SpellWars: A Comprehensive Guide

Part 1: Getting Set Up

If you have a Windows machine and you are fine with 1920x1080, you can just run the jar in the 'exectuables' folder. Else...

You need the following:

• Eclipse
• git or Eclipse's Egit plugin

Getting the game:

1. Copy this link to the clipboard: https://github.com/FluffyJay1/SpellWars.git
2. Clone the repository using git or use Eclipse to import a git project with the URI
3. Open the project in Eclipse
4. Add the jars in 'lib' to build path and set native library location to folder inside 'native'

To run the game, run mechanic.Game.

Part 2: The Controls

Menu controls:

In-game controls:

Part 3: Basic Gameplay

In this game, two players occupy two different sides of an 8x4 grid battlefield.

Player 1, the red player, can move anywhere in his 4x4 area on the left. Likewise player 2, the blue player, has control over the 4x4 area of panels on the right.

Each player starts with 500 health. The objective of the game is to destroy the other player by bringing their health total to 0. In order to achieve this, each player can shoot pellets at each other, which deal 5 damage each. This method is tedious, so players have another option at their disposal:

CASTING POWERFUL SPELLS.

Every 15 seconds, players choose from a wide variety of spells to load 4 of them into combat. These spells have effects ranging from dealing a burst of damage to altering the landscape of the battle. During the so-called combat phase, it's up to the players to maximize the effectiveness of their spells through creative combinations and planning from the spell select phase.

If, however, playing against another player isn't your cup of tea, you can instead play against various AI characters. You can also change their difficulty setting in the menu. You could even pit two AIs to fight against each other and watch them go.

Part 4: Spells

Casting a Spell

To cast a spell, player 1 presses 'E', and player 2 presses '.'. You can cast a spell only when you aren't currently casting a spell.

Casting Phases

All spells cast in 2 phases: windup phase -> execution -> winddown phase. All spells have a windup time (indicated by the red bar) and a winddown time (indicated by the gray bar). Should a unit get stunned while casting a spell, these phases get paused, and the spell execution usually gets paused as well. The pellet shot has a lengthy windup phase.

List of Player Spells in Patch 1.17

Name	Image	Description
Aegis Barrier		Dispel your debuffs and give yourself a 75hp shield for 50s that regenerates 2hp/s to its owner while it is alive
Area Grab		Steal a column of tiles from your enemy, stunning units that get in the way for 1s and dealing 10 damage to them
Berserk		Go berserk, losing control of your unit, but you cast random spells every second for 10 seconds, you move twice as fast and are immune to slows
Blizzard		Gradually slow all enemy units and projectiles on the map for 10 seconds, dealing 1 damage per second, and reducing the damage of enemy projectiles
Bouncing Orb		Shoot an orb that bounces in the enemy territory, dealing 10 damage whenever it passes an enemy
Crack Grenade		Throw a grenade that deals 15 damage and cracks panels around it
Damage Amplification		Increase the damage you deal by 1.5x for 15 seconds
Debuff Transfer		Remove your debuffs, put them on a projectile, and transfer them to all enemies it hits, the projectile becomes more powerful the more debuffs you remove
Earth Cracker		Cracks panels in a line, dealing 40 damage to enemies it passes through, the projectile itself falls through cracks
Electro Bolt		Shoot a bolt of electricity that deals 30 damage, stuns for 1.5s, purges buffs, and spreads in 4 directions dealing 5 less damage each when it hits an enemy, the extra bolts also can spread
Fire and Brimstone		Rain projectiles from the sky that change enemy panels to lava and set units hit on fire at 2dps for 20s
Forge Spirit		Summon a unit with 75hp that shoots a projectile with 25 damage every once in a while
Hell Rain		Rain projectiles from the sky that deal 20 damage each and have a chance to crack their panels
Hurricane Cannon		Move the enemy to the same row that you are on and deal slight damage
Knife Throw		Throw a knife that deals 40 damage but also causes the enemy to bleed and be slown, multiple stacks have increased effectiveness
Lava Grenade		Throw a grenade that changes enemy panels to lava
Mud Grenade		Throw a grenade that changes enemy panels to mud
Mystery Box		Give yourself 3 extra random spells to cast
Omnislash		Teleport and slash in a 2x3 area at an enemy in every row for 25 damage, then slash in a 3x5 area for 35 damage
Panel Clear		Reset all the panels on your side
Pistol Shot		Shoot a fast projectile that deals 50 damage
Recharging Barrier		Give all your units a shield for 25s that recharges 6hp/s up to 50hp after not taking damage for 4.75s
Reflect Barrier		Give all your units a 50hp shield for 12s that reflects enemy projectiles after blocking their damage
Regenerate		Give yourself a buff that heals 75hp over 25s
Rupture		Shoot 3 projectiles that cause enemies hit to take 5 damage whenever they move, these projectiles fall through cracks
Sanctuary		Change all of your panels to holy panels, that halve damage taken and double healing received
Summon Sentry Gun		Summon an immobile sentry gun that shoots at the enemy, bullets shot can penetrate 1 panel behind the unit that it hits
Shotgun Blast		Shoot multiple bullets in a spread, dealing a maximum of 125 damage to a target, bullets deal less damage the farther they travel
Stun Grenade		Throw a grenade that stuns for 4s if target was hit directly, or 3s if target was next to explosion
Firebreath		Shoot a bunch of fire, dealing 15-30 damage initially in 3 rows then up to 45 extra damage in the same row
Summon Time Bomb		Summon a time bomb that explodes for 75 damage in a huge radius if it isn't destroyed prematurely
Time Dilation		Periodically speed up allied units and projectiles while slowing enemies
Trump's Wall		Summon a wall of 50hp units that slowly degrade over time
Vacuum Cannon		Shoot 10 projectiles among 3 rows that stun and move enemy units closer to you, each projectile deals 5 damage
Vampiric Slash		Slash a 3x3 area in front of you, stealing 25 hp from all enemies hit
Vulcan		Shoot 5 bullets dealing 10 damage each in rapid succession, the bullets stun and deal 5 extra damage if the enemy hit is in the middle of casting a spell
Wind Cannon		Shoot 13 projectiles among 3 rows that stun, cancel the current casting spell, move them away from you, and deal 5 damage
Wish Upon a Lucky Star		A star lands 4 panels ahead, penetrating and destroying all shields, cracks their panels, has small chance of launching a shower of stars, and an even smaller chance of launching a big star instead

