The Excalibur Sword

The Excalibur Sword is a 2D pixel art platformer game set in a Medieval setting. The game will follow the adventure of a knight with the goal of reaching the top of Mount Helvellyn. Along the way, the knight will face many platformer obstacles as well as a variety of enemies. 

The core idea of the platformer is that the player will traverse upwards through a series of platformer obstacles. The knight will be given health that will consist of 100 health points and can be lost in varying amounts based on the enemy that causes damage. 

The knight will face enemies consisting of animals such as bats, and even fantasy enemies like skeletons and orcs. Each different enemy type will vary in how they maneuver and attack the player. The enemies will charge the player to attack using various methods to knock back the player and deal damage. 

As the player progresses up in the game, each level design will begin to vary in setting which will also add to the variety in scenery and block types. There are also a few blocks of lava in the game that cause the player to return to the beginning of the game if stepped into making the game difficult in the dungeon and castle levels.

In order to put the game together, TEAM 22 implemented the use of the GameMaker Studio 2 by YoYo Games. The game engine was used to develop the game levels, player controls, enemy design, art, and environment design.

Basic Game Control:

The controls in The Excalibur Sword are very simple and well-known. The usual use of the WASD keys on a computer keyboard will be used for vertical and horizontal movement, and the spacebar will be implemented to allow for the character to jump. The L key can be pressed at any time and will return the player to the start of that level.

Basic Combat System: 

The character will have a melee which will be controlled by the mouse. Attacking will be triggered with a left mouse click.

Enemy Types: 

• Skeletons - attack with a sword that knocks back the player and deals 2 health points of damage.
• Bats - attack the player from the air and deal damage of 2 health points.
• Orcs - attacks with a huge sword that knocks the player back and deal 5 health points of damage
• Bandits - are seen only in the Cliff Level and will attack using a sword that deals damage of 10 health points.

Levels:

There are four levels that players will need to traverse to make it to the top and complete the game.

1.  Cave Level
2.  Dungeon Level
3.  Castle Level
4.  Cliff Level

Post-Mortem:

What went right?

• The art design with tilemaps in rooms was much easier in Gamemaker than it is in Unity.
• Connecting rooms worked better than expected with no load time between rooms.
• Sound design was as easy as clicking and dragging once everything was coded together.

What went wrong/what problems did you face?

• Knockback
  • If a player was close to a wall and was hit by an enemy, they would be pushed into the wall. We removed bat knockback as they were the most troublesome. 
• Chain Attacks
  • Occasionally the player would get stuck inside an enemy and would cause the enemy to drain the player’s health rapidly. We implemented an attack cooldown to prevent this from happening.
• Stairs
  • A seemingly random bug where the game will crash if you move around a bunch on the stairs. We got it to be a very rare occurrence and left the stairs in the game with them only being in a very small section.