Three posts in, this series has been almost entirely about process — the factory, the sub-agents, the invisible work that keeps a codebase from strangling itself. Every one of them ended with some variation of “the game continues to come along nicely,” and asked you to take my word for it.

This post is me finally showing my work. Here is roughly a minute of Hordes of Orcs 3 as it stood on day 34.

Apparently I’m doing a series of blog posts about this project!

Part 1: Six Days Equals Six Weeks

Part 2: Specialists in the Factory

Part 3: The Invisible Work Matters

What you’re looking at

Set these against the early test shot from day one — a static scene I put together just to confirm the resurrected art assets still looked coherent. Thirty-some days later it’s an actual game.

In the first video, I’m zoomed in to show off the shiny graphics, because this video comes from me doing some detailed testing / review of adding point lights as part of the visual effects.

The second video shows off the time-of-day mechanism, which is tied to a new game mechanic: Orcs get a de-buff during the day, and towers get a de-buff during the night. It also shows off the new parts of the fire tower’s mechanic: Burning orcs panic and flee – and ignite anyone else they touch along the way.

The game runs, in the browser, at a comfortable framerate on mobile, which is the whole point. I expect a performance boost when I start making actual native builds.

The honest caveats

It’s still very much Programmer Art. The clouds look great for what they are. The UI is functional, not finished. There’s no audio in this build. This is a game that plays, not a game that’s done.

I’ve been impressed with how much actual, playable game has accumulated in five weeks.

Where this lands against the 30-day promise

In the first post I said I’d come back in 30 days and tell you what broke. This is that check-in, albeit a week late. The short version is: The coherence layers held. Layer 2 — the raw output engine — (mostly) did not outrun Layers 4 and 5. The audits and the documentation kept pace. The one thing that genuinely bit me was the invisible-work problem, and that remains a key point of concern and focus.

I think it’s coming along quite nicely!