Story Mode

Story Overview

Our players play the role of a simple duck who lives in Ancient Egypt. Our duck starts his story locked up in the Royal Prison for reasons unexplained. Here he learns to play a coincidentally duck themed card game. The duck is naturally adept at the card game and duels his way out of his prison cell and upwards through Egyptian Aristocracy. Eventually he works his way up the the Pharaoh, an avid card player and the best in all Egypt. Once our duck defeats the Pharaoh he is awarded his freedom.

HOWEVER Apophis, a Giant Snake And The Egyptian God of Chaos, appears! His nefarious plan is to destroy the linear nature of time itself! Aphopis is surprised to hear that the new Card Champion is our Duckly Hero, and subsequently banishes him through time because of it!

Our duck awakes confused. Both because of unexplained events but also because of his bizzare surroundings. It isn't long before another warp in time appears and a small green frog jumps out. The frog explains that he is Heh, the Egyptian God of Time. He explains Aphopis' evil plan and tells of an ancient prophecy that foretold that only Egypt's greatest card player could defeat him. This is The Great Snake saw fit to banish the duck to the most chaotic place in all time: Medieval France. Heh explains that everyone had expected the Pharaoh to be the Champion of Time, and is in disbelief that it could be this mere duck.

Just then, they are beset by the fearless steppe raider - Mongolian Beef! Mongolian Beef has a hunger for our two new companions, but our Duckly hero manages to defeat the marauding livestock through skill at cards. This convinces Heh that the Duck truly must be the Hero That Time Waited For, and so their adventure begins!

The Duck, with Heh at his side, must now travel through time defeating various historical figures to gain their rare cards. Only by building the ultimate deck can the Duck hope to face Apophis in card battle and hope to win.

Story-mode Bosses

In total, story mode features 12 unique bosses, each with unique deck content and personalities. A full list of bosses is listed here:

Bro’ck

Guard

Priestess

Pharaoh

Mongolian Beef

Adolf Hitler

Napoleon Bonapartridge

Duck Vader

Lion

Coaster

Dark Duck

Apophis

Discussion

Cut-scenes will explain the story progression. Bosses will have some in game banter.

Potential Rewards

• Defeating a boss increases a players level unlocking cards
• Bosses drop card packs. These card packs can be opened in the market place and can be equipped to strengthen the players deck. Only through utilising these new cards can the player hope to defeat Apophis!

Luke's Testing - 18/09/16 (Checkpoint 1)

Conducted some user testing on some friends over the weekend via a google survey. The survey largely focused on the script and story features developed for far, as of 18th Sept. 6 individuals were asked the following questions:

• Did you like the script overall?
• Did you enjoy the humorous style of the story, or would you prefer it to be more serious?
• Do you think that using lesser known gods, e.g. Heh and Apophis is effective? Or would more known Gods, like Ra and Anubis, be better?
• From your time spent with the game itself, could you see yourself playing it once complete?

The results were more or less as expected. 100% of participants responded that they enjoyed the script overall. Of course this could reflect that those surveyed were friends. To improve this question in any future surveys conducted, effort should be made to survery strangers that don't have any emotional investment in answering the questions. This point applies to the other responses.

83% said they enjoyed the Humorous style of storytelling, with just 1 individual recommending a more serious alternative.

66% said they liked the use of lesser known gods rather than more famous Gods of the Egyptian pantheon.

Finally, 50% of respondents said they would be interested in playing the game when it is complete. 2 said they wouldn't, stating that they didn't enjoy card games. And 1 interviewee said that they may be interested in playing, but it would depend on how well the game progresses and what additional features were added.

This feedback has been taken into consideration and any changes to the story/script will reflect this.

Luke's Testing - 23/09/16 (Checkpoint 2)

With cutscenes (mostly) in order and the script (mostly) finalised user testing was conducted. Three friends, Josh, Mark and Jane, played through the game together and offered their feedback. Note that most of this feedback was qualitative data as opposed to quantitative data such as the previous user test.

• Josh said he liked playing as a duck and thought it was funny.
• Mark liked the pokemon Brock reference.
• All three thought the duck grinder was brutal, but amusing.
• All three commented that the art-style was inconsistent, but this was expected.
• Mark thought that all the Egyptian bosses were too easy.
• Josh agreed, and said that Mongolian Beef was a more fun challenge.
• Jane liked the Lion level, and thought it was quite unique to use real life photos in a game like this.
• Josh said he liked the general story and pacing, but that he thought a bit more time to polish the content would be good.
• The players skipped forward to take on the final boss and after an attempt each, none could beat him.
• Jane thought this was a bad sign, saying that it was a bit demoralising.
• Josh and Mark disagreed with Jane, both saying they enjoyed the challenge that pushed them to think of different strategies.

We as a team considered all this feedback to be generally very positive. Given more time to further refine story mode we would have focused on balancing the bosses to be a bit more of a challenge. We also would have liked to do some second attempts on some of the game's artwork, to better fit with games style.