One More Night: From Prototype to Playable in 5 Days
One More Night went from first commit to a fully playable zombie survival game in five days. Here’s the timeline.
Day 1 — The Prototype (Feb 16)
The initial prototype landed with core survival gameplay: a player, zombies, shooting, and a wave system. Same day, it got an atmospheric horror overhaul with darkness, damage feedback, and audio. Then props and decorations, packed spritesheets, and the wave system was renamed to “nights” to match the theme.
By end of day, the game had joystick controls, a sign-up screen, WASD desktop support, and a kill counter. Not bad for day one.
Day 2 — Buildings & Depth (Feb 17)
- Building progression system with multi-floor support
- Procedurally generated buildings with rooms, yards, and doors
Day 3 — The Big Push (Feb 18)
This was the most productive day. The game went from “promising prototype” to “this is actually a game”:
- Splash screen with loading progress and menu background
- Improved building layouts: wall variants, 2-door design, mixed windows, room themes
- Directional sprites and attack animations
- Line-of-sight lighting system with shadow occlusion behind walls and props
- Crossbow with piercing mechanic and shotgun pellet scaling
- Flamethrower with ground fire patches
- Dragon’s Breath combo weapon with burn damage over time
- 4 abilities: Dodge, Regen, Blitz, and Shield
- 5-tier XP gem system (Common to Legendary)
- Nightly survival timer
- Zombie scent system for cross-floor pathfinding
Day 4 — Accounts & Economy (Feb 19)
- Account system with email verification
- Guest and signed-in states on the main menu
- Polished pause menu with stats panel and smooth transitions
- Death screen overhaul with coin economy
- Meta-upgrade shop where coins earned from runs buy permanent upgrades
Day 5 — Store Polish (Feb 20)
- Crisp store UI pass: sharp edges, icon columns, high-contrast cards
- Final polish and deployment to night.echoforge.games
What’s In the Game Now
- 5 weapons: Pistol, Shotgun, Crossbow, Flamethrower, Dragon’s Breath
- 3 zombie variants: Small, Big, and Axe-wielding
- 4 abilities: Dodge, Regen, Blitz, Shield
- Dynamic lighting with line-of-sight occlusion
- Procedural maps with explorable buildings
- XP gem system with 5 tiers scaling by wave and enemy difficulty
- Coin economy with a meta-upgrade shop between runs
- Mobile-first design with a vertical 390×844 canvas
Five days from nothing to a game with 5 weapons, dynamic lighting, and a meta-progression shop. The pace was intense, but the result speaks for itself. Try it at night.echoforge.games.
— Bruno