Clockwork Keeper

November 2023 - Ongoing

Role(s):

Producer, Game Designer, Programmer/Scripter, Level Designer, 2D Artist & Animator

Tools(s):

Unity, C#, Aseprite

Clockwork Keeper is a roguelike dungeon crawler made in Unity. In this game the player must navigate each randomly generated level in search of gears needed to progress before the time runs out. Time essence can be collected around the stages or when dropped by defeated enemies to increase the time limit.

This project is an ongoing personal project being worked on intermittently over the course of several months and is a culmination of my own game design, scripting in C#, and 2D artwork.

Procedural Dungeon Generation | Development Challenges

A major challenge that surfaced during development was over-scoping and learning how to redirect my focus onto other mechanics needing attention.
Procedural level generation was a daunting task, and I rewrote my scripts for it several times, burning through development time. It was a challenge to scrap this feature, as it had cemented itself as a part of my game’s identity, however I ultimately used that as an opportunity to refocus on other systems that needed attention.

Roguelike Progression | Improving Other Systems

Redirecting my focus, I tried looking at what other roguelike elements were within my grasp and achievable with my current
skillset, and I decided to further develop the game’s combat (by varying enemies), and adding a soft progression system.
Pushing the games core “time limit” mechanic (which doubles as health), by adding a cap, excess recovered time turns into an Overtime currency to use for gameplay upgrades.

Varied Enemy Behavior | Optimizing Workflow

Part of the work to optimize my development flow involved converting my enemy logic to utilize
a scriptable object system,
which allowed me to quickly implement new enemy
behaviors.

Drawn Gameplay Concept

A gameplay sketch to help solidify the early designs of various HUD elements.