Documentation

Trash Bucket is done, with its submission due tonight my work on this project is over. While I did not exactly execute my vision of the game I'm still happy with what I created. This document will cover a list of differences to the game's concept, A summary of all the written feedback I received, an asset list with references to a few resources I used in development and a help menu.

Differences from the concept:

Weapons and combat:

Due to difficulty getting projectiles to face the correct way and a thematic shift with the boss, I replaced the idea of having a bow and arrow with casting magic to take out enemies. Practically this doesn't affect gameplay but does also make more sense in explaining why projectiles are not very fast (something that adds to the bullet hell aspect as they are dodge able).

Power-ups and looting did not make it to the game due to time constraints, I was already not certain about these ideas and when it came time to decide what to cut to get the game complete in time these had to go. The focus had to be to get something fun and playable done that hit enough additional areas and this feature was just the least essential to the game. If I had more time these would probably end up being spell variations, replacing the idea of elemental attack arrows.

After some development, I chose to leave parrying out of the game. This element was in the concept to try to tie some knight combat into the gameplay but ultimately eliminated the challenge of dodging bullets which is most of the appeal of the genre. Nerfing parrying also just makes the mechanic not as easy and convenient to do as dodging

The Boss:

The boss is not a trebuchet which is something I still am disappointed about. After hours of trying to draw a good model and trying to compromise with a catapult, I realised I did not have the technical skill to draw art that complicated. This is where the pivot to magic combat started and in the end, the boss became an evil wizard knight. While disappointing there was no way to develop my ability to draw that significantly in the time frame so the compromise had to be made.

Cameras:

While the level layout is the same I ended up changing the camera work so you can always see the entirety of a scene instead of a smaller section around the play that follows it. This felt better gameplay-wise as you could always tell where enemies where.

Feedback:

The big one, I received a lot of feedback and game testing once the game's development built up steam. This will be an amalgamation of feedback received written over Discord and results and data from my survey which can be found in the games attached devlogs. I had further help from friends with bug testing along the way but this was all communicated verbally and was not recorded.

Written:

4/10/2024

• Dodging/Dashing feels good except for when the camera gets too close, projectile speed is good. Camera distance is good in most rooms but needs to be moved back a bit in some.

This was partially caused by camera scaling issues between Unity and the itch build but this has been addressed now with a further back camera.

12/10/2024

• Enemies can be annoying, running away and getting stuck on walls.
• Camera work is good
• Holding to shoot
• Dash indication maybe, maybe not needed when there is a health bar
• Feels weird that projectiles are not much faster than players
• Blurry textures

The enemies getting stuck on walls has been partially addressed with some changes to collisions and how far the enemies. Holding to shoot has been implemented, dash didn't get an indicator but the dash is faster than it used to be and feels more noticeable now that you can take damage. The projectiles have remained the same speed but they have got a little speed trail effect and I think the speed they travel is good as it allows the player to dodge.

14/10/2024

• Minor bug of boss spawning enemies in the next room early

This was fixed in time for the next build

The Survey (18/10/2024):

The game restart didn't work in this build, It has been addressed since and the game can now be restarted.

The game being too difficult was a major piece of criticism I received after testing. While I do want the game to be hard as the challenge and taking a few attempts at the boss is enjoyable I did reduce the difficulty in a few ways. The boss can no longer do attacks (particularly its wave attack) more than a couple of times in a row and further after spawning an enemy it always either spawns another or does its easiest attack to give you a chance to kill it. The spacing between shots in the wave attack was also increased but mainly because the actual player model is larger than the square testers played as.

Multiple of these ideas have been addressed in the final build of the game. Sounds and music have been added to the newest build, with a shooting sound and music for the game and the boss. The boss cant do the wave attack after spawning an enemy to give you a chance to kill the. The health bar while not in the top left has been moved to be a child of the player sitting underneath them so it is always visible. Healing was also added between fights to make the game easier to beat while keeping the difficulty of the combat encounters.

This was mostly to get an idea of if the game was enjoyable in the primitive state it was and the feedback was generally positive which is good

To address any issues with controls I put a menu in the game to explain the controls to the player. If I had more time I would consider adding control options.

As mentioned the health bar has been moved to follow the player. Enemy drops were in the original concept but never made it to the game due to time constraints. Also, I decided changing the health of the boss was a better adjustment than adding a damage modifier as that would take a lot more time.

While a lot of criticism/feedback was due to a lack of features that were already planned and have now been implemented this feedback did not affect how the game would develop. However, there has been a lot of feedback that I hadn't thought about and then was implemented.

