Inspiration

I wanted to create a tower defense game where the player is part of the action instead of watching from the sidelines. That led to the idea of piloting a UFO, destroying the environment for resources, and using those resources to defend a mothership from incoming waves.

What it does

UFO: Unleashed Flying Obliteration combines arcade destruction with tower defense. The idea is to fly through a destructible city, destroy buildings and vehicles for Salvage Points, place turrets, upgrade defenses, and protect the mothership from escalating tank waves.

The prototype includes Campaign, Quick Strike, and Free Roam, giving players different ways to experience the destruction and defense gameplay.

How I built it

I built the game in Three.js with AI assisting throughout development. The process was highly iterative, with constant testing and refinement of flight, destruction, enemy waves, turrets, upgrades, progression, UI, audio, and onboarding.

The game was designed mobile-first for portrait play, including a one-handed gesture control system that lets players fly, change altitude, fire the beam, move turrets, and dock without filling the screen with buttons.

Challenges I ran into

One of the biggest challenges was balancing destruction with tower defense. The player needs enough freedom to leave the mothership and destroy the city for Salvage without making the defensive side of the game feel unimportant.

Mobile controls also required a lot of iteration. Gestures that sounded straightforward needed repeated testing to make them responsive and understandable.

The tutorial became another major challenge. As the game grew, I had to continually refine the training sequence to teach the mechanics clearly and prevent players from getting stuck or completing steps out of order.

Accomplishments that I’m proud of

I’m especially proud of how the destruction and tower-defense systems work together. Destroying the environment earns Salvage, Salvage strengthens the defenses, and stronger defenses create more opportunities to head back out and cause destruction.

I’m also proud of the one-handed portrait controls and how much gameplay fits into a browser-based mobile prototype without covering the screen in buttons.

What I learned

I learned how interconnected every part of a game becomes. Changing enemy speed affects turret balance. Changing controls affects the tutorial. Adding progression affects menus, saving, upgrades, and the overall game flow.

AI allowed me to iterate quickly, but it also reinforced how important testing and clear design decisions are. Something can technically work and still need several rounds of refinement before it feels right.

What’s next for UFO: Unleashed Flying Obliteration

I want to continue expanding the destruction-and-defense concept with more content, enemies, defensive options, upgrades, and strategic choices while continuing to refine the core gameplay loop.

Built With

• ai-assisted
• api
• audio
• claude
• code
• css3
• desktop
• development
• html5
• javascript
• localstorage
• mobile
• three.js
• web
• webgl