Documentation & User Guide

Documentation

Final Game Build to Game Concept Comparison

The Game concept was created partly with the intention of exacerbating the game's actual features to make it sound even better than the final product may be to engender confidence and funding in the eventual building of the game. This means that some concepts and features seen in the concept, may not have been implemented in the final game build. A comparison of these differences will be elaborated on below. 

To interest an audience who might like a background story to the game, the concept described a story to the game where the player defends a city named Eden from  invaders knows as the Tachobytes. The game would have included a skippable story scene/s to the start of the game telling this story in more cinematic drama detail. This would've bee done with cinemachine and other effects but would've distracted from the completion of the core functionality of the game before the game's official release date . 

However, the level design made by the tilemaps displays somewhat nomadic tents at the upper section of the game screen (where the Tachobyte invaders are spawned) and oasis-like structures at the lower end of the screen (The area the player must protect which represents the entrance to the city of Eden) to pay homage to the story in the game concept. As for the actual game setting, the concept states that the game world is "set in a canyon not far from a vast barren desert" and that "The city is well defended by a narrow corridor through a desert canyon". This is reflected in the chosen tilemap and the level design.

It remains a fun and casual gaming experience for players like what was stated concept creation and takes inspiration from other tower defence games. It also features a game track, enemies and tower like what was seen in Canyon Defence (another tower defence game). Attack of the Tachobytes also does not display any gore since it is not significate to the game concept like what was stated in the game concept's audience analysis.

The game completes and displays and end screen when the designated number of rounds is reached. However, after the game is won, there is no option to continue in "infinite defence mode" with infinite rounds of Tachobytes which increase in difficulty with each round. Doing this would require an overhaul of the current array based round system and small design change to the end-game screen. The overhaul would mean devoting significant time to developing that code which would break the game deadline. The Game concept states that the rounds would also be started at the press of a "start" button. However, The implementation of the start button would require a somewhat significate change to the round system. Therefore, a simple countdown started at the end of each round shows when the next round starts was implemented instead to fit the game deadline. The game can also be paused like what is stated in the concept.

As the game progresses, the Tachobyes spawned become tougher with progression like in the game concept. These units must be stopped before they reach the end of the path and cause harm to the player's health score. A health score equal to zero means that the Tachobytes have broken the defences and invaded the city of Eden. This is specified as the penultimate goal on the Tachobytes in the game concept. When the Tachobyte units are killed they do generate income for the player so they can buy turrets as stated in the concept. 

As for the turret features in the game, the game concept hinted at the Tachobyes having airborne units to attack the player with along with anti-air turrets which would be available to the player with the current implemented anti-ground turrets. This wasn't implemented because of the time constraints but will be a nice to have in later versions. The selling of the turrets, special attacks, turret upgrades  were also specified in the concept but was never implemented because of time constraints. The turrets are place in the game world by the player according to a grid system but specifying grids which cannot be used for turret placement would would either be too complex to achieve dynamically and to inefficient/ messy to achieve otherwise. So unlike what the game concept may state, the turrets can be places on the path and in the way of enemies. However, the turrets do not stop the enemy movement when place in their path.

Summary of Feedback

The overwhelming mood of the tester's feedback was that the game was interesting, fun and is a great prototype to the larger game concept. The feedback on the unique turret sounds and effects  was good. The chosen design meshed in well with the game and they tracked their enemy targets(Tachobytes) well. 

However, it was seen that projectiles occasionally miss their targets because of the logic that the turrets scripts uses to track and shoot. This will later be changed to a script that relies on different logic. The turrets did also not behave as intended when they were selected from the menu by the player as they still tracked and fired on the enemy. This was already known as a flaw but all testers mentioned seeing the bug therefore making this problem one of the foremost upgraded to be mad to the next version. Feedback also mentioned that the turrets could be placed on the enemy path. This can be a fix in an updated version but will require time to implement and possibly and overhaul of the turret placement system.

Feedback on the enemies was mostly about how their difficulty should be enhanced which was later implemented into the final build as enemies with greater speed/ health which spawned in at greater rounds to increase difficulty. This also led to the creation of different enemy sprites and plans for more designs. The health bars were also tweaked so that they stay horizontal to the game world and the enemy movement was smoothed out when rotating from one direction to another. This makes the game seem more dynamic and professional.

Some UI needed some redesign according to some testers. Some important information like the player's money and health needed to be moved to a different(more visible) area of the screen. Coin and heart sprites were placed in front of the player money and health tests to make them more visible but may require more changes in the future. Sound effect for all buttons as well as turrets were also added which gives more depth to the game.

A personal observation of the testers like/dislikes was that the sound may sometimes be to loud so a mute button was implemented with playerprefs  to keep the sound down. Audio slider may be implemented but that will require UI redesign.  

Changes made to the game according to testing feedback are listed out and demonstrated with gifs at https://nickjw001.itch.io/attack-of-the-tachobytes/devlog/440176/game-build-chan... as another devlog.

Asset List

provided a complete list of assets (and identified the source of each) with a detailed description of the purpose/use of each

Scripts

• Bullet 
  • Instantiates the bullets speed and direction  then destroys the bullet when it hit a collider (Tachobyte).

• EndGameListener 
  • Will listen for a specified event in the game and load the chosen scene when the event is reached.

• ExplosionOnDestroy
  • Creates an explosion when the game object is destroyed. 

• Grid 
  • Creates a grid of a specified size out of a specified sprite.

• HealthBar 
  • Controls a health bar UI.

• HealthBarFollows
  • Makes the healthbar follow a game object. 

• MoneyFromTurretKills
  • Manages various functions for the getting of the money amount and the addition and subtraction of money.
  • Give the players initial amount of money.

