Chroma Krash

Situation

Chroma Krash was made in one week for a game jam held by ITB. The brief asked teams for a 2D game on a limited-space theme. The biggest risk was not the design but the code. Adding new mechanics quickly inside a jam usually leaves dependencies tangled, so I needed an architecture that let multiple systems collaborate without each one knowing the others.

• One-week deadline, full team collaboration
• Limited-space theme, fast iteration
• Code stability under jam pressure as the main risk

Task

As Gameplay and Systems Programmer, my job was to set the modular foundation, build the core gameplay systems, and keep the codebase clean enough that the rest of the team could plug in mechanics without breaking anything else.

• Modular architecture decided before any feature code landed
• Player controller, tutorial flow, game-over flow
• Keep the team unblocked under jam pressure

Action

I built the game on top of a Service Locator and an Event Bus so each system could communicate without knowing the others directly. Game flow was driven by a State Pattern that split logic into preparation, playing, and game-over stages. The tutorial was its own state machine so steps only advanced when the player completed each action. The player controller was tuned for responsiveness so the arcade feel held up at high speed.

• Service Locator + Event Bus for decoupled cross-system communication
• State Pattern for the global game flow
• Dedicated tutorial state machine, advances only on completed actions
• Responsive 2D player controller for arcade feel

Result

We shipped a complete game with a fairly clean architecture in spite of the time pressure. The biggest takeaway was watching a state-driven tutorial guide players through the game without disrupting the main loop.

• Game shipped on time, playable build on itch.io
• Architecture stayed readable for the whole team through to the end
• Tutorial state machine became a reusable pattern for future jams

Build time

1 week

Role

Gameplay + Systems

Patterns shipped

Service Locator · Event Bus · State