Thomas Wray – Game Designer

Swipe Slash Strategise (2022 Portfolio Piece)

Description

Swipe Slash Strategise (SSS) is a Rogue-like, turn-based, strategy, action game for mobile. Made in 6 weeks, this is my first mobile game, designed to expand my skills. SSS was made in Unity for android.

Table of Contents

  1. Achievements & Project Objectives
  2. Development, Problems, and Results
  1. Redesign for a Casual audience
  2. Conclusion

Achievements

  • Created a randomised dungeon generator with enemies, items & traps.
  • Valued all item’s in a randomised in game store.
  • Designed UI and UX for different mobile screens.
  • Created 8 enemies that move and attack in a turn based system.

Project Objectives

  • Create a game designed for mobile.
  • Use Microsoft Excel in making a game.
  • Create procedurally generated levels.
  • Create a Gameboy-esque game.

Development, Problems, and Results

Hit and Run Fun

Early in, I found the game was most enjoyable when you where forced to avoid enemy attacks. This resulted in a kind of hit and run style game loop. The enemies have high attack damage:

  1. To encourage player movement (rather then standing still trading attacks).
  2. To create moments of tension and release.
  3. To drive the main challenge and keep players coming back to improve.

The basic flow goes like this:

  • Enemies signal where they will attack (as shown by warning symbols).
  • The player has 3 Action Points (AP) to attack and move.
  • At 0 AP the enemies deal damage (if you are standing in a spot).
  • Enemies move, then signal where they are going to attack again.

Mobile legibility

Taking into account the plethora of different phone screens proved challenging. I created a custom script to change the sizes of the icons as well as orientation changes. The end result isn’t perfect for all devices but good for what I was trying to accomplish.

Landscape or Portrait

Values and calculations an artform

I used Excel to find the ‘worth’ of each item when pricing them in the in game store. While I found excel fairly simple, what I found difficult was determining the worth of elements e.g. range, durability, number of targets ect.

What I learnt was 2 things:

  1. Play the game a lot to internalise an elements importance.
  2. Understanding the final value is a guideline not an absolute.

I found early on that when I “balanced” the numbers in excel and made the changes in game that the items felt unbalanced. Ultimately, even though I added as much as possible there will always be details that will go under the radar in determining an item’s worth.

Custom dungeon image reader/randomiser

I needed to make randomised dungeons in a short time. I couldn’t create them piece by piece, so I created templates. These template images were read by a script I made. Each colour corresponded to a game object type (enemy, item, wall ect.) and from those potential spots, it randomises a dungeon. This allowed me to quickly create playable maps.

Left. Sprite map template. Right. Generated map.

Redesign for a Casual audience

Below is a PDF for how I could redesign SSS for a casual audience.

redesigning-swipe-sword-strategize-for-a-casual-audience-3Download

Conclusion

Swipe Slash Strategise was good mobile development practice (as well as fun alliteration). It was also gratifying to create something nostalgic from my childhood. Since I achieved my goals, I’m putting the game down to focus on new and better things.