Merge, Destroy, Earn Money, repeat. A physics-heavy mobile game where optimization tricks became more valuable than traditional solutions.
- Hyper-Casual
- About a month
- Solo
- Generalist
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08
Palette Smasher was a commercial project at Cassette LLC that challenged me to create a complex physics-based game within tight performance constraints. The gameplay loop revolves around managing saws in a grid, merging them for upgrades, shooting them at pixel art structures, and vacuuming the fallen blocks for currency.
What makes this project special isn't just the gameplay, but the optimization challenges it presented. With hundreds of bouncing saws and thousands of falling pixel blocks, I had to learn that sometimes clever visual tricks work better than brute-force optimization.
The game features a satisfying three-phase loop: strategically merge saws in your grid to create more durable tools, aim and shoot them to break down colorful pixel art structures, then vacuum up the fallen blocks to earn money for the next round. Each level requires multiple attempts and upgrades to fully clear.
Though the project didn't meet CPI requirements for publication, it taught me invaluable lessons about mobile optimization and the art of creating convincing illusions when raw performance isn't achievable.