This includes healing to make the game's first room less punishing, holding down to shoot which is a nice quality-of-life improvement to the game, nerfing the boss and adding extra rules to its move selector to balance it and make the fight more enjoyable. Sound effects/Music was something I did not plan to implement until I was asked about it and then made it to the game, changing the atmosphere and making it more enjoyable. Overall this feedback did influence the game's development and I am glad that I received so much advice

Asset List and References

• Player Sprite Sheet: Self created and contains all sprites for player animations
• Gold Knight Sprite Sheet: Player model recolour,  self created and contains all sprites for animations
• 3 Shot Knight Sprite Sheet: Player model recolour,  Self created and contains all sprites for animations
• Boss Sprite: Used for the boss, self-created
• Player Spell, Spell, Spawner, Big Spell: Various sprites, self created, used for the different projectiles that are shot
• Brick Variation Sprites: Used throughout the map for bricks on the floor in the tilemap, self created
• Wood Sprite: Used throughout the map for wood on the floor in the tilemap, self created
• Wall Sprite Sheet: Used to cover the blank white walls of the map, self created
• Music (game and boss): created with beepbox (online tool for sketching and sharing instrumental music), no samples were used all music is created with modified instrument settings available to the user and composed by myself
• Shooting Sound Affect: Also made in beepbox using instrument presets.

• Vinque rg Font: Ray Larabie, based on medieval typefaces. Used throughout the game for its text

• Code from scripts created for tutorial work was used, predominantly the player movement script, shooting,
• AI was used for some script making with links to the conversations below

Asked for an explanation of how to get consistent audio in all scenes
https://chatgpt.com/share/671b35cb-e858-8001-aab2-a500039ebd9c

Asked for a script to spawn walls to block player movement
https://chatgpt.com/share/671b3637-55e8-8001-883c-1779fcb0368a

Asked for the boss script to be changed to only activate when the player enters a specific area. Limit to amount of enemies that can spawn
https://chatgpt.com/share/671b36ce-e1fc-8001-bf3e-e083d961b50d

Boss behavior scripting and bullet spawner
https://chatgpt.com/share/671b3aae-9c24-8001-87a0-266eb5b512d2

Camera switcher help
https://chatgpt.com/share/671b3b43-140c-8001-a39e-0a285cafcf32

Dodge cooldown
https://chatgpt.com/share/671b3b84-9a08-8001-a584-252da7f0067a

Help Guide

Trash Bucket is a 2d medieval fantasy bullet hell where you play as a knight sieging a castle to release the king from captivity. Equipped with your spellcasting ability and armour you must fight off rival knights and defeat the boss, an evil knight wizard and his golden clones of you keeping the king from ruling Knight-York City.

Controls:

WSAD: Movement

Space: Dash

Mouse: Aim

Left Click/Mouse0: Shoot

Mechanics:

Player:

In Trash Bucket you can move in 8 directions, this is done by holding W, S, A, D. These buttons do what is shown below.

W: Moves the player up

S: Moves the player down

A: Moves the player left

D: Moves the player right

Holding two directions at once can have two outcomes, when holding W and S (Up and Down) OR A and D (Left and Right) the player will be still. Other combinations like W and D will move the player in a diagonal direction (the average of these two directions).

Pressing Space gives the player some extra speed through a dash. This dash can give you the needed speed to get around bullets, move out of the way, or chase down an enemy. This can only be done on a cooldown and if pressed during this period it will not give a speed boost. This cooldown is 1 second.

Moving the mouse and shooting is the player's way of dealing with enemies, when you shoot using left click/mouse0 your spell will travel from your player model to the direction of the mouse. These are destroyed on collision with an enemy or a wall. Each bullet will do 10 damage to an enemy.

You have 200 health which is represented below you in a health bar, once this health runs out you will die but its not over. You can always retry by clicking restart in the popup menu.

Enemies:

Knight:

These are the basic knights, they are clones of you created by the evil knight to take you out. Each of these knights has 30 health. They will shoot one projectile at you that does 10 damage to the player and they have 30 health.

3 Shot Knight:

These are modified 3 shot knights, they are clones of you created by the evil knight that can shoot 3 bullets at once. Each of these knights has 50 health. They will shoot 3 projectiles at you that do 10 damage to the player, and they have 50 health.

Boss:

This is the evil knight wizard that is cloning you and holding the king hostage, they have 400 health and 3 different types of attacks.

The knight wizard's wave attack shoots repeating projectiles in 3 rows, these follow a wave pattern making them hard to dodge. Each shot does 10 damage.

This big spell does 30 damage to the player and is alot bigger making it harder to dodge, if there are any enemies the boss has spawned this is your time to kill them as its easier to deal with them now than when the wizard shoots a wave.

This golden spell spawns an enemy on collision but still does 10 damage, It drops a normal clone knight.

Walkthrough:

This is your safe room, you can wait here till you are ready but when you want to leave just walk past that totally inconspicuous hole in the wall (totally not a locking door).

Once you're locked in, you are stuck with these clones. To get out of this room you have to beat 15 clones. They will keep spawning every 15 seconds until you have enough points to leave. The door at the top will open when you have 15 points.

This corridor contains a bottle of healing stuff, if you run into it you will heal to full health. Ignore the music change its probably not important just keep walking forward.

Ah, so that's why the music changed. You know what to do, keep shooting and dodging until the boss's health drops to zero.