Cock Block | Shamus Donaldson Portfolio

Cock Block

Platform:

Mobile - App Store, Google Play

Engine:

Unity

Language:

Team Size:

Overview

Cock Block is a casual, fast-paced action game built in Unity 3D, designed around simple swipe mechanics and playful chaos. The player’s objective is to swipe flying chickens into a barn to earn points, while keeping roosters out by swiping them off the screen.

Gameplay is straightforward:

Chickens and roosters are launched into the air from a central pen.
Players swipe chickens left into the barn for points.
If a rooster is mistakenly sent into the barn, the player loses one of three lives.
Swipe a rooster up or right, and they’re safely removed from the farm.

The game gets progressively faster and more intense, ramping up the spawn rate of chickens and roosters over time. To enhance player feedback and game feel, I added explosions and comic-style word bubbles—like “Oof!”, “Nice!”, and “Great!”—that trigger when birds hit their targets, reinforcing both success and failure with satisfying visuals. Players compete on a global leaderboard to earn the highest score before running out of lives.

Project Design Goals

Cock Block was a focused project built to accomplish several key goals:

Practice Proficiency with Unity 3D
- Build a complete, polished game loop using Unity’s physics and input systems, including collision handling and dynamic feedback.
Explore Swipe-Based Mechanics
- Design a game built entirely around gesture-based controls, with no reliance on on-screen buttons—ideal for mobile play.
Integrate a Global Leaderboard
- Learn how to store, retrieve, and display player scores using an online database and leaderboard system.
Enhance Game Feel Through Visual Feedback
- Add explosions, screen flashes, and comic word bubbles to give each swipe a sense of weight, impact, and personality.

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1/5

Post-Mortem

Cock Block started as a lighthearted experiment in gesture-based gameplay, and quickly became a great opportunity to explore mobile-focused design, input handling, and moment-to-moment feedback. Built in Unity 3D, the game’s core loop—swipe chickens into the barn, swipe roosters away—was designed to be simple, silly, and satisfying.

What Went Well

Responsive Swipe Controls: The core mechanic felt intuitive and responsive. Swiping birds in different directions created an immediate, tactile feedback loop that worked well on mobile devices.
Visual Feedback Improvements: Adding explosions and comic-style word bubbles like “Oof!” and “Great!” gave the game a boost in personality and clarity. These quick, punchy effects made it much easier for players to understand what they did right or wrong in the moment.
Leaderboard Integration: Implementing an online leaderboard added replayability and a competitive edge. It gave players a reason to come back and push for better scores, even in a game with no long-term progression.
Scoped Execution: The game had a clear scope and was completed quickly without bloat—an important lesson in starting small and finishing strong.

Challenges

Limited Long-Term Engagement: Without unlockable content, power-ups, or difficulty variations beyond spawn rate, gameplay could start to feel repetitive after a few sessions.
Minimal Visual Variety: While the comic effects added flair, the art and animation for birds and backgrounds remained simple, which reduced the sense of progression or escalation.
Game Feel Still Had Room to Grow: Although explosions and text bubbles were effective, I could have further enhanced the experience with sound effects, slow motion on close calls, or screen shake on mistakes.

What I’d Do Differently

Introduce progressive modifiers or occasional chaos moments (like weather changes or bonus chickens) to break up the pace.
Add reward systems, like unlockable barn skins, costumes, or chicken types, to increase retention.
Refine hit feedback even further with richer sound design and brief animations (e.g., chickens cheerfully flapping or roosters squawking in defeat).

Final Thoughts

Cock Block was a fun, low-stakes project that gave me the freedom to experiment with core mechanics, feedback systems, and leaderboard tech—all within a tight production window. It also taught me the importance of game feel: even in the simplest games, adding visual and audio payoff can dramatically elevate the player experience. Most importantly, it reaffirmed that small games can be powerful learning tools, and that even a silly concept can result in meaningful design growth.