Chadius: SwordDraw PlayerExperience

Terms and basics

This covers the basic idea, concept and terms used.

Endurance

This is the amount of time the player has to make an attack. Once it's gone, the enemy gets a chance to strike. Enemies can control how much time remains.

Pattern Shape and Size

There are a seties of patterns that must be drawn. They come from a set, and are roughly ordered in terms of difficulty. The overall size of the pattern can also change. Generally, larger and more complicated patterns take longer to draw, and result in less damage.

Hit Points, Attack, Damage

The player and the enemy have hit points, attack level, and defense level. These help in pacing the outcome of the round.

The player can gain stats by drawing over its symbol during the round. When the player defeats the enemy, the symbols change to healing ones.

Hit Points

Whoever runs out of HP first loses the round. The enemy should be the loser most of the time.

Enemy Attack vs Player Defense

If the enemy's attack is equal to or lower, the player takes no damage. This rewards the players' high defense. Otherwise, the damage is the difference of the two values.

Player Attack vs Enemy Defense

Special rules were placed to help the player if its attack was lower than the enemy's. If the player cannot overcome the defense, he does damage equal to half of the points connected. This encourages the player to slow down and connect all of the points in hopes that the player's attack will increase.

To overcome the enemy's defense:

• He must connect at least (enemy's defense) points in the pattern
• His attack must be greater than the defense.

Overkill

When the player defeats the enemy, they spend the remaining endurance in overkill mode. When the player attacks in this mode, they recover lost HP. This is used to help players regain HP lost, and helps them feel good when they've squished a particularly annoying enemy.

The player will always have a minimum amount of endurance to regain HP. This helps players get a breather when they have "just beat" an enemy.

Experience during the course of a game

This covers what the player should experience while playing Sword Draw.

Beginning

Player should build up attack and defense quickly. Enemies should be low damage, to encourage playstyles and give users their 90 seconds of enjoyment. Enemies should die quickly, not lasting more than 2 rounds.

Midway

Player should notice that he needs to keep up his stat levels. Player should lose slightly more than he gained. Enemies can last between 2-3 rounds.

End Game

Player should need many levels of attack and defense. Enemies should have high attack and defense levels. They shouldn't take much damage from the player, but should be able to dish it out. Enemies should last for up to 5 rounds, giving the players hell until the end.

Stat Loss

Every five rounds, the player's stats drop by one. This prevents the player from building a high defense and cruising their way through the rest of the game. This is especially important when the player will spend several rounds against a relatively harmless enemy.

The player's attack is not reduced if it cannot penetrate the enemy's defense. The player gets more attack but no defense icons . These measures help the player gain more attack to defeat their foes.

Player Choices

These are issues the player should have to keep interested in the game.

Speed vs Accuracy

Should the player try to quickly trace the pattern, or slowly and accurately trace each dot?

Speed

• The user can quickly finish attacks, increasing attacks over time.
• Better used if the pattern can be finished in a single stroke
• If the enemy is finished off quickly, the user can spend the remaining time healing.

Accuracy

• Connecting all of the dots maximizes damage potential, and gets the best stat gains.
• Better used for complicated patterns.

Side Effects

The user will draw quickly in the beginning to cover the small, simple lines. By endgame, the users will have to slow down to cover the complicated lines.

Premature Attacks

Attacks can be finished prematurely for less damage.

Benefits

• The player can quickly finish attacks to deal damage.
• The player can discard pesky patterns immediately, instead of wasting time tracing it over.

Disadvantages

• If the player does not overcome the enemy defense before finishing off the pattern, they take a huge damage penalty.
• The enemy takes less damage from the attack, reducing damage over time (efficiency.)
• The player may have gotten more stat boosts if the pattern was completed.

Enemy Design

Each enemy type should punish a player mentality. The player should be able to switch tactics when faced with certain types of enemies.

Fairy

• Complicated Patterns.
• High Endurance Drain.

Fairies are meant to be annoying. The player needs to squeeze out attacks whenever the opportunity arises.

Slime

• High hit points.
• Big patterns.

Slimes wear the player down; it's simply a battle of attrition.

Armored

• High Offense.
• High Defense.

Armored characters (like golems and Black Knights) punish those with low stats.

Wizard

• High Endurance Drain
• High Damage

Wizards punish those who are slow.

Theif

• Complicated Patterns
• High Damage

Theives force the player to draw the whole pattern and nothing but the pattern. Missed draws means the enemy gets extra attacks, which leads to big damage.

Dragon

Dragons are the all-around badguys: Nothing in particular stands out about them.