EntropyTag

An original third-person elemental territory shooter where the battlefield remembers every clash.

EntropyTag is a planned Unity game about movement, territory, and elemental counterplay. Players join Ice, Water, or Fire teams, transform a 3D arena with their element, exploit friendly terrain, trigger multi-step reactions, disrupt opposing players, and adapt as the playable space contracts toward a decisive finish.

The Unity foundation, player movement, multi-surface painting, and Ice/Fire/Mist reaction proofs are implemented. A two-minute match with two mobile, competing bots is now ready for developer review. The generated Unity project lives under EntropyTag/, while documentation and executable planning remain at the repository root.

The game we are building

flowchart LR
    accTitle: EntropyTag core game loop
    accDescr: Players move through a 3D arena, paint territory, create elemental reactions, gain tactical advantages, survive ring pressure, and use the result to adapt for the next match.

    move[Move and aim]
    paint[Transform territory]
    react[Create elemental reactions]
    advantage[Gain routes, bank, and openings]
    pressure[Shrinking arena forces clashes]
    result[Territory decides the winner]
    adapt[Adapt and rematch]

    move --> paint --> react --> advantage --> pressure --> result --> adapt --> move

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Product pillars

1. Territory is movement - Friendly terrain creates routes and advantages, not only score.
2. Elements leave history - Ice, Water, Fire, Frozen, Puddle, and Mist form readable multi-step reactions.
3. Short matches tell stories - Expansion, contest, compression, and a final scramble fit into a compact session.
4. Actions are visually honest - Aim, spray contact, debuffs, ownership, and scoring must match what players see.
5. Easy to start, worth mastering - Simple objectives support deeper movement, aiming, reaction, timing, and team decisions.
6. Original identity - Genre inspiration is welcome; copied characters, maps, branding, art, audio, or proprietary assets are not.

Target experience

• True 3D gameplay in Unity.
• Third-person movement with a free reticle and continuously following mouse/right-stick camera.
• Stylized low-poly environments with crisp, retro-inspired rendering.
• Paintable planar floors, walls, ramps, and platforms; arbitrary production meshes remain later work.
• Offline play with bots for the first vertical slice.
• Approximately two-to-four-minute matches during early development.
• PC as the initial development and validation platform.
• Networking, progression, and broad content production deferred until the local core is fun.

Prototype heritage

The original mechanics prototype lives separately at:

C:\devdesk\gamedesk\EntropyTag_Prototype

That Python/Pygame build proved the basic loop: three elemental teams, territory conversion, terrain-based movement, reaction states, bots, score banking, and a shrinking arena. The Unity game will preserve the strongest ideas, but it is a new production architecture rather than a direct code port.

See Prototype inheritance for the small set of rules worth carrying forward and the prototype limitations that must not be repeated.

Current repository status

Area	Status
Product vision	Documented
Core game design	Documented for vertical-slice planning
Technical architecture	Foundation assemblies implemented and validated
Unity project	Created under EntropyTag/ with Unity 2022.3.47f1
Render pipeline	URP 14.0.11, active in Graphics and all Quality levels
Input	Input System 1.7.0; keyboard/mouse and gamepad drive the player sandbox
Gameplay code	Movement, territory, reactions, affinity, match flow, two mobile bots, and non-lethal hits
First-party assets	Approved hierarchy created under EntropyTag/Assets/EntropyTag/
Automated validation	Full baseline: 180 EditMode / 44 PlayMode; bot-targeting follow-up: 69 policy / 9 PlayMode tests passed. Windows build and graphics startup succeed (2026-09-10)
Match Flow and Scoring	Implemented; hands-on approval pending
Bots and AI	Two win-focused bot instances implemented; hands-on approval pending
Vertical slice	In progress; authored arena, production presentation, and final quality gates remain unfinished
Online multiplayer	Deferred

Try the current proof

Open EntropyTag/Assets/EntropyTag/Scenes/Tests/Sandbox_PlayerMovement.unity in Unity and enter Play Mode. It starts in unrestricted free play: move, paint, and use Tab / gamepad Y to switch Ice and Fire.

Press Enter / gamepad Start for a clean three-second countdown followed by a 120-second match. The safe boundary shrinks during the final stretch; score counts upward-facing logical cells inside it. Results show territory, bank, and reaction counts. Enter/Start rematches; R / View restarts an ongoing match. Team choice is locked during countdown and active play. One fixed Ice bot and one fixed Fire bot start moving and competing when the match begins; they remain idle in free play. They paint, contest, prefer fighting each other, and return toward the safe area. A substantially closer or more eligible hostile human can still become the target. Enemy hits push players back rather than killing them.

Your selected team has two actors against one, so this is a testing arrangement rather than a balanced team setup. Your teammate does not attack you. See Competitive Bots for behavior, navigation limits, shared rules, and the review checklist.

The official Windows build starts through Bootstrap into Arena_FirstSlice, a buildable copy of the movement gym. Sandbox/comparison scenes remain excluded from that build. See Match Flow and Scoring for controls, scoring, diagrams, and review steps.

Documentation

Start here

• Vision and product pillars
• Game design
• Vertical-slice plan
• Production roadmap

Engineering and production

• Technical architecture
• Unity project structure
• Asset pipeline
• Testing and quality strategy
• Decisions and risks
• Glossary
• Prototype inheritance
• Player, camera, and input sandbox
• Domain Rules
• Territory Painting
• Element Reactions
• Match Flow and Scoring
• Competitive Bots
• Documentation catalogue

Work planning

All implementation work is decomposed under TODO/. Every file in that directory ends with .todo.

A work area is complete only when:

• Its checklist is fully checked.
• Its acceptance criteria are satisfied.
• Validation evidence is recorded.
• The file status is changed to DONE.
• Related documentation and context are synchronized.

Unity repository shape

EntropyTag/
|-- EntropyTag/                Unity project root
|   |-- Assets/
|   |   `-- EntropyTag/        First-party assets, scripts, scenes, settings, and tests
|   |-- Packages/
|   |-- ProjectSettings/
|   `-- UserSettings/          Local only; ignored
|-- docs/
|-- TODO/
`-- README.md

The detailed layout and ownership rules are defined in Unity project structure.

Development principles

• Build the smallest playable proof before scaling scope.
• Keep game rules testable without loading a Unity scene.
• Prefer data-driven tuning over constants buried in MonoBehaviours.
• Separate domain state, simulation, presentation, and platform integration.
• Profile territory painting before committing to arbitrary-surface coverage.
• Do not introduce networking before local movement, aiming, painting, scoring, and bots are stable.
• Treat documentation and TODO completion evidence as part of the product.

Branch purpose

workDesk/agentic is the active implementation branch. Territory Painting and Element Reactions are complete; Match Flow and Scoring plus Competitive Bots are implemented and awaiting hands-on approval before completion and commit.