The Artifact

The Artifact is a 2D survival strategy game where the player must defend a central artifact from waves of attacking wolves. Bush fruits scattered across the map can be used to heal the artifact — and the twist is that the player's own health is linked to the artifact's health. If the artifact falls, you lose. This shared health mechanic creates constant tension between aggressive defense and resource management.

• → Linked health system — player HP and artifact HP share the same pool, creating a unique risk mechanic
• → Wolf enemy AI that prioritizes attacking the artifact over the player, forcing constant repositioning
• → Bush and fruit interaction system — harvestable objects that respawn on a timer after being picked
• → Heal-on-use mechanic where fruits restore artifact health on contact, not on pickup
• → Wave escalation — wolf pack sizes and attack speed increase each round
• → Game over condition tied to artifact HP reaching zero rather than player HP alone

The linked health system was the most interesting design and programming challenge in this project. Deciding whether to implement it as a shared reference, an event system, or a polling check led me to use Unity Events for the first time — and seeing how cleanly they decoupled the player and artifact systems made me a convert. I still use event-driven patterns in almost everything I build now.