Ashwalker Era One — Unity Game

A third-person action RPG built in Unity, set in the original author's Ashwalker universe. The core gameplay loop is Metallurgy — a hard magic system where Ashwalker ingest metals and "burn" them for supernatural abilities.

The current focus is on getting all 18 metals feeling correct before expanding into full level design, story, and enemy variety.

---

Current Priorities

#	Task	Status
1	Tin Metallurgy — full 5-sense implementation	In Progress
2	Particle effects — metal burn/flare VFX prefabs	Pending
3	Animation Controllers — character state machines	Pending
4	Enemy polish — Bloodbrute, Sentinel, Metalhunter	Pending
5	Level design — playable Cinderhold environment	Pending
6	Audio system integration	Pending
7	Save/Load system	Pending

See TODO.md for the full breakdown.

---

What's Working

• Steel Push / Iron Pull — physics-based push/pull with anchor detection, flaring, lore-accurate force math
• 2-Metal Selection HUD — bottom-right bars showing primary/secondary metal reserves + proportional ring indicator
• Metallurgic Sight — Tab to toggle blue lines to all metal objects in range
• Flaring — Left Ctrl or Shift+Push/Pull, synced across burn state
• Metal Wheel — radial menu for selecting metals
• Enemy AI — patrol, chase, flee with NavMesh
• Time Bubbles — Bendalloy (speed) and Cadmium (slow)
• Auto Setup Player — Ashwalker > Auto Setup Player editor tool to wire up a player GameObject without manual scene work

---

Getting Started

Prerequisites

• Unity 6000.4 LTS (Hub will prompt you to install it)
• Git

Clone and Open

git clone https://github.com/HoleInWater/Ashwalker.git
cd Ashwalker

Open Unity Hub → Add project from disk → select the Ashwalker folder → open with Unity 6000.4 LTS.

Unity will import everything on first open (a few minutes).

Open the Scene

Project window → Assets/_Project/Scenes/ → double-click Scene 1.unity

Play

Hit the Play button (or Ctrl+P). Use the controls below.

---

Controls

Action	Input
Move	WASD
Sprint	Left Shift
Jump	Space
Iron Pull	Hold LMB
Steel Push	Hold RMB
Metallurgic Sight	Tab
Burn Toggle	B
Flare	Left Ctrl (while burning)
Swap Metal (Primary/Secondary)	Left Alt
Metal Selection Wheel	Scroll Wheel (opens radial menu)

How Push/Pull works:

• Light objects (coins) fly toward/away from you
• Heavy anchored objects (wall brackets) launch you in the opposite direction
• Force scales with distance: closer = stronger (lore accurate)

---

Working on the Project

Branching

git checkout -b feature/your-feature-name

Committing

git add <specific-files>
git commit -m "Short description of what changed and why"
git push origin feature/your-feature-name

Then open a Pull Request on GitHub. Don't push directly to master without a PR unless it's a critical fix.

Scene Coordination

Unity scene files don't merge. Check with the team before editing Scene 1.unity. If two people need to modify the scene, coordinate who goes first.

Auto Setup Player

If the Player GameObject in a scene is missing components, run Ashwalker > Auto Setup Player from the Unity menu bar. It scans all scripts tagged with [PlayerComponent] and lets you add them in one click with full Undo support.

---

Project Structure

Assets/_Project/
├── Scripts/
│   ├── Metallurgy/
│   │   ├── Metallurgist Types/   # Metallurgist.cs, MetallurgicTarget, Storecrafter
│   │   ├── Metals/             # One script per metal (SteelPush, IronPull, Tin, etc.)
│   │   ├── Dependancies/       # MetalReserve, MetalSelector, FlareManager
│   │   └── Coins/              # CoinPouch, CoinPhysics, trajectory preview
│   ├── Player/                 # Movement, camera, stamina, parkour
│   ├── Combat/                 # Health, damage, melee
│   ├── Enemy/                  # EnemyAI, BloodbruteAI, IronSentinelAI, AshenKingBoss
│   ├── UI/                     # HUD, menus, dialogue, tutorial
│   └── World/                  # Spawners, checkpoints, interactions
├── Scenes/                     # Scene 1.unity
├── Prefabs/                    # Metal objects, enemies
└── Materials/
Assets/UI Toolkit/
├── HUD.uxml                    # HUD layout
└── HUD.uss                     # HUD styles
docs/                           # Design docs, lore, physics handbook

---

Reference

• Lore / physics rules: docs/PHYSICS-MATH-BOOK.md
• Metallurgy design: docs/metallurgy-design.md
• Onboarding: docs/onboarding.md
• Git workflow: docs/git-guide.md

---

Common Issues

"Scripts are missing" errors after clone → Make sure you opened the root Ashwalker/ folder in Unity, not a subfolder. Try Assets → Reimport All.

Scene looks empty or wrong → Ensure you have Scene 1.unity open (Assets/_Project/Scenes/).

Player missing components in scene → Use Ashwalker > Auto Setup Player from the menu bar.

Pulled new code and Unity is broken → Close Unity, delete Library/ and Temp/, reopen Unity. It will rebuild.

---

Team

• Owner: HoleInWater
• Contributors: Darius's Crew