3. Design

Narrative

Between the XII and XIII centuries, a group of German immigrants, after the major collapse of their hometown, founded a city in Transylvania.

The Transylvanian people talked about the legend of Christopher Belmont, a brave hero who had defeated Count Dracula and locked him in his tower a hundred years earlier using his whip, the "Vampire Killer".

Unfortunately, once every hundred years, the power of God is weakened, and men's hearts become darker. Therefore, one Easter night, these men met at the city's monastery to resurrect Count Dracula, and his castle was occupied by his ruthless servants, who demolished the town.

To solve this terrible situation, Christopher's descendant, Simon Belmont, addressed Dracula's castle with the "Vampire Killer" to beat him again, defeat the evil spirits of the castle, and, in this way, restore peace in Transylvania.

Gameplay

Vampire Killer is the first game of the Castlevania saga that included a lot of new features in the mechanics never seen before in other games. The player has to walk through the different rooms of the Dracula's castle fighting against Dracula's henchmen, obtaining items, finding keys, opening doors to access the next levels, etc. There are also characters in located in some rooms of each stage called merchants, which you can exchange items with.

Characters

The main character of the story and the playable character of the game is Simon Belmont, he has a leather whip as his primary weapon by default. Nevertheless, he can obtain another primary and secondary weapons in each stage of the game. His objective is to defeat all the standard bosses of the game and finally, beat the final boss, Dracula.

There are other non player characters in the game, such as the basic enemies that change depending on the level, the standard bosses that are at the end of each stage, the final boss and the merchants. Specifically, in the levels that we have decided to focus on, the characters are the next:

Name	Image	Description
Simon Belmont		His health bar is 64 pixels wide, and his damage is 1 with the default whip.
Merchant		Their state changes depending on the color of their clothes: white means default, when they are burgundy it means that they either take or give five Hearts to the player, when they are red the merchant offers to exchange the object they have assigned with the player for a quantity of Hearts and finally, when the clothes are blue the meaning is unknown.
Brown bats		They can only be found in a few locations of the game. They appear in the ceiling and fly towards Simon when he is close. The score they give you when you kill them is 100; their health is 1 and their damage is 2.
Spear Knights		Is the first enemy in the game that you can not kill in one hit, walks back and forth in a predetermined pattern, turns towards the player when he is in the same platform. The score it gives you when you kill it is 200 points, its health is 4 and its damage is also 4.
Medusa Heads		They spawn in the air at Simon's height at the edge of the screen and fly towards the player with a wavy trajectory. The score they give you when you kill them is 200 points, their health is 1 and their damage is 4.
Slimes		They can be found in candles or breakable blocks. When they appear, they drop to the ground, and they go in the player's direction. The score they give you when you kill them is 100 points, their health is 1 and their damage is 4.
Ghost Skulls		They spawn randomly at the sides of the screen and fly towards the player in random angles. The score they give you when you kill them is 200 points, their health is 2 and their damage is also 2.
Bone Pillars		They are static on the different platforms, they fire off two fireballs every few seconds. The score they give you when you kill them is 300 points, their health is 8 and their damage is 2.
Medusa		She is the second boss of the game. She flies towards the player in a wavy trajectory, then periodically stops and shoots snakes to Simon. It gives you a score of 2000 points when you kill her, her health is 16, her damage by body contact is 4 and the snake's damage is 1.

Items

In the different rooms, the player can find many hidden weapons or any other items that help him to kill the enemies or to survive to their attacks.

Primary Weapons

There are some items that the player can use to replace temporarily the default weapon and that have more power or can be used in different ways, those are the Primary Weapons.

Name	Image	Description
Leather Whip		Simon's default weapon, it deals the minimum damage and has the shortest range.
Morningstar Whip		Is an upgrade of the Leather Whip, it has greater range and deals twice the damage to the default whip, 2 of damage.
Boomerang Axe		You can throw it, it flies one third across the screen horizontally, and then it travels back to Simon. If the player fails to catch it, he loses the axe and returns to use the Leather Whip. Its damage is 4, and it can also hit when it travels back.
Battle Cross		It is similar to the Boomerang Axe. It travels two-thirds of the screen, it is faster but deals half of the damage to the axe.
Throwing knives		It flies horizontally across the entire screen, and it stops only when it hits an enemy. Its damage is 1 per hit.

Active Items

Those are items that require input from the player, and you can carry more than one at a time.

