Suspense Defense

What is this game?

A wave-based action defense game built on a custom C++ engine. As tech lead, I designed procedural map generation, A*-based movement, monster and wave systems, and a Mediator-pattern messaging hub to decouple subsystems under tight engine constraints.

Team Info

• Role: Tech Lead
• Team: 4 members
• Engine/Tools: C++, Custom Engine, CMake

Contributions

• Built a custom C++ tower defense engine with a Mediator-style manager coordinating turrets, enemies, and projectiles.
• Added procedural level layouts using cellular automata with guaranteed start–end connectivity and difficulty-curve alignment.
• Implemented A*-based enemy routing and wave timing to control difficulty and keep encounters readable.
• Used a lightweight Mediator/event hub to reduce coupling between subsystems and centralize communication.

Challenges & Solutions

• Tightly coupled subsystems made changes risky; applying a Mediator pattern isolated communication and simplified routing.
• Purely random generation caused unstable difficulty; we constrained generation with seed and curve parameters to keep runs fair.
• Occasional blocked routes required regeneration and validation rules to ensure there was always a valid path to the goal.

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