RPG Dice: Heroes of Whitestone

Disclaimer

Public media used, technical details from memory and shipped features.

About

Mobile tactical RPG with board-game campaign progression, dice-rolling combat, gear/team loadouts, strategic card plays, and hero upgrades. Professional UI engineering at WIMO Games during 2022 launch.

More Details from a blog by Tom Purdue, Game Designer
Link to APKCombo

My Works

• Events & Gear Inventory UI: Hooked up event screens and per-character gear loadouts in Unity/C#, showing swappable gear per slot with visual previews.
• Combat Loadout UI: Built strategic placement screen for Combat Tiles (front/back row positioning), calculating and displaying total team power from levels, gear, and dice.
• Victory UI: Implemented post-battle stats popup (damage dealt/taken, healing done) with earned item breakdowns.
• Leveling Slider: Proposed and delivered bulk leveling UI slider from current+1 to affordable max (e.g. 6-15 or 6-100), with real-time stat change previews on drag.
• Cards Tray UI: Created supplemental card system tray alongside dice movement. Supports strategic plays like "move 2 tiles," "move to objective". Finalized simple "Play" button under each card after drag-angle prototype.
• Dice Tile UI: Designed conditional bonus selector (auto-picks closest match for race/class/element), adding preview points to dice roll for buff/debuff outcomes.
• Unit Test Framework: Researched/implemented custom Unity testing API using C# Reflection/Attributes; added custom Editor window for test selection, progress, suites—deployed post-launch to catch bugs early.
• Unit Test Framework: Built UnitTestHelpers.cs wrapper over Unity's Test Framework using C# Reflection/Attributes. Enables "smart string" access to nested private fields/properties (e.g. GetVariable<Hero>("Team[0].PrivateStats.MaxHP")), deep copies, dynamic IList/IDictionary population, and base-class method calls. Added custom Editor window for test selection, progress, suites-deployed post-launch to catch bugs early.

Challenges

Leveling Slider Redesign

Original one-level-at-a-time progression felt tedious for players with resources for bulk upgrades.

Approach

• Replaced buttons with dynamic slider (min: current+1, max: affordable level via currency calculation).
• Added live stat previews (HP/ATK/etc after upgrade) updating on drag for informed decisions.

Results

• Suggestion adopted immediately. Streamlined player upgrades significantly.

Lessons & Future Improvements

• Could extend to multi-character batch leveling or "optimal build" auto-suggest based on gear/dice synergies.

Cards Play Gesture Prototype

Designers wanted tactile "draw card upward to play" feel, but scrollable tray + drag conflicts risked confusion.

Approach

• Prototyped angle-based detection, calculate drag vector from card origin: steep upward angle = "play", else scroll tray.
• A/B tested with simple per-card "Play" button. Buttons won for reliability, shipped quickly.

Results

• Quick prototype proved upward-drag gesture was technically feasible (angle calc from drag origin worked reliably).
• Testing revealed UX confusion in scrollable tray-players struggled with "steep enough" threshold, validating button as simpler shippable solution.

Lessons & Future Improvements

• Gesture demos accelerate designer buy-in but must include edge-case playtesting early to expose hidden friction.
• Hybrid approach: Default "Play" button (proven reliable), with optional swipe-up gesture unlocked via settings + on-screen angle guide (e.g. glowing arc preview during drag).

Unit Test Framework

Unity's built-in testing lacked intuitive API for nested/private object manipulation, leading to bugs in complex gameplay systems.

Approach

• Engineered Reflection toolkit (UnitTestHelpers.cs) with smart paths supporting ., [] accessors, auto-property backing fields, and deep recursion for arbitrary nesting.
• Added dynamic constructors (any param count/type), IList/IDictionary factories, mock-safe type resolution across assemblies, and custom Editor window for test suites/progress.

Results

• Delivered working framework from R&D, manager praised delivery. Prevented regressions across team.

Lessons & Future Improvements

• Could add CI/CD integration or gameplay-data-driven test generation (e.g. auto-validate dice rolls).

Play Demo Video