Chadius: SwordDraw PlayerExperience

Terms

This is the basic idea and concepts in the game. Whenever I say "you," I'm referring to the player.

Endurance

This is the amount of time you have to attack with. Once it's gone, the enemy gets a turn to attack. The enemy controls how much time you have.

Pattern Shape and Size

During your round, a series of patterns appear on the screen. They vary in shapes and sizes, and are ordered in terms of difficulty. Enemies control which patterns and which sizes you will see the patterns.

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.

Gaining stats

When you draw on the patterns, they will increase your stats. Red means it will raise your attack, and blue will raise your defense. Green restores hit points, and white does nothing.

Hit Points

Whoever runs out of HP first loses the round. The enemy will lose most of the time.

Attack vs Defense

The amount of damage you do is affected by your attack versus the enemy's defense.

• If they are equal, you will deal normal damage.
• If your attack is greater, you deal more damage.
• If your attack is less, you deal less damage.

You must connect some part of the pattern, or you will deal half damage. The pattern changes color when this is done.

This mechanic keeps you struggling to increase your stats, and gives positive feedback towards attacking.

Overkill

When you defeat an enemy, you spend the rest of the endurance in overkill mode. The patterns turn green, and filling patterns helps you regain lost HP. It keeps you alive, and makes you feel good for kicking a particularly hard enemy.

There is a minimum amount of overkill time. So if you beat an enemy at the last moment, you still get some time to overkill.

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.

Experience during the course of a game

This covers what you should experience while playing Sword Draw.

Beginning

You should build up stats rather quickly. Enemies should die quickly.

Midway

You've noticed that you have to improve your stats to keep up with your enemies'. Sometimes there's a particularly pesky enemy that does a lot of damage.

End Game

You're having trouble keeping up with the enemies' stats. Enemies are being real jerks: High damage, confusing patterns, not much time to do much.

Player Choices

Here are some of the split-second decisions you have to make.

Speed vs Accuracy

Should you finish patterns quickly, or should you try to fill the entire thing out first?

Speed

• If you can finish the pattern in a single stroke, do it quickly!
• Overkill mode comes faster if you immediately dispatch the enemy.
• Difficult obnoxious patterns can be skipped if you just connect the endpoint.

Accuracy

• More stats are gained if you trace over the whole pattern.
• Each hit does more damage if the pattern is full.
• Better used for complicated patterns.

Side Effects

In the beginning, speed is better because the patterns are simple. By endgame, though, you had better slow down and make every hit count!

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

• 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.

Thief

• Complicated Patterns
• High Damage

Thieves 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.