RED GUY

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  RED GUY LOGO

RED GUY - A Prestige-Based Zombie Survivor

The Origin Story I started this project to show a friend how AI can help you create amazing things, even without traditional coding experience. As a musician and DJ with no real programming background, I approached game development the same way I approach music production: simplicity is key, recursive elements create engagement, and above all, user experience and fun come first.

What started as a simple demo became something I genuinely enjoyed working on. When another friend suggested I submit to Chroma Awards, it gave me the push to keep developing and add more depth to the game.

What I Built

• Core Mechanics: Top-down movement, auto-targeting weapons, boss battles with health bars
• Weapon Progression: Gun → Shotgun → Rockets → Railgun → Nuke, each unlocked by defeating bosses
• Prestige System: After beating the final boss, players can prestige to gain permanent upgrades (multi-shot weapons, faster movement, increased scoring)
• Dynamic Difficulty: Enemy spawn rates and speed scale with both time survived and prestige level
• Power-up System: Temporary buffs like shields, speed boosts, and time freeze

Technical Stack Built entirely in vanilla JavaScript using p5.js for rendering, with Firebase for leaderboard persistence. The game runs at 60fps with collision detection, particle effects, and dynamic weapon switching.

Challenges I Faced The prestige system was the hardest part. I had to separate "weapon unlocked" state from "weapon upgraded" state so players could keep using their weapons across prestige runs while still having progression goals. Balancing the exponential damage scaling (each prestige reduces damage to 25% of previous) took iteration to make higher prestiges challenging but not impossible.

Browser compatibility was also annoying - Unicode symbols broke on itch.io's iframe, forcing simpler UI solutions.

What I Learned Managing complex game state across resets without losing player progress requires careful separation of concerns. I also learned a lot about exponential scaling systems and how quickly they can make games either trivial or impossible if not tuned correctly.

Most importantly, I learned that the same principles that make good music - simplicity, repetition with variation, and keeping the audience engaged - apply directly to game design. The loop needs to feel good, the progression needs rhythm, and the player needs to stay in flow state.

Built With

• javascript