I made Vortex for Ludum Dare 50. The theme was “Delay the inevitable,” which I interpreted as surviving as long as possible while the sun’s gravity pulls a constant stream of meteors toward you.
The game is built in Unity, but I wanted to do something a bit extra for the leaderboard. Instead of using a third-party service, I built a small backend in TypeScript (Express.js) and a MongoDB database, hosted on Render. It handles score persistence and exposes a REST API that the game talks to.
I also spent some time in Unity’s Shader Graph to create a starfield effect with fading stars. It’s a simple parallax effect, but it adds a lot to the “space” feel.
It was a fun 48-hour sprint, and I’m happy with how the final version turned out.
Screenshots:
