Rush Commander

Overview

Rush Commander, a thrilling survivor game, features reinforcement mechanics and a top view. Your ultimate mission is to survive the relentless onslaught of the Third Reich. Lead your company through the battlefield, constantly on the edge of survival.

I worked as a Game and Technical Designer on this project as part of my internships, designing and implementing new systems such as perks and drops systems, and new enemies.

Steam

Project details

Studio: FiveXGames
My role: Game & Technical designer
Genre: Survivor, roguelite
Platform: PC
Internships duration: April 2024 - July 2024
Engine: Unity

My Contributions

Designed and documented a perk upgrade tree:

Defined the structure and progression of player perks.
Designed all perk levels, detailing every buff and its impact on player abilities.

Balanced the game's different difficulty levels.
Designed and documented a random drops system:

Defined the drop mechanics and item pool.
Based on a dynamic probability system considering the item pool.

Implemented the drops system and integrated it into the game.
Designed and documented several new enemies.
Created a QA testing guide.
Performed extensive QA across the entire game.

Design Challenges

The challenge

When I joined the project, Rush Commander had a solid foundation. But playtesting revealed a critical problem: despite being a roguelite survivor, runs felt repetitive. The only things changing were enemy spawns, and the existing perk system that offered random upgrades between levels, but they were purely stat-based — more damage, more speed, more health. Nothing that changed how the game was played.

In a genre built on replayability, monotony is a death sentence. We needed each run to feel meaningfully different.

Our approach

We designed and implemented two new systems to inject variety into every run:

Branching perk tree. We overhauled the perk system from flat stat upgrades to a tiered, branching structure with passive abilities that changed gameplay: bouncing bullets, bullets that split into two on impact, area explosions... Each perk had synergies with others, creating emergent combinations players could discover and build around.
Enemy drop system. We introduced a weight-based random drop system tied to enemy kills. Drops included health packs, experience magnets, heavy artillery... giving players moments of opportunity and further differentiating runs based on what the game throws at them.

The goal was intentional: generate chaos. In survivor games, chaos is fun — the unpredictability is what makes players want to run again to see what combinations they can pull off.

What broke

Chaos is fun but only when it's controlled. Once the new systems were implemented and prototyped, certain perk combinations and drop sequences started breaking the game's design. Some synergies were too powerful, others invalidated core mechanics entirely, and the drop economy disrupted the intended difficulty curve.

How we fixed it

Perk balancing. We tuned values and constraints on each passive to ensure no single perk or combination trivialised the game, while keeping synergies strong enough to feel rewarding.
Drop weight calibration. We adjusted the probability weights and spawn conditions for each drop type to maintain the intended difficulty curve without removing the sense of luck and reward.

Result

Each run now feels distinct — perk combinations and drop sequences create emergent gameplay that keeps players coming back.

The chaos is controlled: synergies are powerful and surprising, but no combination breaks the game’s balance.

The drop system adds a layer of moment-to-moment decision-making that reinforces the survivor fantasy without disrupting the difficulty curve.