Core Trials
OVERVIEW
Core Trials is a motion-based, pixel-art bullet hell roguelike you play with just your webcam. Move your body to control the core, dodge deadly patterns, strike back at the masters, and survive intense trials. Immerse yourself in high-octane action and unleash the true power of your core!
TRAILER
CONTRIBUTIONS
TOOLS USED
KEY DESIGN DECISIONS
Chose a roguelike run structure to create a tightly contained systemic loop where player expression, build variation, and failure-driven learning could emerge organically.
Accepted higher design complexity and balance overhead in exchange for runs that felt meaningfully different, avoiding repetition and rigid difficulty ramps.
Designed certain levels where environmental hazards, rather than enemies, acted as the primary source of challenge.
Reduced enemy variety in these segments to focus on spatial awareness and movement mastery, breaking combat monotony while maintaining tension.
Restricted healing to a single optional level per run, framing recovery as a deliberate strategic decision.
Increased short-term risk for players who skipped healing, but reinforced meaningful choice and added a distinct motion-based collection challenge within the run.
Approached difficulty as a system-level problem, using A/B testing and analytics to identify root causes rather than treating difficulty as a single-variable issue.
Prioritized deeper system understanding over rapid parameter tweaks, trading speed for more reliable balance outcomes.
Made the tutorial optional after player feedback and early-session analytics indicated that mandatory onboarding was unnecessary for most players.
Trusted organic learning through play and feedback systems, accepting that a small portion of players would prefer explicit instruction.
DESIGN CONTRIBUTIONS
Took end-to-end ownership from documentation and prototyping through iterative refinement, rapidly validating mechanics through playtests and discarding weak concepts early to focus polish on what truly improved the experience.
Created 15+ combat levels featuring 100+ enemy attack patterns and behaviors, tuning difficulty to support both onboarding and mastery without punishing failure.
Built progression systems including achievements and unlocks to reinforce player learning and experimentation.
Executed system-level difficulty tuning by adjusting abilities, health, enemy density, and pacing based on analytics insights.
Designed and implemented 40+ UI screens, ensuring clarity, readability, and consistency across PC builds while preserving moment-to-moment gameplay focus.
Translated player feedback from Discord, Steam reviews, and playtests into actionable design updates, improving onboarding, readability, and balance post-launch.
SCREENSHOTS
Prototyping and iterating on core combat system variants to test mechanics.
Prototyping and iterating on core combat system variants to test mechanics.
Prototyping and iterating on core ability ideas.
Prototyping environmental traversal levels to evaluate feel and engagement.
Building dialogue sheets that bridge narrative design and gameplay.
Building a localization tree directly exportable to Unity for seamless multilingual support.
Designing the UI flow before creating wireframes to ensure intuitive navigation.
Developing the first draft wireframes for the game's UI.
Leveraging player psychology on Reddit, generating 11k+ upvotes, converting 25% into wishlists with 70% conversion, and gaining features on 80LV; streamed by top creators like Sodapoppin.