INFORMATION
Description: You wake up in a gloomy room. Become the test subject of a shady software program that feeds on Tower Defense - Roguelike - Deckbuilder simulations.
Engine: Unity
Team size: 4
Development Timeline: 25/10/2022 - 10/05/2023, 02/07/2024 - 10/03/2025
Total Development Time: 1 year, 3 months
Status: Steam release on March 10th 2025
Context: Third-Year Bachelor's Project
MY CONTRIBUTION as a...
Participated in the entire design process, making more notable contributions in tutorization, difficulty modes, enemies and overall Tower Defense gameplay.
Created most of the VFX as well as other effects and elements such as the 3D Stencil Cards, Support Building ranges, fogs, UI buttons...
Programmed the Text Decoder effect, Console Dialogue System, Interactable Dependency System (Main Menu interactables) and helped build the main systems of the early version of the game.
Did the concept and modeling for all 3 Upgrade Rooms, 5 Enemies and the Main Menu -except for the PC-, together with some elements of the map like the Nodes, Connections... Also, given the low amount of time, I repurposed external assests to build scenes like the Overworld Map and the Deck Selector.
CONSOLE DIALOGUE
Fully designed and implemented the console dialogue system, a great addition in terms of atmosphere and immersion.
This system is fairly simple, yet the Text Decoder is the greatest piece of technology I programmed in this project.
The Text Decoder is a script that allows any text to be animated, and is used in every text of the game, from the Cards to the Console Dialogue.
It supports various configurations via ScriptableObjects with a wide variety of options to ensure the maximum amount of control over the end result.
MAKING A BETTER TUTORIAL
The best tutorial is the one that the player does not perceive as such.
The begining of Nomad Defender is it's worst part, so having a long tutorial that does not show what's actually exciting about the game could easily throw out the window all the work done so far.
So, instead of having a customized map with a predetermined path -that both played and looked like a tutorial-, the player would now experience a unique first battle with an exciting ending, a little bit of dialogue, and small explanations scattered through out a real run.
This made the tangible part of the tutorial much smaller, waiting to explain bits of information only once they became relevant, and not being afraid of the player no knowing everything, letting them explore, be curious and have some doubts.