Commander Cockerel and the Undead

User Guide

Game Title: Commander Cockerel and the Undead

Game Overview: You play as Commander Cockerel, a battle-hardened rooster fighting off waves of Zombies who have taken over your farm. Your mission? Survive as long as possible, rack up points, and unleash chaos with power-ups like the egg bomb and lightning-fast dash. It’s fast, it’s ridiculous, and it’s packed with farm-fueled firepower.

Objective

• Survive endless waves of zombies
• Use weapons and power-ups to stay alive
• Earn points and beat your high score

Controls

Action	Input
Move	W, A, S, D
Shoot	Left Mouse Button
Dash	Spacebar (only when dash is active)
Drop Egg Bomb	Right Mouse Button (only when egg bomb is active)

Game Screens + Functions

Main Menu

• Start the game
• Controls
• View high scores
• Exit the game

Gameplay Screen

• Shows score, wave number, and active power-ups
• Player health display (top left)
• 3..2..1 count down between each wave 
• Enemies spawn from grave markers
• Pitchforks appear each round in random positions to grant power-ups

Game Over Screen

• Displays your final score
• Option to restart
• Option to return to the main menu
• Option to view the high scores screen

High Score Screen

• View your top scores and chase your personal best

Screenshots

• Main Menu

• In-game action 

• Power-up indicator UI

• Game Over screen with score

• High Score screen

Sources (Art & Audio)

• Zombie sprite sheet: Tiki Ted (itch.io)
• Tile assets: Szadi Art – RPG Worlds: Strange Land + Craftland (itch.io)
• Sounds (ambience, SFX, music): Pixabay
• Sprites & UI art: Some generated by ChatGPT (OpenAI, 2025)
• Commander Cockerel sprite sheet: KIT109 tutorials (University of Tasmania, 2025)

Full academic references included in the [DevLog Documentation + User Guide]

Features Attempted (Beyond Basic)

• Power-up system with dash, egg bomb, and rapid fire
• Wave-based enemy spawner with scaling difficulty
• UI countdown and audio cues between waves
• In-game tutorial popup for pitchfork system
• High score leaderboard with name entry 
• Animated enemies and player in 8 directions
• Multiple enemy types (speed and tank variants)

ChatGPT Use

ChatGPT was used to:

• Help write and debug C# scripts (movement, power-ups, scoring, UI, AI)
• Generate some placeholder sprites and UI images
• Plan and troubleshoot game architecture and logic
• Write and format documentation for testing and submission

ChatGPT was especially useful for solving bugs and refining features during development.

Conversation Links for Transparency:

• https://chatgpt.com/share/68393667-63f4-8009-badb-b3c3319917e8
• https://chatgpt.com/share/683936ce-eb40-8009-9f9e-48611669e7a3
• https://chatgpt.com/share/68393831-08ac-8009-94d6-60a7e32f011f