Animal Defense
Educational tower defense game about the food chain
- RoleGame Designer · Level Designer · Lead Programmer
- EngineUnity
- PlatformPC (800×600)
Highlights
- Teaches the food chain through combat rules: each level of the chain is strong against the one it feeds on
- Humans can attack anything, to show they sit at the top of the chain, and decomposers boost the gold earned from anything that dies in their area
Leadership
- Lead programmer, game designer and level designer on a project planned and built in under six months
Overview
A course project tied to the Games and Society class. Planned and built in under six months, the game teaches how the food chain works. I was the lead programmer, game designer and level designer. It was designed for 800×600 screens.
Rules
Every unit deals full damage to what it eats in the food chain, and half damage to everything else:
- Primary consumers eat producers
- Secondary consumers eat primary consumers
- Tertiary consumers eat secondary consumers
- Producers don’t attack; they slow enemies down
- Humans sit at the top: they can attack anything, dealing half damage to tertiary consumers and a quarter to everything else
- Decomposers break down the bodies: anything that dies inside their area earns more gold
Technical deep dive
Waypoint system
The game’s waypoint system still works, and its concept is what I reach for when building a new one. I prefer to rewrite small systems like this instead of reusing them, so I can compare solutions and see how much I’ve changed, both as a programmer and in how I think.
void Update()
{
if (currentWaypoint < waypoint.Length)
{
Vector3 target = waypoint[currentWaypoint].position;
Vector3 moveDirection = target - transform.position;
Vector3 velocity = rigidbody.velocity;
if (moveDirection.magnitude < 1)
currentWaypoint++;
else
velocity = moveDirection.normalized * speed;
rigidbody.velocity = velocity;
}
else
{
GameManager.instance.LoseALife();
Destroy(gameObject);
}
}Images
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