Hex Tower Defense

Hex Tower Defense is a mobile strategy game project built to showcase advanced systems programming skills and modern Game Design thinking. The project focuses on a flexible, maintainable codebase through Clean Architecture and deep tactical gameplay on a hexagonal grid.

Project Overview

This is not a typical tower defense game — it is a technical showcase of how to build a stable, engine-agnostic Game Loop with a highly scalable system architecture.

1. Game Design Thinking

Inspired by hex-grid Auto-Battlers (such as TFT), the game introduces a Maze Building mechanic — players don’t just place towers, they actively shape the enemy’s path. Combined with a Merge Mechanic that allows players to combine basic towers into more powerful, specialized ones.

2. System Architecture

All core logic is fully decoupled from Unity (a Domain Layer written in Pure C#), applying Dependency Injection and the Observer Pattern. This makes the codebase highly maintainable and enables Unit Testing without launching the Unity Editor.

3. Core Mechanics

  • A* Pathfinding: A hexagonal grid pathfinding algorithm with a tie-breaker for natural-looking paths.
  • Deadlock Prevention: Uses BFS to guarantee players can never completely trap enemies on the map.
  • Combat System: Applies Strategy and Modifier Patterns to generate dozens of attack effect combinations (Chain, Splash, Burn…) purely through JSON configuration.

4. Status Effect System

A sophisticated ActiveEffect system supporting 5 different scaling modes (by % of max health, % of tower damage, etc.), enabling meaningful tactical differentiation between Fire, Ice, Lightning, and Poison towers.

5. Data & Resource Management

The project applies a Data-Driven approach: game balancing via JSON and asset management (Models, VFX) via Unity Addressables. Combined with Object Pooling to eliminate stuttering caused by Garbage Collection on mobile devices.

6. Performance Optimization

Uses Procedural HexMesh to render the entire map in a single Draw Call, and replaces Unity’s heavy Physics system with logical coordinate calculations to handle range detection and collision interactions.

Technical Focus: This project is a Technical Prototype (Alpha). 100% of resources were invested in building a Scalable Architecture and pure Gameplay Logic. As a result, the VFX and UI systems currently use basic placeholders to prioritize performance optimization and code cleanliness.