Relaybound

One ageing relay crawler crosses a hostile mineral basin towards the next relay.

Every diagnosis costs power.

Relaybound is a portrait mobile survival and resource-management game concept about one ageing relay-maintenance crawler crossing hostile mineral basins to restore a shattered signal chain.

The idea

The concept began with a simple question: what if asking for help consumed the same resource keeping you alive? Players steer the crawler and route scarce power between movement, cooling, sensors and a bounded AI Diagnostic before stabilising and repairing at each relay.

The process

I developed Relaybound through system design, player-journey mapping, visual prototyping and production planning. The central challenge was keeping interconnected trade-offs readable on a portrait phone while ensuring the AI supports player decisions without controlling game state.