The State of The Game
With this being a new website with a project already in progress, I thought it would be worth talking about the current state of the game and where it’s at in development.
The project, to give a brief overview, is an arcade-inspired game about cells absorbing cells and upgrading through a small tech tree, getting bigger, faster, and unlocking gameplay mechanics and abilities. Players can dash, unlock worker cells, take advantage of viruses, and so on.
I started the project in late December of 2024, with the bulk of the game being completed in January 2025. This included the soft-body-like mechanics for cells and viruses, giving them their springy, fluid-like behaviour. It also included the main game loop of spawning, collecting mass (for DNA points), upgrading using DNA points to “Evolve”, and respawning to keep going.
February was mostly about building upgrades. In total, the game is planned to have 42 upgrades. These upgrades range from stat changes (player speed, size, DNA multipliers), to abilities like dashing and absorbing viruses, to unlocking mechanics like new organisms that spawn or worker cells that collect mass for you. I wanted each upgrade to feel meaningful, and that took time.
An early placeholder layout, not yet organized for progression
Throughout the whole development I also spent time on the style and visuals. At first I tried flat-colored cells, using shaders (small “programs” that calculate the visuals of an object) to create customizable cell walls and fluid-like organelles. While this didn’t look bad, I knew I’d struggle as a solo developer to make it look good.
The original flat-style visuals
Digging up a retro-styled post processing effect (a shader that gets applied to the whole screen after it’s been rendered by a camera), I found that a pixelated look was exactly what I was looking for and it gave the game the personality I was after. I intend to make this a toggleable effect, for players who just prefer the original look (or who are sick of indies using pixelated graphics), but this stylization meant I can hide the ugliness of my programmer art.
The pixelated, retro-inspired style that I’m currently using
Overall I’d say the project is about 95% complete. I still need to organize my upgrades into an order that allows for a nice feeling of progression (and that includes figuring out upgrade costs and prerequisites), I still need audio, and I still need to sort out an options menu. There’s also some integration with Steamworks that’s needed because I’d love to see achievements in the game.
I’m excited to see the game in the state it’s in now, and even more excited to see the finish line coming up over the horizon. Looking forward to sharing more soon!
-Alex