Overview
Mod City was developed for the Semester Games Jam during the summer semester. The jam took place fully online, which added an additional coordination challenge to the project. The theme was Modification, which our team interpreted through a game built around in-game mod selection. The core idea was a 2D platformer in a cyberpunk setting in which only the right combination of mods allows the player to complete the game.
Mods could be selected from a curated list in the main menu, while progress checkpoints remained persistent when returning to that menu. This allowed players to switch mods during a run and experiment with different combinations as part of the core gameplay loop.
My main responsibilities in the project were the implementation of the mod system and the setup of the rendering pipeline. The mod system was based on ScriptableObjects, which made it possible to modify a wide range of game elements, including character behavior, presentation, and audio. Although building such a flexible system within a game jam timeframe was challenging, it proved robust enough to support a variety of gameplay-relevant mods.
On the visual side, we used Unity’s Universal Render Pipeline, which fit well with the team’s 2D art direction. The game’s visuals were fully hand-drawn, and we invested considerable effort into lighting and animation to give the environment a more polished and expressive appearance.
Impressions
Conclusion
This project was a strong exercise in systems design, tooling flexibility, and remote collaboration under game jam constraints. In particular, the mod architecture was an interesting technical challenge because it had to remain both flexible for content creation and stable enough to support the central gameplay idea within a very limited timeframe.
The final result was well received and combined a clear gameplay concept with a polished visual presentation. The project is available on GitHub and on Itch.io, where it can also be played directly in the browser. A Windows build is provided below for cases where WebGL support is limited.
