Deck of Ruin

Sep 2025 – Dec 2025

• godot
• c#
• HLSL

Overview

Deck of Ruin is a rogue-like deckbuilding game. As Lead Programmer, I was responsible for designing and implementing the core gameplay architecture that supports dynamic card effects, reusable enemy behaviors, and long-term content growth.

Design Goals

• Support complex card interactions without hard-coding behavior
• Enable designers to create new cards, enemies and encounters quickly
• Ensure combat systems remain scalable as content expands
• Randomly generated maps, and encounters

Systems & Implementation

Modular Enemy AI & Encounters

I developed a node-based, modular AI system that allows enemies to compose behaviors. This approach enabled:

• Reusable combat logic across enemy types
• Rapid iteration on encounter design
• Clear separation between behavior, intent, and execution

Flexible Card System

I engineered a data-driven card system capable of handling:

• Dynamic effects and conditional targeting
• Stackable modifiers and chained interactions
• Clean extensibility for future card additions

Status Effect Framework

I also designed a robust status effect system with customizable modifiers. Effects could alter damage, behavior, or turn flow, and were designed to stack and interact cleanly with both cards and enemy AI.

Collaboration & Process

Worked with a 3-person team using agile practices, iterative prototyping, and regular playtesting. I also assisted with bug fixing, implementing UI elements, miscellaneous tasks like implementing utility shaders to change colors of icons, blur the background, and programming transitions, etc.

Takeaways

This project strengthened my skills in gameplay systems architecture, modular design, and building tools that scale with content.