Stranded

Overview:

Stranded is a Unity-based first-person shooter survival game developed as the term project for my college Game Programming course. Set on a remote island, the game challenges players to survive waves of monsters while constructing and defending signal towers to call for rescue.

The game offers two modes: in Stranded Mode, players must build and defend towers until the progress bar fills, and in Endless Mode, players aim for a high score, defeating as many monsters as possible before their health is depleted.

Key Features:

• Control Scheme: The game uses standard first-person shooter controls. Use either WASD or the arrow keys for player movement, and the mouse for aiming and firing. Additionally, the 'Spacebar' and 'E' keys control swapping out ammo types and constructing towers, respectively.

• Ammo Types: The player has access to two ammo types: Light and Heavy. Heavy ammo deals more damage but travels slower and requires a 3-second cooldown. Ammo pickups for both types will randomly spawn across the island.

• Constructing Towers: Each tower has its own health bar, which is depleted by monster attacks. When a tower's health reaches zero, it is destroyed. To replace towers, players can construct new ones by defeating enemies. A blue meter fills with each monster defeated, and after five kills, the player has the ability to place a new tower, resetting the meter; however, new towers must be placed a sufficient distance from existing ones. Note that having multiple towers constructed at once increases the speed at which the rescue progress bar fills, and that once the meter is filled, additional kills will not increase it further until it has reset.

• Enemy Types: There are five enemy types, each a different colors. Each variant has a distinct movement pattern, rising different heights into the air before attacking. Different types also have varying amounts of health and deal varying amounts of damage.

Developer's Note

Stranded was my first complete game project in Unity, serving as the capstone for all of the fundamentals in gameplay programming, enemy behavior, and player feedback loops. One of the most challenging aspects was designing fair and stylistic enemy AI. Originally, the enemy monsters immediately targeted towers after being spawned, which was too overwhelming for the player to respond to. I reworked the system to have the monsters rise longer out of the water, giving the player more reaction time. I also added a rotating spawn pattern to make the enemy movement feel more dynamic.

This project taught me not only the beginner technical aspects of game development, but also the impact of small design choices on player experience.