Development Process

As a clone, I wanted the game to feel distinct while still honoring its inspiration. I kept the core gameplay true to Space Invaders, but focused on polishing everything around it so it wouldn’t feel repetitive. Each time I learned something new, I’d rush to fold it into Stellar Frontier: Rush- a new mechanic here, a fresh enemy variation there, even a parallax background to bring the world to life. Bit by bit, the project grew beyond its simple roots into something uniquely mine.

Boss Fight

One of the highlights of Stellar Frontier: Rush is the boss fight, which I showcased as my 2nd Semester Project. It marked a huge milestone for me- developing my own reusable finite state machine (FSM) )system, something I can carry forward into every game I make.

Check out the full breakdown in my presentation:

Key Challenges

• Didn't have enough coding skills: When I started, my coding experience was limited. Over time, I repeatedly refactored the codebase, each iteration improving efficiency, readability, and maintainability. Seeing these improvements was very rewarding.

• Asset coherence vs. time constraints: I needed to balance visual consistency with efficient workflow. Buying assets enabled me to focus more on gameplay and code, while tweaking them ensured they felt unified in the game.

• Animations: Since all the assets are pre-made and contain only one sprite per character, I had to use movement and VFX for the animations, in order to make the game feel more alive.