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Unity 6.42026
LAST KERNEL
An in-development cyberpunk survival strategy game: stack cards into a colony by day, then watch the system defend itself through deterministic auto-battler nights.
- Role
- Solo game developer: systems design, C# architecture, editor tooling, localization, UI, and game direction.
- Platforms
- WindowsMobile target
- Links
- Source
What it looks like
What it looks like
Development buildAn honest in-engine snapshot of the card grid and pack interface. It shows current implementation progress, not final art.
Design pillars
What this game is about
- 01Card-stacking colony simulation during the day phase
- 02Deterministic auto-battler defense during the night phase
- 03Data-driven cards, recipes, packs, quests, and encounters
- 04Event-driven UI with bilingual runtime localization
Engineering
Engineering
- Process 01
Make preparation the player's primary skill
- Context
- Direct unit control would turn the night phase into a conventional tactics game and weaken the system-building premise.
- Approach
- Keep day planning interactive and make night combat deterministic and hands-off.
- Outcome
- Success reflects the colony the player built, but weak feedback would make losses feel arbitrary, so combat explanation is essential.
- Process 02
Separate game data, rules, and presentation
- Context
- Cards, recipes, quests, packs, and encounters need frequent content iteration without coupling every change to scene objects.
- Approach
- Store definitions in ScriptableObjects, run rules in plain C# services, and reserve MonoBehaviours for views and input.
- Outcome
- Content becomes easier to validate and test, while the project needs explicit IDs, event contracts, and editor tooling.
Outcome
A substantial Unity 6.4 production foundation for a system-driven strategy game, with a documented architecture and public source repository ready for continued vertical-slice work.
Postmortem
Build notes
LAST KERNEL is not a released game yet, but it has moved well beyond a reserved concept. The current codebase contains the core run-state, card, crafting, combat, defense, quest, localization, audio, and UI layers needed for a real vertical slice. The next risk is content and tuning, not whether the architecture exists.
Design notes
Working notes
- ScriptableObjects hold card, pack, recipe, quest, and encounter data while plain C# services own the rules.
- The day-to-night loop separates player planning from deterministic hands-off combat, making preparation the primary skill.
- Runtime-switchable English and Simplified Chinese localization is built into the project instead of deferred until release.
- A custom project validator checks missing references, duplicate IDs, and invalid data after structural changes.