Overview
EZD (EZDungeon) is a track-based puzzle game from a very early Ludum Dare — one of the first complete games I made. You move along a network of tracks, collect coins, and avoid enemies that run the same tracks on predictable patterns. Since everyone is stuck on the rails, survival comes down to reading the patterns and picking your route.
Gameplay
Levels are rooms of connected track that get more complicated as you go, with each room building on the one before it. The enemies are avoidable if you pay attention, and the coins give you a reason to take routes you would rather not. It is a puzzle game at heart, but everything moves in real time, so you end up committing to a route before you are entirely sure about it.
Development
Built in GameMaker Studio and exported to HTML5 at 600x600. The main system is the track network itself — horizontal, vertical, and corner pieces that both the player and the enemies move along — with room-based level progression on top. Most of the iteration went into the enemies: they had to follow the tracks and still be avoidable, which took a lot of playtesting to balance. It is early work and it shows, but the core mechanic still holds up.
Engine: GameMaker Studio
Platform: HTML5 (Web)
Genre: Puzzle, Strategy, Track-Based
Resolution: 600x600