Inspiration

I wanted to combine the excitement of being a lone gladiator with the strategic depth of tower defense games. Instead of defending a castle, players defend the iconic Colosseum, fighting alongside their own fortifications against relentless waves of enemies.

What it does

Colossal Defender is a wave-based tower defense action game where you control a gladiator defending the Colosseum from enemy gladiators, archers, champions, and other powerful foes. Between waves, players upgrade their weapons, walls, and defensive towers to survive increasingly difficult attacks. However not only if to Colosseum falls is it a game over but also if you reach 0 health points yourself as the gladiator.

How we built it

We built the prototype using Claude Code Opus 5 to rapidly develop a self-contained Three.js / HTML5 web game in JavaScript. Through iterative prompting and testing, we implemented real-time combat, enemy wave spawning, upgrade systems, health management, and an interactive UI that runs entirely in the browser. We continuously refined gameplay, mechanics, and visuals through multiple development iterations to create a playable prototype.

Challenges we ran into

Balancing the action combat with strategic upgrades to both player and buildings was our biggest challenge. I also had to optimize performance for browser play while creating satisfying combat, enemy AI within the limited development timeframe.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

I am proud of creating a fully playable browser prototype that blends hack-and-slash strategy combat with tower defense mechanics. The upgrade system gives players meaningful progression, and the Colosseum setting offers a fresh twist on the traditional tower defense genre.

What we learned

I learned how important rapid prototyping is when developing game ideas. Building a playable experience early helped us identify what mechanics were fun, what needed refinement, and how to prioritize features under time constraints as well as how to use AI to quickly make changes to the overall gameplay or bugs.

What's next for Colossal Survivor

The next goal is to improve the visuals with a more authentic Roman Colosseum HD2D artstyle, add more player customization and different weapon types, expand the enemy roster with unique boss encounters, introduce new defensive structures and abilities, and develop a long-term progression system that encourages replayability.