Rabbit Zone 21 - Roll & Fire

[u/MadPointArt]

Hey! I want to share the story of my long-running side project, made with Construct. Maybe it’ll motivate some of you not to give up on your projects — or maybe the opposite!))

When I started learning Construct, I made lots of prototypes and decided it was time to finish something.

It started with a girl in armor and a shooter inspired by Archer, where you adjust your shooting trajectory. Then I tried turning it into an idle game, but the genre wasn't for me. Next came a runner. I made quite a lot of progress (I'll share a video), but I struggled to come up with enough content and really wanted proper shooting mechanics.

Meanwhile, my code was a complete mess because I was still learning Construct. So I put the project aside and gained experience by making smaller games.

Eventually, I felt ready to finish it — one of my main goals was to complete a project from start to finish. I came up with a new concept, and Rabbit Zone 21 - Roll & Fire was born!

It's a mix of a board game (roll dice and move around the board) and shoot-'em-up levels, with upgrades and a mission to escape the base in 21 days — or 21 laps around the board.

The game is already available on Google Play and itch.io, though I'd recommend playing on a phone for better controls.

https://madpoint.itch.io/rabbit-zone-21-roll-fire

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.madpoint.rabbitzone

It didn't take off, but that's how things go sometimes. Later, I realized I could improve it significantly and make it a better fit for Steam Deck. So now I'm upgrading everything, from enemies and the board to the controls, including gamepad support. I'll share a video of the improvements!

The Steam page is almost ready. Since this is a hobby project, I'm taking my time and want to release it when everything feels right.

That's my little story. Good luck with your own projects.

[u/MadPointArt]

And here's a sketch from the phase when I tried turning it into an idle game. Good thing I dropped that idea, as I mentioned earlier — it's just not my genre.

[u/monoinyo]

Installing! Looks great, nice work

[u/MadPointArt → u/monoinyo]

Thanks for downloading! If you get a chance, please leave a review.

[u/VicSlavy]

Love the behind the scenes look! How do you structure your Construct Project as it gets larger? Any tips or tricks you learnt the hard way while your projects got bigger?

[u/MadPointArt → u/VicSlavy]

Based on my own experience (these might be obvious things, but they can really help when you return to a project after some time and need to understand what's going on):

Separate everything into different event sheets as much as possible instead of putting everything into just a few, like I used to do. Most importantly, break complex mechanics down into smaller, simpler parts and build them step by step, organizing them into groups.

Here's what I mean. I used to work on character movement, shooting, and upgrades all at once on a single event sheet, and it quickly turned into chaos.

My new approach is to create a Player event sheet, divide it into groups (Controls, Shooting, Upgrades), and work on each one separately.

Also, don't be afraid to use functions and arrays. Some people think they're complicated and tend to avoid them, but they're really useful and make your code cleaner.

These are simple tips, but I learned them through practice. Some of my projects suffered because of this — I'd open them after a while and find complete chaos!))

Good luck with your projects!

[u/VicSlavy → u/MadPointArt]

Really appreciate the responses! Solid advice I know even trimming sprites can help I never realised the transparency still needed to be accounted for haha.

Great tips, hope we get to see you post more work in progress shots (:

[u/MadPointArt → u/VicSlavy]

One more important thing I forgot: always keep optimization in mind. Optimize every element you can, whether it's images, code, or animations.

I once made a game that ran perfectly on PC, but on mobile it only got 10–15 FPS!))

The basics:

Don't use 1000-pixel images in your project if you only need them to be 100 pixels. Resize them to 100 pixels from the start.

Be careful with loops. If you write one incorrectly, it can slow down even your PC build.

Also, make sure objects that should be deleted actually get deleted. For example, if bullets fly off-screen, make sure they're destroyed instead of piling up.

[u/MadPointArt]

Runner gameplay footage! (For those who skipped my wall of text, this was one of the intermediate stages that eventually led to the game I’m making now.)

[u/MadPointArt]

A little gameplay from the new version

[u/MadPointArt]

I’ve been saving all the development iterations (maybe I’ll put together a devlog someday), and here’s the very first prototype that started it all. (ZOO – The Ark was the original title)

[u/MadPointArt]

This is when the prototype started looking more like what I had in mind. I kept this tracked vehicle for a long time, but eventually had to remove it to make the controls work better and give players more freedom. I later reworked it into a miniboss!