Forest Frenzy - The Making of a Mobile Game

The evolution of mobile games

Mobile games—the global multi-billion dollar industry that helps us pass the time, relax, and cut into productive time anywhere from a couple minutes to hours a day.

From the early days of downloading titles like Tap Tap Revenge and Paper Toss on the iPod Touch, to modern developers creating full-fledged AAA experiences that require gigabyte-level downloads, the mobile landscape has evolved into a completely different monster than it was a decade or two ago.

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Learning the craft

I played around with the idea of making my own games and poked around on YouTube, Lynda.com, and Pluralsight to get my fill of key concepts and inspiration.

Most of these tutorials included source code, artwork, and other assets one could download and start experimenting with immediately inside their IDE of choice.

It felt like being handed the building blocks of game development and being told: go build something interesting.

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The start of Forest Frenzy

Work on Forest Frenzy started in 2023 as a passion project.

The inspiration came from gamification—specifically improving reflexes and hand-eye coordination through simple but engaging mechanics.

Forest Frenzy is by no means groundbreaking, yet it's mine, built to be shaped and refined from the ground up.

With my sights set on building a compelling mobile game, I fired up Visual Studio and Unity and got to coding.

I started by creating:

• A countdown timer
• A 4x4 grid full of blank tiles
• Simple placeholder tile assets

Below is an early screenshot of the game, with green, red, and purple tiles forming the initial prototype.

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Building the core loop

The main game loop quickly came together:

• Tiles spawn randomly
• Players tap tiles to gain or lose points

From there, I began experimenting with spawn speeds to determine what felt right for different difficulty levels.

A three-tier structure emerged naturally:

• Beginner
• Intermediate
• Advanced

This gave players a smooth learning curve while still offering fast-paced gameplay for experienced users.

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Expanding game modes

Once the core loop felt solid, I explored additional game modes to add variety.

Lines Mode

Lines Mode alternates between a random row or column, spawning a line of green tiles while the rest of the board is filled with red tiles.

The 30-second timer and scoring system remain unchanged, but the gameplay feel is completely different.

Sniper Mode

Sniper Mode challenges players with a single green tile spawn at a time.

Only the finest of snipers should attempt this mode—tapping a blank tile ends the game instantly.

The objective is simple: hit only green tiles and reach the target score as quickly as possible.

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Current state of the game

For now, Lines Mode and Sniper Mode are not included in the latest release of Forest Frenzy.

I chose to scale things back and focus on the core experience: Frenzy Mode, which serves as the main gameplay loop.

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Play the game

Forest Frenzy is free to download on both iOS and Android:

Download Forest Frenzy for iOS here
Download Forest Frenzy for Android here