Gold Rush is a endless runner shoot-em-up about outrunning a police chase after a big heist. It was one of the first solo projects I worked on at QUT in 2023. Two core mechanics work in tandem to keep the player barely avoiding danger while maintaining high speeds. These are the fact that the player can drift to restore health, and the fact that going faster makes the player take less damage.

 

The player is in a constant state of fluctuation between going the top speed to brute force their way through damage (which also makes it harder to dodge incoming obstacles) and drifting to heal which slows them down, makes it easier to dodge obstacles but makes them more vulnerable.