The Upgrades of Mega Dimension Ripper 9000

How we created our game’s upgrade system

In Mega Dimension Ripper 9000, as stated in a previous post, the player will be presented with many upgrade options that can make them ever more powerful. These upgrades help players fend off the ever-increasing waves of enemies they will face. 

The upgrades in our game went through many iterations. In addition to making the player stronger, they needed to feel good to use. Early on, the team brainstormed many concepts. Some ideas were scrapped, but others stuck around from the very beginning. The idea of Chain Lightning is one of these ideas; the way it arced between enemies made it instantly more satisfying. 

One major focus was making sure upgrades played well together. Individually, each one had to be useful, but the real fun came from combining them. Explosive Attacks and Ricochet might seem like separate mechanics at first, but together they create this very fun and chaotic effect where bullets would explode on each bounce. Those kinds of synergies were what we kept chasing: upgrades that didn’t just add numbers but changed how the player approached combat or changed how the player thought about their build. 

Mechanically, upgrades fell into two broad categories. The first are player upgrades, which are mostly just simple stat boosts: things like increased damage, movement speed, and dash modifiers. These are simple to tweak since they mostly involve adjusting values in a stat block. The second type, bullet upgrades, are more complex. These add unique triggers and behaviors to attacks, like splitting bullets on hit or making them pierce through enemies. Each one is tied to specific triggers: when a bullet is fired, when it hits something, or even when it expires. That way, we can control exactly when and how the effect activates. 

Take Chain Lightning as an example. First, when the bullet spawns, we attach a sparking lightning visual effect to it. Then, when it hits an enemy, the lightning jumps to nearby targets. The entire process is event-driven, meaning we don’t have to manually script every interaction, it just works within the system we built. 

We also wanted certain upgrades to scale if players acquired them multiple times. Ricochet starts with one bounce, but getting it again adds another, letting bullets bounce multiple times. Explosive Attacks will grow in radius with each additional copy, turning small detonations into screen-filling blasts. These stacking upgrades give players a reason to specialize, making each run feel a little different depending on what they find or take. 

In the end, the goal was to keep upgrades simple to understand but with enough depth to allow the player to find and create unique builds to use across multiple playthroughs. The best upgrades don’t just make you stronger, they make you play differently! 

-Aidan Brausen