of the game screen.

These are some of the enemies, and they spawn periodically from these spawning spaces located on each cardinal: