Combat

Introduction

In each kingdom, the player has to engage in combat with enemy NPCs and (mini-)bosses in order to progress in the game. Combat with enemies should provide some kind of reward to players, whether that be gaining experience points (xp), collecting items, and/or progressing to the next animal kingdom. The victor of a battle will be decided by whoever makes their opponent run out of health points (HP) first.

Statistics

All animals (whether player, enemy or boss) have statistics which are indicative of their overall strength and their affinity to certain strategies.

• Health: an animal endures more hits.
• Strength: an animal deals more damage with each attack.
• Defense: an animal has a higher success rate when blocking an attack.
• Speed: an animal attacks faster and is more likely to parry attacks.

Initiating Combat

Enemies always "agro" on the player and try to attack them when they are in line of sight. Some enemies can only attack by getting close to the player (melee) while others can hit the player at distance (ranged attacks). If a player does not wish to engage in combat, they can "de-agro" the enemy by escaping the enemies line of sight. When the player or an enemy lands an attack on one another in the main game, combat begins.

The conditions for initiating combat with a boss are different (expand on this).

Combat

On initiating combat, a new screen appears showing sprites for the player and their foe on the bottom and top of the screen, respectively (see Combat Screen). There are three buttons at the bottom of the screen corresponding to one of two actions a player can make:

1. Fight: attack or defend against the enemy
2. Item: use an item to either buff the player's stats or heal their health

The player and its opponent can only choose one turn (or action) at a time (turn-based combat). If a fight action is chosen, then the individual with the higher speed stat moves first. An item action always goes first. An enemy or boss can only choose fight actions.

Fight

The player and it's opponents can perform one of four battle actions:

1. Attack: an action to reduce the opponent's health. The damage dealt depends on the user's strength stat.
2. Block: an action to reduce the damage taken by an opponent's attack. The percentage of damage mitigated depends on the user's defense stat.
3. Dodge: an action to reduce the damage taken by an opponent's attack and increase the strength of the user's attack the next turn. The probability of success depends on both the user's speed stat and the strength of the attack. If the move fails then the user takes more damage.
4. Special: an action that is unique to each animal or boss and considered their "best" move. Uses in battle may be limited or come with certain constraints. Examples include: status effects, temporary increase to user's stats, a combo move, etc.

See the Combat System for further details.

Item

A single item can be used during each turn of battle. This can be an item which heals the player's health (like a potion) or it may be an item which temporarily raises one or more of the player's stats (such as their strength).

Items which are used in battle are permanently consumed.

Victory

If a player successfully defeats an enemy or boss, then they receive xp which is commensurate with the strength of their enemy. Enemies may also drop an item that is added to the player's inventory. In the case of defeating a kingdom's boss, the player progresses to the next kingdom.

The defeated enemy despawns from the game world.

Defeat

If a player is defeated in battle, then there should be some sort of penalty (expand on this).