About Project

BombX2 is a 2D arcade game about bomb sorting! Sort the bombs in the correct color to diffuse them! If you fail, everything will explode! The faster and more precise you are, the more bombs you'll score! The game was inspired from Sort or 'Splode minigame from Super Mario 64 DS and New Super Mario Bros.

Team Size: 1 (Solo Dev)
Tools Used: Unity Engine
Languages: C#
Project Duration: Aproximately 1 month
Genre: Arcade
Platforms: WebGL, Mobile

Game Features:

-Simple and intuitive controls
-Colorful and engaging visuals
-Catchy background music and sound effects
-Increasing Difficulty
-Color pallet generation mechanic. Every run will create a new color pallet for bombs and the vaults.

Development:

BombX2 was a solo development project that, despite its simplicity, presented a few challenges during its development.

Technical Skills:

In recent times, I have been following SOLID Principles to ensure more scalable, readable, and testable code. This was the first project in which I attempted to adhere to all these principles from start to finish. Additionally, I utilized a Dependency Injection Framework (Extenject/Zenject) to assist with the binding of singleton classes.

One example of my usage of Dependency Injection in this project was with the GameMode class. The GameMode class is responsible for initiating and concluding the game, serving as the backbone of the game rules. Given its significance, it needed to be accessible to other classes to start or end the game. By making the GameMode class a singleton via Dependency Injection, it became effortless for other classes to inject different interfaces, each with its own purpose, such as IGameModeScore, IGameModeState, and IGameModeEvents. These interfaces provide valuable functions used in different objects to decouple them from the GameMode class. As a result, each bomb in the game contains a reference to the IGameModeState interface, which Extenject injects, binding it to the GameMode class and allowing it to call the EndGame() function when the bombs explode.

I also made extensive use of ScriptableObjects compared to my previous games, utilizing them for various purposes such as Game Difficulty Data, Bomb Color Palette System, Bomb Spawn Patterns Library, and Bomb Skins Library.

Design Process:

I commenced working on BombX2 in April 2023, following my work on another project called "CrocodileBalloon." I recall feeling mentally burnt out and in need of a brief respite due to my struggles with level design and art in that project. I decided to take a break from it but didn't want to waste any time. Instead, I began brainstorming ideas for a simple game to work on in the meantime, and that's when I came across a nostalgic video of Mario's minigame "Sort or 'Splode." I remembered finding the game challenging but addictive as a child, so I decided to create something similar. And thus, BombX2 was born. I aimed to create a simpler game while retaining the core objective of "Sort or 'Splode."

Feedback:

When I officially released the first build of BombX2, there were only two possible colors for the bombs and vaults: red and blue. Upon sharing the game in various communities, I received a lot of feedback, mostly positive, including bug reports, suggestions for gameplay improvements, and requests for additional features in future updates. It was during this feedback phase that the idea of color palette generation emerged. A user from one of the communities suggested that it would be cool if the bombs and vaults changed color each time the game started. I found this suggestion to be excellent, and in the next update, I implemented it.

Things That I Would Change or Add:

There are a couple of elements in BombX2 that I would potentially like to add or modify in the future. While the game is intended to be simple, I feel that it may be too simplistic at the moment. Some ideas I have for future updates include:

•Different game modes: Introducing new game modes, such as 4-vaults instead of 2.
• Additional power-ups: Incorporating power-ups that can slow down the bomb's countdown timer, for example.
• Improved gameplay difficulty: The current difficulty level feels somewhat generic. I would like to enhance the bomb spawner system, making the spawn rate less predictable and introducing varied patterns to prevent the gameplay from becoming too linear and monotonous. Additionally, the current spawner spawns bombs one after another
• Add leaderboards: This will allow players to challenge their friends and family to achieve higher scores and create a sense of competition within the game.

I believe BombX2 has tremendous potential as a mobile game and I am definitely planning to return to it in the future to continue working on it.

Takeaway

BombX2 was a simple yet enjoyable project to work on. It is the most recent game I have developed independently and completed. It allowed me to strengthen my skills and knowledge in game development, particularly in building systems, while maintaining good programming habits. I take pride in my work on this project and there is a possibility of releasing it for mobile devices in the future.