• Movement
  • Controls the enemy movement along an array of waypoints.

• PauseGame
  • Sets the games timescale to pause the game and switches to the pause menu.

• PlayerHealth
  • Manages the player health by decreasing the health value when something make contact with the player object collider.

• WaveSpawner
  • Spawns the round of enemies for the array of enemies after a given time period. (e.g. 10 sec between rounds)

• SceneSwitcher
  • Switches between specified scenes

• ShowTurretInfo
  • Shows the selected turret's name, range and damage if it is already in the game world or when it is selected from the turret menu.

• SoundManager
  • Manages the muting of the game sound and the game sound level .

• TachobyteContainer
  • Stores the enemy (Tachobytes) in a list.

• Tachobytes1
  • Manages the enemy health and reward when destroyed by the script.

• TowerPlacement
  • Manages the placement (dummy generation, cost checking) of the turrets.

• Turrets
  • The main turrets script which finds the closest enemy to the turret and damages it by using the TachobyteContainer script.

• Turret
  • Inherits from Turrets and instantiates bullets, effect and sounds. 

• TurretRotation
  • Rotates turret to face the selected enemy.

• TurretShop
  • Gets the cost of the selected turret from the turret menu and subtracts the appropriate money by using MoneyFromTurretKills script.
• Waypoints
  • A container for the waypoint objects

Sprites

• Grid border

• Enemy sprites (custom handrawn)
  • Tach01
  • Tach02
    • Prefabs
      • SmllTachobyte
        
      • FastStrongSmllTachobyte
        
      • MedTachobyte
      • FastMedTachobyte
      • FastStrongSmllTachobyte

• Explosion particles
  • Various explosion particle effects for when the turrets shoot, when the turret projectiles hit Tachobyte units and when Tachobyte units are destroyed.

External sources

Fonts:

Raymond Larabie. Ethnocentric Font Family on 1001fonts.com -- https://www.1001fonts.com/users/typodermic/?page=26

Tilemaps:

MrBeast on OpenGameArt.org -- https://opengameart.org/content/desert-tileset-0

Sprites:

Turret/Bullet Sprites: 

Nido on OpenGameArt.org -- Tower Defence Basic Towers | OpenGameArt.org -- https://opengameart.org/content/tower-defence-basic-towers

Coin sprite:

morgan3d on OpenGameArt -- Spinning Gold Coin | OpenGameArt.org -- https://opengameart.org/content/spinning-gold-coin

Heart sprite:

Nicole Marie Ton OpenGameArt -- Heart 16*16 | OpenGameArt.org  -- https://opengameart.org/content/heart-1616

Soundtracks:

Title scene soundtrack: 

Alexandr Zhelanov on OpenGameArt.org -- Battle themes | OpenGameArt.org -- https://opengameart.org/content/battle-themes

Game scene soundtrack: 

yd on OpenGameArt.org -- Desert theme | OpenGameArt.org -- https://opengameart.org/content/desert-theme

Sound Effects:

Turret sound effects: 

rubberduck on OpenGameArt.org --25 CC0 bang / firework SFX | OpenGameArt.org -- https://opengameart.org/content/25-cc0-bang-firework-sfx

Michael Klier on OpenGameArt.org -- Futuristic Weapons / Assault Rifle | OpenGameArt.org -- https://opengameart.org/content/futuristic-weapons-assault-rifle

Michael Klier on OpenGameArt.org -- Futuristic Shotgun | OpenGameArt.org -- https://opengameart.org/content/futuristic-shotgun

Cant place turret sound effect:

jalastram on OpenGameArt.org -- GUI Sound Effect #1 | OpenGameArt.org -- https://opengameart.org/content/gui-sound-effects-1

Can place turret sound effect:

Little Robot Sound Factory on OpenGameArt.org -- UI Sound Effects Library | OpenGameArt.org -- https://opengameart.org/content/ui-sound-effects-library -- www.littlerobotsoundfactory.com

Tachobyte explosion sound effect: 

Luke.RUSTLTD on OpenGameArt.org -- bomb_explosion_8bit | OpenGameArt.org -- https://opengameart.org/content/bombexplosion8bit

Button sound effects: 

Little Robot Sound Factory on OpenGameArt.org -- UI Sound Effects Library | OpenGameArt.org -- https://opengameart.org/content/ui-sound-effects-library -- www.littlerobotsoundfactory.com

User Guide

provided a user guide detailing the name of the game, and an easily understandable description of the gameplay and controls

provided a user guide containing easily understandable explanations of each game function and with relevant screenshots of each game screen

Game Name

Attack Of The Tachobytes

Gameplay Description

The player must defend their base from the Tachobyte invaders by placing turrets from the turret menu on the map to destroy the Tachobytes before they reach the end of the canyon. Survive the rounds until the end.

Controls

Use your mouse to select and place turrets to defeat the enemy with each round.

Game Screens

The title screen which contains  the title of the game, the play button which will navigate to the game itself, settings button and a mute button which will mute all the audio.

The game screen which shows the available turrets to buy (clicking on the buy button will buy  the turret and subtract the displayed amount from the player), the player's money & health, the current rounds out of the total round to complete, a start button, a menu button which will navigate to the main menu, the selected turret info, the time till next round after the current round is completed, a pause button and a mute button which will mute the audio. 350 can be seen as the initial default amount of money set for the player. 

Pause game screen is a pause menu overlayed on the game screen. The resume button resumes the game and a menu button which navigates to the main menu.

End game screen where the player wins which has the appropriate text, a main menu button which navigates back to the main menu and a start new game button which will navigate to the game screen.

End game screen where the Tachobytes win which has the appropriate text, a main menu button which navigates back to the main menu and a start new game button which will navigate to the game screen.