Cinematic combat and the first playable
The presentation direction below is creator-confirmed. Prototype numbers and future production details are identified separately. See canon ledger.
Creator-confirmed direction — September 23, 2026. Ascension uses compact sprites on the tactical map and larger, expressive side-view sprites for automatic fight scenes. Street Fighter and Guilty Gear are references for pose clarity, anticipation, impact and dramatic framing. The characters are original Ascension designs; these references do not imply borrowed assets or fighting-game controls.
Play The Old Road prototype. One generic company swordsman faces one crimson sentry on a small isometric field. This is the first working foundation for the combat loop, not a complete campaign slice.
The loop
- Read the battlefield, terrain, remaining HP and movement range.
- Move the selected unit, choose a target and review the attack forecast.
- Confirm the action on the tactical map.
- Watch an automatic side-view exchange: ready pose, approach, sword swing, hit reaction, damage number and HP loss.
- Return to the same tactical positions with the result applied exactly once. The enemy takes its turn; repeat until the encounter ends.
There is no player interaction during the fight scene. No QTEs, timed strikes, parry inputs, combo execution or mid-scene defensive choices. The characters visibly attack and react to one another. Player agency belongs to tactical decisions before an action is committed. Any future skip or fast-forward control changes presentation duration only, never the resolved outcome.
Two coordinated sprite scales
Map units have compact, approximately three-head proportions. Their idle is the same directional walking animation played in place, at a calmer cadence; movement advances that cycle along the route. Do not substitute a separate breathing idle, squash/stretch or a bouncing still image. Keep the foot anchor and costume identity stable across facings.
Cinematic fighters have larger, more articulated silhouettes, readable weapons, and distinct ready, attack and hit-reaction clips. Preserve the same hair, armor, palette, identity and equipment as the map unit. Stage both fighters together so the strike connects with a visible reaction. Camera movement, hit effects and damage numbers support the animation; they cannot replace it.
AutoSprite supplies the character map and cinematic sheets for this prototype. Terrain and interface are authored in code. The map exports contain sixteen walking frames per direction at 192 × 192 source resolution. Cinematic source cells are 384 × 384; ready clips have 24 frames, replacement attack/hit clips have 32 source frames, with unsuitable motion trimmed in playback. These are generated pilot assets, not hand-cleaned native 64-pixel production masters.
Implemented rules for The Old Road
| Rule | Current prototype |
|---|---|
| Battlefield | 8 × 7 cells; grass and road passable; water, trees and rocks blocked |
| Player | One swordsman: 32 HP, 10 attack, 3 defense, 4 movement |
| Enemy | One sentry: 24 HP, 9 attack, 2 defense, 3 movement |
| Turn | Player turn followed by automatic enemy turn; one move, then attack or wait |
| Sword reach | One orthogonally adjacent cell |
| Damage | Attack minus defense, minimum one, clamped to remaining HP |
| Accuracy | 100%; hero deals 8, enemy deals 6 before lethal clamping |
| Reactions | Defender visually recoils; no automatic counterattack inside the same scene |
| Outcome | Win when the sentry reaches zero HP; lose when the hero reaches zero HP; restart resets the encounter |
| Replay | Replays the last recorded exchange without changing HP, position or turn |
Attack ends the activation. The enemy independently moves and attacks on its turn. The broader Readiness timeline, action-before-move, rear bonuses, guard, skills, height, rescue windows and campaign consequences remain later systems; none are silently simulated in this small test. Zero HP ends this test rather than invoking the proposed campaign wound rules. A crimson generic opponent is a test faction marker, not a revision to Whitebridge's story allegiances.
Foundation and acceptance
Encounter data, pure battle rules, the turn controller, sprite metadata and rendering are separate modules. The forecast and resolution share the same calculation. A resolved combat event carries attacker, defender, damage and before/after HP to the presentation layer; animation never rolls or reapplies damage.
The first implementation is dependency-free browser JavaScript and Canvas, playable directly from this bible. Godot remains the proposed production engine for a larger terrain and campaign build; porting the rule contracts and content requires a deliberate integration milestone. This browser prototype does not claim a Godot project already exists.
The test is complete when a player can move, watch both sides attack, observe persistent damage, win or lose, restart and replay safely. Production readiness additionally requires tighter weapon continuity, stable anatomy and foot registration, approved map-to-fighter identity, authored defeat/cast/skill clips, sound design, and performance testing at full encounter scale. Equipment is baked into these pilot sheets; modular weapon swapping remains future work.
The earlier low-poly/AI 3D close-up studies and defensive-response mockups are superseded by this decision. They remain archived visual research. They do not define the current gameplay contract.
Source document: 01-game-design.md