GMTK Jam

To ensure a clean and readable player UX:

- Players grab and stack blocks with cursor, rotating at 90° steps for precise placement.
- Rotation is limited to fixed angles to avoid unstable or confusing structures.
- Physics are custom tuned with reduced gravity, creating a floaty, forgiving stacking feel.

DESIGN GOAL: Turn physics into the selling point, a tower defense that feels predictable to master yet chaotic enough to stay playful.

Gameplay System

To reinforce physical readability and player agency:

- Blocks have friction, allowing structures to interlock instead of sliding apart.
- Stability decreases as towers grow, making height a calculated risk.
- Weight and balance affect grabbing, overloaded structures resist movement or collapse.

DESIGN GOAL: Create a tactile, readable system where stability is intuitive and failure feels earned, not random.

Stability

Created for GMTK 2024, we aimed to stand out with a clear, bold idea. A physics based tower defense where the Tower of Babel comes alive: confused, multilingual bricks attack, and you defend the King as he reunites them against the Brick God.

Defend the King

The King is the core to protect, with a fixed health pool ending the run if depleted and:

- Enemies are drawn to him by each side.
- Combine defensive and offensive tools, cannons, mines, and more to defende waves.

DESIGN GOAL: Make the King the central anchor, forcing players to balance defense, offense, and positioning in a dynamic loop.

Blocks were designed collaboratively with the team and are largely self‑explanatory.

I won’t go into detail, as most are standard traps and objects with a few exceptions, all feeding into the tower defense loop and supported by a loot system crafted by Roberto Frigo, with the mechanic designed by me and Giacomo Connola.

There are 4 types: wood, concrete, metal, and special; each with weight, durability, and logic:

- Heavier blocks provide sturdier defenses; lighter ones allow faster, flexible building.
-  Blocks can be thrown: light pieces nudge enemies, heavy beams crush; misuse can collapse your tower or trigger explosions.

DESIGN GOAL: Make gameplay feel organic, letting players experiment and see how block types behave in different situations.

Materials & Impact

Designs reflect their logic: wood is warped and soft, concrete sturdy but rough, metal shiny with reinforced edges.

Blocks

Enemies follow classic tower defense roles with a physics-based twist.

They are split into melee, ranged, and special types, each designed to pressure towers differently, climbing structures, attacking from below, flying, resisting damage, or exploding to disrupt defenses.

Spawning is driven by a table designed by Roberto Frigo, scaling rarity and loot by strength. I won’t go deeper here, as their behavior is best understood through the gameplay clips below.

Melee Class

Long Range Class

Special Class

Alternative Ways

To keep the player entertained while holding onto the arcade spirit, the game offers many ways to deal with enemies beyond traps.

You can drop bricks in the air, that deal damage based on height and material, or simply unleash chaos and hope nothing slips through.

Be careful though, dropped bricks deal damage but also take damage themselves.

The Shop

- Enemies drop Bricklets, the game’s gold currency, from 1 to 7 based on strength.

- The shop offers 5 random bricks per rotation, from normal to special, each with limited stock.

- Brick appearance rates match enemy drop rates to keep progression balanced.

- The shop refreshes every 3 rounds.

Additional Info

The game features 5 missions and an Arcade mode (endless).

Every enemy has a % chance to drop more than one block. At 90% they drop at least one block type, and special blocks drop with lower probability.

Endless mode includes a leaderboard tracking time survived, letting players compete for the highest score.

A concept of a final boss fight has been made, where you have to defeat the brick god that will show on top of the screen.

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