Game

Radial Drift

One finger. One mistake ends the run.

Type
Game
Platforms
iOS, Android, macOS
Status
Live
Role
Design + engineering

The story

Why it exists

Mobile arcade games often substitute control complexity and feature volume for a mechanic that is immediately legible and worth mastering.

My role

Independent game designer and developer. I designed the core mechanic, progression system, visual language, and cross-platform release.

Product move

Build the entire game around rotating a segmented shield so threats pass through one gap. One gesture changes every tactical decision.

What shipped

A shipped arcade game with ten enemy types, a five-phase difficulty curve, beat-reactive WebGL presentation, and releases across iOS, Android, and macOS.

See the product

Damage remains spatial: the shield visibly loses segments instead of hiding survival in a generic health bar.
Power-ups change the tactical geometry without adding another control scheme.
Later phases combine learned patterns into denser, faster formations.
Beat-reactive effects add intensity while preserving the silhouettes needed to play.

Product judgment

Key decisions

  1. 01

    One gesture, complete control

    Rotation is the only continuous input. Depth comes from timing, anticipation, and choosing which shield segment to expose.

  2. 02

    Teach through encounter design

    Dedicated training waves introduce each enemy before later phases combine behaviors under pressure.

  3. 03

    Make spectacle preserve clarity

    HDR color, particles, and beat response intensify the run without obscuring enemy paths or shield state.

Build notes

A single Phaser 3 codebase ships through Capacitor and Tauri, with a custom WebGL pipeline and FFT-driven soundtrack response.

The difficulty director combines training, bonus, breather, and escalation waves across five named phases.

Built withPhaser, WebGL, Capacitor, Tauri, Claude Code