Part 5: Advanced Gamplay

Shields

Shields block damage from all sources and can stack. Different projectiles interact differently with shields. For default behavior, if a shield is active, it will block all incoming damage from the unit or shields below it, even if its health is lower than the projectile's damage (i.e. a shield with 1 hp will still block an entire pistol shot).

Spell Frequencies

Not all spells are created equal. Certain spells will appear more often than others. In the spell selection panel, the most frequently occuring spells will appear first. Keep this in mind when trying to find spell combos.

List of Spell Combos

When you select 3 specific spells (usually 3 of the same spell), the spells combine into a more powerful version as you enter the combat phase.

Combo	Image	Recipe	Description
Awp Shot		3x Pistol Shot	Instantly shoot a piercing, shield-penetrating bullet dealing 200 damage to the first target
Dragon's Breath		3x Firebreath	Shoot a moving wall of fire, dealing 125 total damage to each row
Hopes and Dreams		3x Wish Upon a Lucky Star	Unleash a barrage of stars upon the opponent's field
Knife Volley		3x Knife Throw	Throw 10 knives among 3 rows with reduced damage
Chronosphere		3x Stun Grenade	Instantly freeze an area in front for 6s, enemies caught take bonus damage
Za Warudo		3x Time Dilation	Directly enter the spell select phase, then stop time for everything else for 10 seconds
Tempest		1x Wind Cannon, 1x Vacuum Cannon, 1x Hurricane Cannon	Blow all enemies all over the place for 10 seconds

(An example of a spell being combined as the battle phase starts)

Corrupt Spells

Every once in a while, a player will come across what looks like a normal spell, but purple. These are corrupt spells: spells that are vastly more powerful than their vanilla counterpart. This power, however, comes at a price...

Spell	Image	Description
Corrupt Pistol Shot		Deal immense damage
Corrupt Vulcan		Shoot an immense number of bullets
Corrupt Hell Rain		Say goodbye to your opponent's panels
Corrupt Electro Bolt		Spread electricity everywhere

Special Status Effects

Corrupt

Gets applied to you whenever you cast a corrupt spell. At 1+ stacks, your healing input gets reduced, you take periodic damage, and corrupt spells appear more frequently in your spell select panel. At 2+ stacks, your movement becomes erratic. At 3 stacks, you trade your health and control over your character in exchange for raw power.

Bleed

Applied from the knife projectile. Each stack of the debuff is additional 1 damage per second for 10 seconds, as well as a minor slow. After 10 seconds, rather than the debuff disappearing, the stack count gets decreased by 1 and the debuff refreshes. This mean that 1 stack deals 10 damage total, 2 stacks deal 30 damage, 3 deal 60, 4 deal 100, etc.

Mei's frost

Applied from Mei's attacks and ultimate. In addition to slowing for each stack, at 20 stacks, the target becomes stunned.

Ruptured

Applied from the Rupture spell. Deals 5 damage for every grid unit moved.