SIRIUS
Switch Witch
ROLE: DESIGNER, ARTIST
01/22 - 05/22
Academic project completed at Cornell University with Maxim Baduk, Nicholas Broussard, Lingjia Li, Arthur Tan, Jiayi Tang, Liam Riley, Hedy Yang, Ashley Yu, Yihan Zhang
Instructors: Professor Walker White, Professor Traci M. Nathans-Kelly
ABOUT THE GAME
A mobile strategy game of a witch using magic to defend her home.
Why were the witches hunted and killed? If it was because of witchcraft, why were wizards not accused and killed on such a large scale? If it was religious oppression, how can one explain the fact that the number of witches tried by secular courts far exceeded that of religious courts?
The word witch, once a stigma against women, has a new meaning today. Use your spells to change a world that did not welcome you in the first place！
01 CONCEPT
Concept Statement
"Burn the witch!" The men yell like monsters as they march to your home in a blind rage led by a wicked king! You can only take advantage of the chaos to escape from the encirclement by wearing a beard and a hood and pretending to be a man. Moreover, you are forced to use forbidden magic to control the enemy's mind. Use this magic to defend your home! You can use the power of magic to switch the enemy's mind.
Harness the power of magic to switch and confuse the enemy army. With spells controlling their minds, they attack one another and their own king! You can protect your home from invaders with your dark arts and clever strategy.
But as you beat army after army, the mod seems to grow and get bigger and stronger. How long will you last? How far will you go?
Design Goals
Gameplay
An easy to play but difficult-to-master experience. Controls will be simple, but levels will have the potential for multiple ways to win or lose. Players can play one quick level or grind through many levels in one sitting.
Switch Witch Should Make People Feel...
Empathetic - Players will identify with a witch striving to defend her homeland, developed through a compelling story.
Eager - Levels will have the potential for high scores by strategically setting off chain reactions of events.
Who Should Play Switch Witch?
Players who enjoy aspects of war games and strategic thinking but are not ready to play for an extended sitting are the target audience.
02 MECHANICS
Core
Units are displayed on a rectangular grid.
All units are enemies from the united army of the three kingdoms.
The goal is to having these enemies attacking each other.
Kingdom A
Kingdom B
Kingdom C
Game Mechanics
Swap the basic unit to attack, kill the king to win the game.
Each special unit has its own attacking area.
Special units can trigger combo when attacked but do not do combo when attacking.
Special units are good for setting up chain attacks.
However, the same color units don'ts attack each other.
03 VISUAL
High Thematic Statement
The game Switch Witch is portrayed in a medieval fantasy background featured with cartoonish characters. All assets are also portrayed in colorful and vibrant palettes.
The goal is to convey a relaxed and somewhat comical feel without losing the mystery and adventure brought by the theme.
Background
User Interface
Swapping Field
The majority of the game screen is the swapping field. The top menu will have the Witch, the score, the number of swaps used and remaining, and the units to replace the empty grid.
The layout of the interface changes depending on the size of the swapping board.
Pop-Up Windows
There are several key pop-up windows. Here are three examples for the windows: the game start, the score summary, and the setting.
04 ARCHITECTURE
Dependency Diagram
LevelSelectScene
InputController
Views
SceneGraph
Models
Unit
Square
Board
LoadingScene
GameScene
SWApp