First stab: Click Orton

Click Orton is a large burlap sack crammed full of disparate game mechanics that don’t quite go. Basically, multiple clones of Randy Orton’s face will spawn at random intervals and you must avoid large clusters of Ortons by clicking them away. The aim of the game is to last as long as you can without becoming overwhelmed.

It is currently a complete mess balance wise, and far too easy with a mouse (I tested it with a trackpad), but there are a couple of not-terrible ideas in there and about ten-or-so scripts that control the whole mess.

I’m going to put it to bed now, as I have familiarised myself with some of the basic elements of scripting with Unity and am going to move onto prototyping code for the upcoming Ludum Dare.

Try Click Orton here.

See the scripts for it here.

Progress log:
By Day 1 I had the following in place:
- A background (giant pink RKO face) that moves up, down, left and right between four co-ordinates
- Orton sprites that move erratically on the spot
- Clicking on an Orton destroys that Orton and spawns more
- John Cena’s face follows the mouse cursor
- After the number of Ortons increases beyond 10, the Ortons start to grow steadily and turn red

By Day 2 I had:
- Added a timer, a score UI and a UI that counts the number of Ortons
- Added circle colliders at various points that would cause game over if intersected by over 25 Ortons
- Added a game over screen that pauses the game time and game elements
- A restart button on the game over screen

On Day 3:
- Removed the circle colliders and attached the same script to the actual Ortons (so now clusters at any point will be detected). The Orton that ends the game turns green.
- Reduced the cluster size required for game over to 10
- Red Ortons now explode into 5 Ortons if you don’t click on them
- White Ortons don’t create clones on click
- White Ortons will become Yellow Ortons if left for too long; this is more likely/faster to happen the fewer total Ortons there are. Yellow Ortons spawn 3 clones on click
- Added a random Orton spawn every 150-250 updates, regardless of clicks

Day 4 (yesterday):
- Red Ortons will explode into 5 Ortons if you DO click on them; they will eventually disappear if left
- Yellow Ortons now spawn other Ortons at a very fast rate; gameplay wise a player should look to eliminate them as soon as possible

TODO:
- Clean up scripts. Currently a change in one script can necessitate a number of changes across multiple scripts; I should try to minimise this.
- Add simple animations for destruction/creation of Ortons
- Make the game harder; I tested with a trackpad and didn’t account for how much easier a mouse would make this game. I need to up the spawn rates, I think.