Nebula Ranger
A small space shooter built to convey retro gaming sensations.
GAMEPLAY VIDEO
media/nebula-ranger.mp4
Nebula Ranger is a small space shooter that aims to convey retro gaming sensations. I created it alongside a classmate, and it gave me the chance to learn and finalize a lot of programming and design techniques.
The goal was to build something simple to play while improving our time management, teamwork and, above all, our programming and engine knowledge. The lesson that stuck with me was how much easier a complex problem becomes once it is broken down into smaller, manageable tasks — it kept the code flexible and made new features easy to integrate.
- EngineUnity
- LanguageC#
- GenreSpace shooter
- TeamTwo programmers
Systems breakdown
nebula-ranger-1.gif
Asteroid spawn system
I created an asteroid spawn system around the planet, driven by the direction the player is looking. Nothing spawns outside the player's view, which keeps performance up and avoids filling the scene with objects nobody will ever see.
nebula-ranger-2.gif
Power-up system
The game grants a power-up on completing each level, once the key has been obtained. Building the mechanic around events and tags kept game management clean and made each new power-up cheap to add.
nebula-ranger-3.gif
Shield power-up
The same event-driven pipeline covers defensive pick-ups: the shield hooks into the identical system, so behaviour stays consistent no matter which power-up the player picks up.
nebula-ranger-4.gif
Enemy state machine
I built the enemy state machine logic from scratch, entirely in code. Exposing its parameters meant AI behaviour could be tuned and reshaped without touching the implementation — designed with the designers in mind.
Source code, builds and commit history:
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