Monster Battle: Hidden Arena – COMM 3444 Mobile Gaming

Game Design Document: Monster Battle: Hidden Arena

Overall Vision

Summary: Monster Battle: Hidden Arena is a simple monster-dueling card game that pits the player against three random monsters drawn from the same shared pool. Through careful attention to detail, the player must choose the right monster to defeat their enemies.

Genre: This game could best be described as a casual card game with a few strategy elements..

Target Audience: The audience for this game is primarily targeted at children ages 8 to 15, but could also be a good fit for anyone interested in a simple, casual game, because it does not require any special equipment and can easily be beaten with minimal mental expenditure.

Figure 1: At the beginning of the game, the music begins and the player has the option to play the game, read the instructions, or read the credits.

Mechanics

Character Goals: The player assumes the role of the character, whose only goal is to defeat three monsters (see Figure 2).

Abilities: There is no physical character to perform any movement actions, but they are able to summon monsters from a hand of three cards and order these monsters to attack.

Obstacles: The only obstacles to success in Monster Battle: Hidden Arena are the enemy monsters, which are randomly determined each time one is defeated.

Items: This game does not make use of any collectibles or other external items that provide any sort of power-ups.

Resources: The primary resource that must be managed is the player’s lives. However, the player is also required to consider the Health and Damage of the opposing monster, as well as the Health and Damage of each monster in their hand in order to make the best decision to defeat their opponent.

Figure 2: On this page, the player is told the background for the game and told that they can use the mouse for all interactions.

Dynamics

User Interaction: All that is needed to play Monster Battle: Hidden Arena is a mouse. Every operation in the game is carried out through point-and-click interactions.

Proficiency: As mentioned above, all players need to be able to do is perform simple point-and-click interactions. Beyond that, the player simply needs to be able to compare their monsters’ attack and health with that of the opposing monster.

Gameplay Data: The data about the monsters in the player’s hand (Name, Health, Damage) is located immediately below the Monster’s image on the card. When a monster is summoned, its Health and Damage are displayed in a box beneath it. The enemy monster has its Health and Damage displayed in a similar fashion. The player’s Lives are displayed on the bottom left corner of the screen, and while the number of Enemies that the player needs to defeat is in the bottom right corner. All are portrayed through simple text.

Controlling the Game: Clicking on the Play button starts the game. After starting, the player can quit the game at any time by clicking on the Quit button.

Figure 3: On this screen the player can see the enemy monster and their 3 monster options. From this page they can select a monster and click the attack button to deal damage.

Aesthetics

Overall: Monster Battle: Hidden Arena is intended to feel like a casual battler in every aspect of the game. Any intensity is offset by some sort of cute or otherwise non-serious detail.

Game Art: The game makes use of simple pixel art for the monsters, with more detailed graphics for the background.

Sound: There is a consistent intense background song that plays throughout the game. Additionally, when the enemy monster takes damage, it triggers a rather comical sound effect.

Plot: The player takes control of a character who was exploring the dungeons of Mongal. Somehow, they’ve found themselves in a monster duel and must defeat the enemy monsters to progress and escape the dungeons.Game’s backstory?

Emotional State: This game attempts to evoke humor in the player. Although the circumstances could be used to convey tension or intensity, this game tackles it in a more humorous way to make it easier to play.

Fun: In this game, the player is gratified with a fantasy world and creatures, the thrill of competition and overcoming challenges, as well as minimal opportunities to role-play within the world.

Figure 4: If the player loses all of their Lives, they are redirected to the Game Over page.

Credits

The background for the game comes from ansimuz’s “Gothicvania Patreon’s Collection.” They also have a ton of other really cool resources that are available either for free or for cheap. Most of the assets they create are bundled so that you get a lot of value for your purchase.

All of the creatures used in the game came from Elthen’s Pixel Art Shop. I used the Cobra, Fire Elemental, Ice Elemental, Leaf Elemental, Cyclops, Spider, Worm, Gladiator, and Adventurer. They also have a bunch of other high-quality assets available for a small fee.

The background music comes from Benjamin Tissot’s “Epic” on his website Bensound. He also produces a ton of other royalty-free sounds that fit for any genre of game or other creative project.

The sound effect used in the game comes from thatbennyguy’s track “female_hurt.”

Figure 5: If the player is able to defeat all 3 enemy monsters, they are redirected to the Victory Page and congratulated.

Reflection

This game was a lot of work to create, but the majority of it was enjoyable. I definitely did not achieve most of the effects in the game in the optimal way, but I tried my hardest to attain what I could and found workarounds for things that I absolutely could not figure out. For example, I know that using an array would have been the best way to vary the monsters (see Figure 3), but I could not figure out how to get it to function properly in this context. So, instead, I programmed each effect for each monster individually. While this was more time-consuming, it meant that I was able to get the effect I wanted without adding extra frustrations from not being able to use an array properly.

Looking forward, I think that I would like to tackle a more complicated dueling game. More than likely, I would like to try something that was more in the tactical realm, with multiple units and a functioning A.I. to fight against.

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