3 Lives

An arcade wave-survival mobile game built in Unity with C#, featuring custom object pooling, component caching, and mobile-first UI architecture.

UnityC#MobileGame
3 Lives screenshot

Overview

3 Lives is a landscape-oriented mobile wave-survival game developed in Unity where players defend against escalating hordes of undead adversaries with a strict three-life limit. The game pairs a dual-touch control scheme with a progressive leveling curve that scales enemy speed, health, and spawn density over time.

Tools & Technologies: Unity, C#, LeanTween, Android Build Pipeline

Technical Contributions & Systems Breakdown

1. Memory & CPU Optimization Pipeline

To sustain a consistent frame rate across diverse Android hardware, I architected the runtime loop to minimize garbage collection overhead and CPU bottlenecks:

  • Object Pooling System: Engineered reusable object pools in C# for all projectile instances and zombie entities, eliminating runtime Instantiate and Destroy calls and preventing garbage collection frame stutters during high-density waves.
  • Component Reference Caching: Refactored entity scripts to cache component references during initialization, removing repetitive GetComponent lookups from per-frame Update loops.
  • Physics Matrix & Tag Optimization: Configured dedicated Unity physics layer collision matrices and replaced string comparisons with CompareTag to reduce physics evaluation overhead.
  • Asset & Audio Compression: Standardized texture atlas packing and compressed audio streams to shrink the APK footprint and reduce RAM usage on mobile devices.
  • Adaptive Frame Rate Throttling: Implemented dynamic target FPS controls to balance battery consumption and thermal performance against high-refresh gameplay.

2. Core Gameplay & Progression Mechanics

Player Combat Stance In-game Zombie Horde Gameplay
  • Dynamic Wave Spawner: Built a wave controller that progressively introduces faster and higher-health enemy variants based on survival duration.
  • Player Leveling System: Implemented an experience and upgrade loop that scales player damage throughput to match escalating wave difficulty.
  • Dual-Touch Input Controller: Created a responsive two-touch input handler (one touch for movement, one for aiming and firing) tailored for handheld ergonomics.

3. Programmatic Mobile UI Architecture

User Interface Animation Showcase of the lightweight, animated main menu transitions.

  • Handheld Ergonomics: Designed high-contrast HUD layouts with large tap targets suited for small phone and tablet viewports.
  • LeanTween UI Motion: Integrated the LeanTween library to drive vector translations, scaling, and fade transitions in code, avoiding the performance overhead of Unity Animator controllers.

Direct Impact

  • Stable Mobile Performance: The object pooling and component caching architecture eliminated frame drops during peak horde counts on mid-range Android devices.
  • Lightweight Footprint: Texture atlasing and programmatic UI tweening kept memory consumption low and load times fast.