Click Fighter

Click on attacks to deal damage and earn XP as you attempt to become the street fighting champion. Stay alive by planning your attacks to counter or block the enemy’s.

Role: Designer and Programmer
Software: Unity
Development Cycle: January-May 2020
Purpose: Advanced Seminar in Reward/Progression Design

Game Details

An example of an enemy’s CSV housing all of their attack information. This makes it easy to create more content and tweak it later.

Click Fighter is an idle clicker where the goal is to defeat your opponent by clicking on attacks of various damage, cooldown, and attack types. Attacks deal damage and generate XP which can be spent on new, more powerful attacks. Players will have to balance dealing damage with blocking and countering their opponent’s attacks.

Opponents throw out attacks of different types, and the player can block them by using an attack of the opposing type. Certain special attacks require players to break their playstyles and adapt. Fights get down to the wire, so strategy and planning of when to use certain attacks in imperative to becoming the champion.

Contributions and Philosophy

  • Designed idle clicker mechanics with the intent of adding strategy and planning
  • Programmed the game with a focus on making future design iteration and content creation simple
  • Consistently tested and rebalanced fights to allow for a smooth difficulty curve
A mix of CSVs for attacks and exposed inspector variables allows new attacks and enemies to be added into the game easily.

Click Fighter is probably the first time I’ve revisited a genre so far. Usually, I find myself following an interesting idea that takes me out of my comfort zone rather than sticking to one genre that I like. However, when deciding on a project that would allow me to learn about designing and balancing progression within a three-month period, it made sense to choose an idle clicker.

From there, I really wanted to develop a system that gave strategy to just mindlessly and quickly clicking buttons. I looked into how other clickers attempt this, and I settled upon an idea I had where timing mattered, and that led to attacks that can be blocked if your own attacks were used at the right time. However, I found special attacks a necessary addition as players would otherwise fall into a pattern of just saving a few attacks for blocking and then use other attacks to rack up damage.

In terms of balancing, the game started off with an attack upgrade system that had to get cut because of time constraints, and that removed complexity from the design but also put more pressure on making the numbers balanced. Due to coronavirus issues, I was unable to get many others to test the game, so I spent a lot of time developing my self-testing skills. In the end, I think the game finds a good balance between mashing buttons and actual planning, especially for a simple prototype.