Firefighters (Career Mode)

Firefighters (Career Mode)

Inspiration

Who hasn’t dreamed of being a heroic firefighter - battling roaring flames, saving homes from destruction, and rescuing cats from trees in your spare time? What a life. What an adventure!

The original version of Firefighters launched in April and focused on the satisfying core mechanics of firefighting. This competition challenged us to go further - to design a more robust progression system and to make the experience more shareable. That challenge led to the creation of Career Mode in Firefighters.

What it does

FEATURE	Original Game	"Career Mode" Update
PROGRESSION
PROGRESSION: Players earn xp by saving homes and rescuing cats.	✅	✅
PROGRESSION: Career Mode	❌	✅
PROGRESSION: Players can visit the OFFICE where the cute firehouse dog and the Fire Chief inform them of their standing in the game.	❌	✅
PROGRESSION: The firehouse dog tells you exactly what you need to do to level up. For example: You need 100 xp to become Lvl2. You need to be Lvl3 to get a promotion to Firefighter.	❌	✅
PROGRESSION: The Fire Chief presents you with a list of 24 quests that you need to complete in the game. The quests focus on number of houses saved, number of cats rescued, towns where the fire took place, longest session time, time spent playing the game in total, number of unique days played, number of days played in a row. Completing all of these quests will keep you busy for months.	❌	✅
PROGRESSION: Fires happen in 10 different towns. Saving a house in each of these towns is a Quest.	❌	✅
PROGRESSION: Players can visit the STORE where they can purchase various updates with the coins they earn in the game.	❌	✅
PROGRESSION: Players can increase the strength of their fire hose nozzle by purchasing an upgrade with the coins they earn in the game.	❌	✅
PROGRESSION: Players can increase the strength of their protective gear by purchasing an upgrade with the coins they find the game.	❌	✅
PROGRESSION: Players can visit the GARAGE where they can purchase various updates.	❌	✅
PROGRESSION: Players can buy better tires for the firetruck with the coins they earn in the game.	❌	✅
PROGRESSION: Players can buy a better engine for the firetruck with the coins they earn in the game.	❌	✅
PROGRESSION: Players can can increase their speed by purchasing an upgrade with the coins they find the game.	❌	✅
PROGRESSION: Anytime a player earns a promotion, the whole fire crew (including the firehouse dog) throw a celebration party. Now this is something worth working for!	❌	✅
PROGRESSION: There are 4 unique leaderboards in the game.	❌	✅
PROGRESSION: Players are rewarded with free coins for time spent in a session, total time spent, number of unique days played, and number of days played in a row.	❌	✅
PROGRESSION: Players who complete all 30 levels and 8 different ranks eventually are promoted to the rank of Fire Chief.	❌	✅
SHARING
SHARING: Players are encouraged to share their achievements using the media board gizmo.	❌	✅
SHARING: Players are encouraged to share the pictures and videos of their rank by tagging the RandomGamesUniverse Instagram account.	❌	✅
SHARING: Only the most worthy veteran players get to become a Fire Chief and brag about it on social media. (The drive for status is a powerful incentive for sharing)	❌	✅
SHARING: Random and funny sounding town names include .....	❌	✅
SHARING: The world-specific wearables act as billboard for the game when players wear them outside of the game.	❌	✅
SHARING: The cut scene celebration is very satisfying and shareable. Who wouldn't want a party thrown in your honor where the firehouse dog is present? Especially if there is cake!	❌	✅

How we built it

Our development pipeline incorporated a range of industry-standard tools, including VS Code (with GitHub Copilot), TypeScript, Horizon Worlds’ Desktop Editor, Blender, Adobe Photoshop, Substance Painter, and Procreate. AI-powered tools also proved to be valuable additions to our workflow, enhancing both efficiency and creativity.

Challenges we ran into

Designing a robust progression system meant keeping track of a significant amount of player data. We wanted to create a game mode with long-term engagement - potentially offering months of gameplay. This required a reliable system for tracking XP, levels, ranks, coins, and upgrades such as speed, nozzle strength, and protective gear enhancements. All of this information needed to persist across gameplay sessions, saving at the end and reloading seamlessly when players returned. JSON objects provided the structure and flexibility necessary to make this possible.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We created several standout moments using the Camera API. One of the most memorable is when a player earns enough XP to be promoted. A cinematic cutscene plays featuring the fire chief and the entire crew - including the firehouse dog - gathering to celebrate. There’s even a cake. Another highlight is the alarm cutscene: the whole crew scrambles into action as the alarm sounds, with the camera pushing in on the firehouse dog letting out a proud bark. It’s our favorite moment in the game.

What we learned

This project has been an incredibly rewarding experience, and we’re excited to be growing more proficient with the Horizon Worlds platform. We’ve become quite comfortable using JSON objects and feel confident in saving and retrieving complex data structures—something that will greatly benefit our future projects.

What's next for Firefighters (Career Mode)

There’s still plenty of work ahead. Our next priority is to spend significant time observing how players interact with the new mechanics. We fully expect some of our assumptions to be challenged—but that’s the life of a game developer, and we’re loving every minute of it.