Heroes of Dungeon

Heroes of Dungeon is a Tetris-like arcade adventure game available on the Google Play store (link below)

This is a small team project of two created under my brand company, Epic Tortoise Studios.

I was working as a producer, Game Mechanics Designer, and artist for this project.

My responsibilities have included...

Game Mechanics Design
User Interface Systems
Technical Design
Creating art assets

Enemy Block Spawner!

The problem: There was an issue with the initial setup of the enemy spawner, where we had the blocks spawn at a random time variable that was traveling back and forth between the outside walls of the game zone. This caused some blocks to spawn off-centered of others and really give a terrible feeling for the gameplay. It also altered the chain attacks that the enemies have when the same type of enemies are connected with one another.

My solution: I worked with the other developer who was a strong programmer, and we decided that setting up spawn zones above the game zone would be the better route as it eliminated the off-centered issue when the blocks fell towards the bottom. This new system still allowed for random spawns and was overall easier to implement than expected.

Player Interactions!

The problem: The original idea for the game was for the player to tap their screen repeatedly to attack and destroy the enemies that appeared, this weapon was the staff. This however became quite boring after a while and a new way for the player to interact with the enemies was needed.

My solution: While our game already had a staff weapon, I thought of a popular game at the time, Fruit Ninja. I worked with the other developer and created a sword weapon that responded to the tracking of the players finger on their screen. This new weapon mechanic worked similarly to the swords in Fruit Ninja, and in-play testing the sword weapon was very useful in crowded situations, able to attack multiple enemies in a single swipe of the finger.

This project was an idea that I wanted to bring to reality as there were no other games like this on the app stores at this time. My main idea was to take two games that I enjoyed growing up and combine them to see what could be made. Those games were initially Tetris and Dungeons and Dragons. Through development, the main mechanic of Fruit Ninja was also added.

During the course of development on this project, I learned how to really research problems with Unity, as this was my first major project. I located documentation and video references to assist me with small issues that were occurring, mostly non referenced items in the editor, as a new developer often forgets.

I also learned about how to adopt new mechanics when noticing that the game just isn't fun to play. Taking time to research and brainstorm ways to keep the player interacting and not bored was very important and humbling to the process as no idea starts out perfect. Implementing those new ideas and testing them thoroughly to make sure the player gets the optimal experience that they are after, really helped me as a developer in general.