Lady of the Castle: Tech Demo

Summary

A missing wife and a husband who seeks her out. Join Mace on his adventure to travel through a world of monsters and figure out where his wife has gone.

This is a tech demo that covers a single level. This includes a number of player movements, abilities and combat capabilites, a variety of different monsters and several different room the player can visit. The final boss (which is really just a regular enemy) signals the end of the game when it has been defeated.

How to Play

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Keyboard Set1	Keyboard Set2	Keyboard Set3	Touch Controls	Description
Arrow Keys	WASD	WASD	Directional Pad	* Move the active piece around on the board * Select options on the menu
Z	X	J	X	A BUTTON * Jump * Confirm
X	C	K	O	B BUTTON * Attack * + UP - Use Ability *Cancel
ENTER			+	START BUTTON * Pause game
SHIFT			-	SELECT BUTTON * Switch between abilities

• Changes to the keyboard set will not take place until after the player leaves the OPTIONS page.

• The default setup when playing for the first time is Keyboard Set 1. If this is an issue, the touch screen buttons can be controlled with a mouse to allow a player access to the OPTIONS page and change the setup to one of the WASD options.

Navigate several rooms and defeat the Skeleton Archer to win.

Players can collect a number of different items and upgrades when they destroy torches, such as health and magic recovery, new abilities, coins for extra points and upgrades to the whip.

A player can lose a life and start over in a room so long as they have at least 500 available points to offer. Collect points by defeating enemies and picking up coins.

Press UP + B to use special ability. Press SELECT to switch between them.

Ability List

Ability	MP	Description
Knife	1	Throw a blade across the screen.
Tri-Knife	4	Throw three staggered blades across the screen.
Scythe	2	Throws a large scythe across the screen. Eventually it arcs back towards the player. Low enough to hit worms.
Axe	4	Hurls a large axe throw the air. Ideal for vertical targets and clipping through walls and floor to hit targets out of reach.
Flame Wall	6	A wall of fire appears in front of the player, doing devastating damage. Must be on the ground and requires a decent length of floor for maximum effect.
Heal	1	Recovers health at a rate of 2 MP for each 1 HP recovered.
Time Stop	12	Stops all enemies in the room for about 10 seconds.

Other Pickups

• Heart - Recovers a small amount of Health
• Chicken (Small) - Recovers a lot of Health.
• Chichen (Large) - Recovers all Health.
• Potion - Recovers all Magic.
• Coin - +100 points
• Coin 2 - +500 points
• HP+ - Adds 4 Maximum Health.
• MP+ - Adds 4 Maximum Magic.
• Whip+ - Adds damage and length to the whip

Latest Updates

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Version 1.01 - Build 2 (November 5th, 2024)

• Player can now jump forward while attacking with a whip (Before this caused the player to stop moving forward).
• A couple map tile placements were fixed.
• Fixed a problem where jumping while moving from one room to the next would glitch the entire map screen, possibly making the game unplayable.

Thanks to Alp317 for spotting and documenting these issues.

Version 1.01 - Build 1 (October 22nd, 2024)

Where to begin...

Fixes

• Palettes are now displaying to correct colour saturation and brightness.
• Starting pathing has been corrected for which way the player enters the room; monsters will now face towards the direction of the player as Mace enters a room.
• Projectiles can no longer travel out of bounds, preventing crashing.
• A chance where the score becomes an undefined value 'should' be patched.

Design Changes

• Map rooms have been added to the game's mid-point to make room for other enemy types and abilities.
• Increased the points for Bats, Worms and Slimes.
• All abilities cost less MP, now.
• MP recharge cooldown has been decreased, slightly
• Added two cave tracks and a boss track.
• Added a few additional sound effects.
• Canceled whip use when hit.
• Whip flashes with player during brief invincibility.
• Tri-Knife, Fire attack and Time Stop were originally part of the concept and had sprites for them, but attack animations, doing damage and pointing to the sprite sheet were not setup in time. These abilities (now) work.
• Added checks for map boundaries for skeletons
• Worked on the Skeleton pathing and slightly increased it's tendency to throw bones. Also, adjusted the projectile so it looks like a bone, rather than a fireball.
• Reduced the Axe's horizontal travel distance (since it's supposed to be a vertical attack).
• Added vertical padding along the top of each room so the player has a bit of room to work with when jumping beyond its' visual boundaries.
• Updated enemy flashing so multiple attacks don't keep resetting it to the maximum value (The only attack this really affects is the Flame ability).

Version 1.00 - Build 0 (October 13th, 2024)

• Project has been uploaded to Itch.