Final Update

After much feedback and tweaking the final version of the game is ready for release. 

Overall the game ended up more or less how it was imagined originally. There was originally a plan to add a healing mechanic at the cost of the player's souls, however this was scrapped as the game works fine without it and it is not needed  due to balancing issues. At first there were too many enemies which no amount of healing would have been able to compensate for. Presently there are enough enemies to provide combat gameplay but not enough to justify healing.

Originally I had intended to give Skele-Tony a fly mechanic. This did not make it to the final game as the platforming would have been made entirely too easy if Skele-Tony could simply bypass all barriers. the final section in particular requires Skele-Tony to reach a high place through platforming and would have been made too easy by being able to fly.

Players made the following observations:

Most found the controls fun and intuitive with many admiring the staff rotation. 

Players responded well to the custom visuals including Skele-Tony, the enemy skulls, the water, the fireball, and the trail and particle effects.

Players found that the spawn rates were broken. This was because spawners were designed to start spawning enemies when the player entered its trigger. The spawner would instantiate 10 enemies then stop. Not only was 10 too many enemies, it also had a bug where it would reactivate if the player left the trigger and re-entered it. Another problem players flagged was that spawners would occasionally spawn an enemy right on top of the player character, guaranteeing a health decrease due to the random nature of the instantiate position. Now, spawners only spawn enemies  in a single position and always offscreen so players cannot be inconvenienced. Spawners now destroy themselves after doing their job to prevent them from reactivating.

Some players also mentioned the game needed music and sounds. Skele-Tony now has a theme song that will play during the game. 

Skele-Tony's fireballs now have an audio source component that plays a fireball sound effect as players requested this.

Asset List:

Player character - created with piskel. 

Player Staff - created with piskel, allows players to aim and shoot their fireballs.

Enemy Sprite - created with piskel.

Soul Sprite - created with piskel. Souls are used as pickups to increase the player's score. 

Spawners - spawners activate when the player goes near them. they create enemies and then delete themselves.

Tilemap - Rogue-like Sewer Tileset. Gamedevmarket. Available at: https://www.gamedevmarket.net/asset/rogue-like-sewer-tileset). the tilemap was used to create the level.

Water - made in unity with a buoyancy effector. It allows players to swim and provides additional decorative flair to the level.

Background Music - Young Scrolls (2017). DAGOTHWAVE. bandcamp. Available at: https://youngscrolls.bandcamp.com/track/dagothwave

Fireball sound - floraphonic. Fireball Whoosh 2. pixabay. Available at: https://pixabay.com/sound-effects/fireball-whoosh-2-179126/

Font - Tiny Worlds (2019). Thaleah Fat Free Pixel Font. asset store. Available at: https://assetstore.unity.com/packages/2d/fonts/free-pixel-font-thaleah-140059

Custom scripts - includes movement, shooting, enemy ai behaviours, score display, scene transition, player health, destroying objects as needed