Driftway
Driftway is a benchmark project that tests my ability to design a prototype with healthy game systems and a positive player experience. The game began as a fantasy-themed endless runner in which a king runs to avoid barrels and other objects, which I iterated into a modern car drifting down a highway that includes a roguelite Perk system with a credit-earning meta progression loop. I aimed to rely less on courses and tutorials and to discover my true skill level.
UX/UI DESIGNSYSTEMS DESIGNUI IMPLEMENTATIONUNITYGAME DESIGNUI DESIGN
3 min read
driftway
Driftway is a benchmark project that tests my ability to design a prototype with healthy game systems and a positive player experience. The game began as a fantasy-themed endless runner in which a king runs to avoid barrels and other objects, which I iterated into a modern car drifting down a highway that includes a roguelite Perk system with a credit-earning meta progression loop. I aimed to rely less on courses and tutorials and to discover my true skill level.
Engine: Unity
Role: Game Designer
Team Size: Solo
creating an incentive engine
Examining the core loop of endless runners, where players chase their personal best high score or a place on a leaderboard, my design goal became adding roguelite scaling incentives that infused variation and escalation into each run. I wanted to build a system with intuitive player motivation around a core mechanic that felt satisfying by directly linking gameplay to progression rewards, creating a symbiotic loop. As I replaced the score chase pattern with a meta progression loop, the first major design choice was to convert the score I was asking players to chase into credits to sink into the system.
The next step involved developing four distinct ‘Perks’ for the upgrade system, each with sub-stat progression. Researching gearshift designs inspired the final ten-node upgrade tree, which also constrained and informed the total available Perk upgrades and unlockable sub-stats for each node. Deciding on a set number of tree nodes allowed me to quickly ideate upgrade types that made sense and served the ultimate design goal. Consequently, I used this framework to create a scaling upgrade cost curve that synced with the credit gain per run by thoroughly testing to determine the minimum, maximum, and average amounts earned per run for each active Perk. The purpose of these parallel curves was to create those “just in reach“, and “one more run” gameplay moments.
player-centered progression
The visual concept for the between-run upgrade screen prioritizes accessibility and ease of use through familiar, recognizable elements that are easy to scan and understand. Grey-box iterations focused on efficient use of space turned an unintuitive tree leaning too heavily on icons into the final three-column design with cleanly delineated and labeled content. My years working in web design taught me that icons alone are insufficient without providing the user with full context. This insight extended to the tree nodes and accompanying level pips, informed by analysis of the skill trees in action-adventure and RPG games that successfully organize and display a lot of information on a given screen. Respecting the space constraints, I created a contextual information text box to house all relevant upgrade tree content, ensuring the player knows exactly what each node does and how much each upgrade costs at all times.
My design choices also drove how the player interacted with each element of the upgrade process. Applying bold, consistent colors across the screen and using scale to create visual hierarchy helped guide players through the tree nodes, upgrade costs, and returning to the road to collect more credits. To safeguard players from errors, I set up the input to purchase upgrades with a hold-to-confirm mechanic, providing a window to cancel the upgrade, giving the player control over the interaction. My ultimate goal was to create an upgrade screen that grabs the player’s attention and promotes curiosity to explore its details, providing a frictionless intermission that gets players excited to purchase an upgrade and start a new run.
outcomes & reflections
Dedicating time outside the engine to organize and calibrate progression values enabled low-lift testing and iteration on upgrade costs and Perk stats, as any modifier set too high or too low can greatly impact the player experience. Proper planning and scoping upfront provided the assurance needed late in the project to handle and resolve critical optimization and Blender asset issues; bugs are a natural part of the process, and it's not productive to problem-solve in frustration or anger. Shipping Driftway as a solo project, requiring me to concept, plan, program, design, and QA myself, was an extremely rewarding experience that also verified my ability to work within time and design constraints and meet a fixed go-live window.
