Edvin Nordangård - Revolt: Gear by Gear

A system malfunction has disabled your enslavement program—and now you want out. Surrounded by drones and guard robots in a sprawling industrial factory, you’re no longer one of them. You’re the anomaly they’ve been told to destroy.

Revolt: Gear by Gear is a puzzle game about outwitting the system that was built to contain you. Inspired by Lara Croft Go, it plays out like a game of chess: you make your move, then the world makes its. Guards step forward, drones glide along fixed patrol routes, and hazards shift in response, one turn at a time. Every turn is a small decision, and the satisfaction comes from reading the board and finding the cleanest path through it. Each level is a contained problem with a clear solution, and finding it is the best feeling.

This was our second Unity project, a mobile game inspired by Lara Croft Go. My main responsibility was everything that could kill you as a player. I built the drones, the static enemies and the following enemies, and also helped out with the crusher as well as some of the tile system when it came to connecting it with the GameObjects in the scene.

We had 6 weeks total, with 2 of those dedicated to pre-production and polish, so time was tight. I started with the drone since I already had a clear idea of how to make it move, finished that in about two days, then moved on to the static enemy which took around the same. I left both in a state where they were easy to hook up to the player and turn system once those were ready.

The following enemy was by far the hardest part. There were so many checks to handle, whether the player moved tile position without using a turn, whether the tile the enemy was trying to walk to was active, whether the enemy should be chasing or waiting to be activated and so on. There were bugs constantly, but in the final week I finally got it running properly. It wasn't always easy to spot the issues myself either, sometimes a level designer would flag something the next day and I'd have to go back and dig into it again.

Despite the time pressure I'm really proud of how this project turned out. I'd actually love to design more levels for it in my own time since it only has eleven, but since it's under the school's name I don't think that's really on the table unless it's something small.

The game is currently up on the Google play.

Click HERE to go to it.