Cottage Corps
About
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Cottage Corps is a cottagecore-inspired autobattler in which players purchase and place troops on a grid, then watch battles unfold against various mushroom enemies. As players progress through each stage, they earn gold to build stronger teams and prepare for the next encounter.
Project Info
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Role(s):​ Game Developer
Team Size: 5
Timeline: Jun 2022 - Aug 2022
Engine: Unity (C#)
Tags: 2D, Autobattler, Casual, Cottagecore, Grid
Updated: Mar 2026
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Cottage Corps was developed over three months by a team of five, including myself, during the Co-Creative Design and Development Practice (GDO730) module in my postgraduate degree in Indie Game Development at Falmouth University.
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The module brought together students from both the UI/UX course and the Indie Game Development course to collaborate on a project aimed at casual mobile players. The goal was to use research to guide our design decisions as we developed the project through several stages, starting with early Figma prototypes, then a proof of concept, and eventually a vertical slice to be presented to a mock publishing team.
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Players spend in-game currency to recruit troops and place them on a grid before each battle. When the round starts, the fight plays out automatically as their team takes on the mushroom enemies.​​​​
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I was one of three game developers working on the project and contributed to the core gameplay systems that supported the loop. My main focus was implementing the grid-based placement system, which allowed players to drag and drop troops onto the battlefield before each round began.
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I also programmed the systems responsible for enemy spawning and round progression. To ensure gameplay worked reliably, I created logic that prevented players or enemies from occupying the same tile, while enemy units would continue searching for a free tile before spawning. This ensured that each round could start cleanly while still allowing some randomness in how enemies appeared on the grid.
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Alongside the technical work, I carried out research into the mobile games market and explored potential monetisation approaches that could fit the game. Based on findings from GetSocial and the Global Games Market Report, I proposed a monetisation model and created a development timeline covering the full lifecycle of the game, including potential post-launch content.
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I really enjoyed working on this project, particularly because it allowed me to collaborate closely with UI/UX students. Their specialised focus on interface design offered valuable perspectives on how players interact with games, especially for mobile platforms where screen layout and orientation play a big role in the experience.
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From a technical standpoint, the project helped me learn a lot about grid-based systems and how both player-controlled units and AI can interact within them. It also gave me a better understanding of how these systems can be used to build autobattler-style gameplay.
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Rush to the Finish Line
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At times, I did feel slightly overwhelmed by the amount of research required to support our design decisions. Looking back, I think I could have collaborated more closely with the other developers to share that workload. As the deadline approached, we also found ourselves focusing more on preparing the final presentation than on polishing the gameplay itself.
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That said, the project had a very strong visual and design foundation thanks to the high-quality UI and concept work produced by the UI/UX team. With more time to refine the gameplay and polish the experience, I believe the project could have evolved into something that might have been suitable for release on the Google Play Store.
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