I. High Concept

The Escort of Ethshar is a game with tons of replayable abilities due to the game loop created. You play as a mercenary who is tasked with protecting a cart of goods as you travel from kingdom to kingdom. This is no easy task as enemies are trying to attack the cart throughout the levels. Fight your way through the town by knocking enemies back to achieve your goal. 

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II. Genre

The Escort of Ethshar is descended from top-down roguelike and RPG games with pixel-art styles. The jobs are structured (choosing one of three paths/levels) and have a knockback-based combat that makes the game enjoyable for all. 

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III. Aesthetics

The game has a medieval-esque aesthetic in a pixel-art style. With whimsical sound effects and mystical enemies that attack the character, the player can feel submersed in the game setting. The character themselves even fits the ascetic as you play as a knight. 

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IV. Gameplay

Mechanics

Enemies have a constant force pulling them towards the cart. When they are colliding with it, they will periodically decrease the cart’s health value. When the enemies leave the scene with a velocity moving away from the cart, they will die. When that cart’s health reaches zero, a failure screen will appear with a button that transitions the UI to a level selection screen. Alternatively, the player can reach the end of a time limit with the cart health still above zero, in which case the success screen will appear with a button which also takes the player back to level selection.

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Control
The player can exert force on the player using the WASD or arrow keys. The player can also create an “attack hitbox” which exerts a large impulse on any overlapping enemies. This hitbox will be created next to the player, in the direction of the mouse cursor, when clicking the left mouse button.

 

Onboarding
To ensure the player has an understanding of how to play the game we created a tutorial screen. This screen is shown right after the player starts the game. By doing this we were able to make sure the player fully understands our game and the controls before starting gameplay. 

 

Goal Of Game
Your goal as a mercenary is to protect the cart you are assigned to. Preventing enemies from attacking your cart will allow it to move along the path and reach the end of the level.