Comercial Personal Project
Gunwave is a fast-paced roguelite shooter where every second counts. Players face relentless waves of enemies in a 2D arena, making split-second decisions as they upgrade their build and try to survive as long as possible. The game emphasizes pure action and replayability through procedural upgrades, responsive feedback, and tight mechanics.
On this project, I was responsible for:
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Game Design Documentation (GDD) – including the core loop, progression system, enemy design, upgrades, and boss mechanics.
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Programming (Unity C#) – implementing movement, shooting mechanics, wave system, and the upgrade selection.
Design Challenges & Solutions:
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Replayability & Flow: To avoid repetitive runs, I designed a randomized upgrade system that allows synergies between damage, movement, and utility, making each run unique.
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Combat Balance: Weapons were carefully documented with parameters such as damage, fire rate, reload speed, and projectile count, allowing adjustments to keep the pacing fair and dynamic.
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Boss Design: Created a multi-phase boss that forces players to adapt, introducing mechanics like ricochet shots, energy balls, and screen-sweeping lasers to escalate difficulty.
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User Feedback: Implemented visual and audio cues for reloads, enemy hits, and wave transitions to enhance responsiveness and player immersion.
One of the biggest lessons was balancing speed of play vs. clarity. Since matches last only 3–15 minutes, every mechanic had to be immediately understandable, while still offering depth for long-term engagement.
Another challenge was designing progression to keep both PC midcore players and mobile casual players engaged. For this, I structured waves and upgrades to scale difficulty dynamically, adjusting enemy stats and probabilities based on player performance.
I created the full Game Design Document, including flowcharts, progression tables, and upgrade lists.
