Week of All the Mechanics

Protocol Xeno

Last week was the first of the two weeks of the 3to1: Annual Game Jam 2022 - The Big One Game Jam. The theme was Excavate, and I successfully pitched a game that was a mix between a clicker and a twin-stick shooter. In this game, you would mine out the Earth until it was hollow (done using clicker-like mechanics), and you would use that material to build ridiculously huge weapons on the Earth to fight off endless waves of aliens (twin-stick shooter style) of ever-increasing power. The game would be about splitting your time between managing your simple economy and fighting off enemies.

Last week was spent implementing all of the mechanics of the game. I created the planet, specials, weapons, the economy, enemy spawning, shop widget, upgrading, and a system for tuning the game balance that would allow any float property to be determined by an infinite mathematical curve. The curves would allow the designers to easily tune the economy and power scaling of both the player and the enemies over time and as they level up.