CAGD 377 - Blog Post 6
- Els Fouche
- Nov 20, 2025
- 3 min read
Plague Break
Plague Break is a match 3 game with combat and roguelite elements where you play as a survivor struggling against the zombie hoard. Creating matches allows you to damage enemies - defeat them quickly before they overwhelm you.
Injury
During this sprint I crashed my motorcycle and injured my shoulder. Typing has proven challenging with my arm in a sling. I was able to complete a build in time for the beta play test despite the injury.
Piece Replacement
The primary feature I was able to complete during this sprint was falling piece replacement. This feature was planned from the beginning but had been placed on the back-burner due to it not technically being essential to the success of the project. That said, with its implementation the game now follows the usual 'match-3' genre convention.
Following the implementation of the basics of the feature I added visual effects when completing matches.
This will be our last major feature addition prior to launch. I personally feel that this change from the previous mechanic is noteworthy beyond the expected. It is admittedly delightful when the player creates a match that causes the blocks to cascade, automatically creating more matches. However, I feel that the previous placeholder system was a unique take on the genre.
Previously, creating a match removed the blocks from the set of viable choices for the player to match with, which turned the game into more of a procedural puzzle game. It necessitated that the player carefully plan out their moves in order to position blocks so that they wouldn't make it impossible to finish the game. This planning ahead is not necessary with the automatic replacement paradigm. I personally would have liked to have leaned into this unexpectedly fun mechanic that differed from genre convention.
Settings
After discussing it with the producer and designer, I maintained the old mechanic which can be activated if the player selects 'hard mode' from the settings menu.
Considering that the implementation of the hard mode setting took nearly no additional time, all members of our team felt it was a worthwhile inclusion.
The primary modifications I made with regards to the settings were to refactor the way the sound system functioned in order to allow for project-wide control of the volume multiplier of sound sources as defined in the player's saved data.
Issues
Old Issues
Issue #11: Upgrade progress bars in the crystal shop don't update properly when exiting and re-entering.
This bug has been corrected as of this sprint. The crystal shop now appropriately updates the progress bar display.
Issue #12: Some audio elements are not modified based on the volume setting.
This bug has been corrected as part of the audio refactor. All audio sources now appropriately update based on the player's preferences and the project-wide audio settings.
Issue #13: Some audio has clipping due to scene transitions interrupting it.
This bug has been corrected as part of the audio refactor. Audio is now handled centrally in an object that is part of the preload scene and thus allows audio to carry over between scene transitions.
New Issues
Issue #14: Blocks appear to vanish after matches due to not returning to their 'home' location. These blocks reappear at the correct location if the touched, revealing that they were simply 'hiding' under other blocks.
This bug was addressed just prior to the end of the sprint. Additional testing is necessary in order to confirm it has been corrected.
The bug seems to have been caused by the asynchronous algorithm that handles pieces returning 'home'. The algorithm would discard additional instructions while operating.
Action: Updated the return piece coroutine to restart when called again while active.
Effect: Further testing required.
Issue #15: The level select screen persists into levels.
Number of reports: 1
I have been unable to replicate this issue.
Action: Noted and filed; will not fix.
Issue #16: The game board has shadows cast on it by enemies.
This issue will be addressed in the final sprint.
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