GAMEPLAY ENGINEERING
Signal Surge
GAME SUMMARY
Signal Surge is a prototype strategy game designed to teach Airmen about network security and communications infrastructure in deployed environments.
THE PLAYER EXPERIENCE
Make network tradeoffs visible and playable.
Players build, defend, and troubleshoot a communications network while dealing with physical raids, power limitations, signal jamming, spoofing, and damage. The goal is to turn abstract infrastructure relationships into decisions a player can see and respond to.
MY CONTRIBUTION
I worked as a Gameplay Engineer on the ten person team, focusing on the systems that model terrain, network behavior, and evolving threats.
- Hex Grid: Terrain and elevation influence line of sight and latency while players extend the network toward remote nodes.
- Network Layer: End to end connections surface throughput and failures caused by power, interference, and physical damage.
- Dynamic Threats: A modular event system supports scheduled and probabilistic raids, cyber attacks, jamming, and spoofing.
- Player Tools: Air strikes, jamming overlays, cinematics, and VFX communicate what is happening across the network.
INSTRUCTIONS TO PLAY
Try the prototype.
- Open the itch.io page and select Play.
