Posted April 14, 2026 by ibcole
Hey folks. For this devlog we're focusing on getting a super basic, playable version of the game up and running, just to prove the core idea actually works.
Riley handled a lot of the initial basic gameplay side of things. We first added a placeholder player ship and then a simple shield (resized cube) that sits out in front of it, pivoting around the player ship. The shield is moved around using the mouse, which already feels pretty close to what we had in mind for controlling it! From there, a basic ball was added that spawns in and moves towards the player. Using Unity's built-in physics and some simple materials, the ball bounces off the shield and is redirected back out into the scene. We also added a left-click input so the player can send the ball back towards enemies, which starts to introduce that timing/skill element we're aiming for.
Enemy spawning was also implemented in a very rough form. Enemies (just cubes at this point) spawn in waves in a set area/box, and move towards the player from the front, which is a rough representation of the overall intended gameplay loop of deflecting the ball and dealing with incoming threats. It's basic, but it gives us something we can play with and iterate on.
Isaak also worked a little on Riley's implemented systems and overall feel, setting up an audio mixer and a simple sound effects management system, also adding some placeholder SFX for things like the ball hitting the shield and enemies spawning. We also tweaked a few scripts to smooth things out and make everything play a bit nicer together, and also added a skybox, generated using wwwtyro space skybox generator, and added under Rendering>Lighting>Skybox just to give the scene a bit more atmosphere instead of staring into a blank background.
As of now, we have a (very) basic, somewhat playable version of the game:
Overall it's a pretty rough prototype, but it already shows the core loop working: control the shield, deflect the ball, and deal with incoming enemies. From here, we will start refining the mechanics, improving the feedback, and building it into something more polished.
Currently if the ball misses the shield it goes through the player and our of the camera view without resetting, so we need to do something about that. Bounces off the shield are also hard to judge/predict, but we do have some ideas to address that.