Documentation

Concept similarities and differences

In terms of visual design I was able to continue with my initial vision of a grittier Nuclear Throne art style, but I wish a had more time to decorate the map with props to really bring it to life.

Out of the enemies I wished to implement only 2 have currently made it into the game. The basic zombie and the Rager.

I still wish to add a boss wave at a later date.

The ability to upgrade purchased weapons was scrapped as it made balancing weapons a lot harder. I also wanted there to be both weak and powerful weapons, and not have the player wielding multiple high tier weapons.

Development Feedback Summary

Overall tester found the player movement to feel very responsive and the way they expect.

All testers agreed weapons felt different from each other.

Only 14% of testers found the weapons to feel powerful, as such, adjustments had to be made. This also goes in hand with the game being too difficult.  On an interesting note 42% of testers agreed enemies had just the right amount of health, despite the weapons feeling under powered. The other 57% thought they had too much health.  The main enemy testers were dying to was the Rager, who was overtuned.

The map had an overall positive response with the tighter choke point areas heightening the experience and giving enough of a challenge to navigate. I noticed testers never entered the little room near the top of the map that didnt have an additional exit, so I opened it up in the final submission.

The visual style reception was very positive.

The feedback given to the player when damaging an enemy was positive, but a few testers suggested a flash effect for a frame on enemies taking damage for added visual feedback. It was also hard to tell at times if it was the player or enemy taking damage as they shared the same blood particles, so I changed the enemies blood to be a slightly different tone whilst still fitting the red bloody theme of the game.

71% of testers found it easy to tell the ground tiles apart from the wall tiles. From my observations I did see a few testers initially walk into the grey walls thinking it was ground. Although I didn't change anything for the final submission, I may look at darkening walkable areas to give a little more contrast from the walls.

The music was highly agreed to fit the theme of the game. A big thanks to my friend pikaro for letting me use his music!

The additional feedback from the testers was requesting a way for health to be restored and being able to use the scroll wheel to switch weapons. I added an option to purchase health from the shop and may add additional pickups on the map and the scroll wheel feature at a later date.

Asset List - Made By Me

Audio

• Click - UI Button click sound
• Scroll - UI Button hover sound
• KnifeSwing - Knife attack sound
• Zombie_Bite - Player hurt sound
• SwitchWeapon - Switching between weapons sound

Sprites

• bloodybattlegrounds_text - Main menu logo, uses Bleeding Pixels font
• cursor_1 - Custom cursor
• extras_spritesheet - Contains metal fence sprite
• floor_spritesheet - Ground sprites for tilemap
• icon - Unity screen icon when loading
• mag - Dropped magazine sprite when reloading
• Magazine_Icons - Magazine icons for the shop
• Player_Idle - Player idle animation
• Player_UI - Player's HUD UI for health and ammo
• Player_Walking - Player walking animation
• Rager_Idle - Rager enemy idle animation
• Rager_Walking - Rager enemy walking animation
• Rager_Walking_Enraged - Rager enemy walking animation when enraged (taken damage or close to player)
• slash_sprite - Knife damage area sprite
• Stimshot - Stimshot icon in the shop (purchasable health)
• walls_spritesheet - Wall sprites for tilemap
• weapons_spritesheet - Weapons player can use and buy from the shop
• Zombie_Idle - Zombie enemy idle animation
• Zombie_Walking - Zombie enemy walking animation

Asset List - Made By Others

Audio

• Snake's Authentic Gun Sounds Pack (SnakeF8, 2022a) - Weapon shooting and reload sounds
• Snake's SECOND Authentic Gun Sounds Pack (SnakeF8, 2022b) - Weapon shooting and reload sounds
• viviphobia (pikaro, 2023) - Music

Fonts

• Bleeding Pixels (Wannabeien, n.d.)
• monogram  (datagoblin, 2018)

References

1. SnakeF8 (2022). Snake’s Authentic Gun Sounds. [online] itch.io. Available at: https://f8studios.itch.io/snakes-authentic-gun-sounds  ‌
2. SnakeF8 (2022b). Snake’s SECOND Authentic Gun Sounds Pack. [online] itch.io. Available at: https://f8studios.itch.io/snakes-second-authentic-gun-sounds-pack 
3. datagoblin (2018). monogram. [online] itch.io. Available at: https://datagoblin.itch.io/monogram 
4. Wannabeien, T. (n.d.). Bleeding Pixels Font. [online] 1001 Free Fonts. Available at: https://www.1001freefonts.com/bleeding-pixels.font
5. pikaro (2023). viviphobia. [online] Bandcamp. Available at: https://pikkkkaro.bandcamp.com/album/viviphobia 

User Guide

Final Title

Bloody Battlegrounds

Description

Bloody Battlegrounds is all about fighting through hordes of mutated zombies on the streets of London with one incentive in mind - Money. Shoot, slash, and explode your way to riches by killing the undead

Controls

• Movement: W, A, S, D
• Shooting: Hold left click
• Reload: R
• Knife: 1
• Pistol: 2
• Rifle: 3
• Shotgun: 4
• Open shop (between waves): E
  

Game Screens

Main Menu

Settings

Credits

Gameplay