Name	Image	Description
Holy Water		It travels through the air, smashes on contact with the floor or the walls, and creates holy fire that deals damage to the enemies that are in the area. It costs 5 Hearts each.
Hourglass		It freezes time for approximately four seconds. It costs 5 hearts for each use.
Stage Map		It allows the player to see a map of the current level.

Passive Items

Those are items that, when Simon picks them up, provide him temporary advantages.

Name	Image	Description
Shield A (Defense Shield)		Makes Simon recieve half of the damage, it does not work with fireballs and skeleton bones.
Shield B (Reflect Shield)		Blocks projectiles such as bones, fireballs and mummy bandages do not work with Axe Knight axes.
Magic Candle		Hightlights with a white outline all the breakable blocks of the current level.
Speed boots		Increases Simon's horizontal speed.
Wings		Increases Simon's jump height.
Invulnerability Orb		Gives Simon the ability to walk through enemies without taking any damage for a few seconds.
Black Bible		Increases merchant shop prices for the current level.
White Bible		Decreases merchant shop prices for the current level.

Stage Items

Name	Image	Description
Small Heart		Gives Simon 1 Heart. Hearts are used for purchasing items from merchants and for using some items
Big Heart		Found in candles. Gives Simon 5 Hearts.
Gold Key		Used to open Item Chests. Commonly found littered around the Castle.
Magic Staff		Used to open multiple chests. It breaks after some uses.
Item Chest		Contains a valuable item that can not be found in candles, such as some weapons and passive and active items. It requires a Gold Key or a Magic Staff to be opened.
Blue Money Bag		Found in candles. Gives Simon 1000 additional score points.
White Money Bag		Found in Item Chests or dropped by the enemies. Gives Simon 5000 additional score points.
Silver Key		Opens the big door at the end of each level. They are usually hidden in weak blocks.
Health Orb		Gives Simon an amount of health, approximately one-quarter of his life bar. Found in candles.
Max Health Potion		Gives Simon a complete health refill. Only obtained by purchasing it from certain merchants.
Silver Cross		Stops enemies from respawning for a fixed amount of time.
Gold Cross		Vaporizes all the enemies currently on the screen, including the merchants. Enemies such as Bats and Medusa Heads will continue to spawn.
Boss Orb		Dropped by a boss when it is defeated. Will end the stage when collected and will also refill all of Simon's health bar.

Level analysis

Vampire Killer is structured in six stages, with three levels and a boss battle each. To continue to the next level, you need to find a big key. Those keys are mostly hidden in the weak bricks, which you can break with your weapon. Although the rooms are not located linearly, and they are exploration-based, you can't skip any of them, so the game ends up being pretty linear. We have decided to focus on the level 0 (the entrance to the castle) and stage 2.

The general difficulty of the game is not too high, and the specific of the levels is incremented in each one.

Level 0

In level 0, when the game starts, the player is outside the castle, at the entrance. There are no enemies to defeat or chests to open, the only items that the player can obtain are twelve Hearts in total from whipping the four first braziers and a Morningstar Whip from the last one. Then the only thing left to do is enter Dracula's castle.

Level 4

The player enters this level after defeating the Vampire Bat boss. The enemies in level 4 are the Spear Knights. The Silver Key that opens the big door to go to the next level is hidden in A2, inside a group of breakable blocks in a wall.

Level 5

Level 5 is very short and linear, and the enemies here are the Medusa Heads, which spawn on almost every screen. The Silver Key for this level is located in C1, hidden in the wall of the upper platform.

Level 6

Level 6, which is the last level of this stage, is also pretty short and linear. The enemies here are the Ghost Skulls and the Bone Pillars. In B2 there is also an obstacle that is unique to this area: the Crushers. The enemies of this level also never appear in any other part of the game. The Silver Key for this level is in C2 and to find it, the player has to dig through the blocks at the bottom of the room.

Boss 2: Medusa

After entering the Medusa's room, the bust of the center will transform into a giant Medusa's head, which flies following a wavy trajectory and stops periodically to shoot hair snakes at the player.

Controls

Key	Action
F1	Pause the game
F2	Show a map of the current stage, if the player has found it
LEFT / RIGHT	Walk left or right
UP	Jump / Climb stairs, if the player is at the base of the staircase
DOWN	Crouch / Descend stairs, if the player is at the top of the staircase
SPACE	Attack with your weapons / Confirm a trade if the player is trading with a merchant
UP / DOWN	Activate the hourglass
UP + LEFT / RIGHT	Throw blessed water