Snapfire Race
Description: Dota 2 mod centered around its character Snapfire
Role: Sole developer (programmer, designer)
Platform: Valve Workshop
Language: Lua
Duration: July 2020 - October 2020
I wanted to practice programming, and I liked this character a lot. I learned the basics through watching PohkaDev and Rhykker’s YouTube tutorials, consulting the ModDota discord community, and reading the ModDota.com documentation.
I wanted to use Snapfire’s “Firesnap Cookie” ability which lets her jump over obstacles, and her three other abilities to quickly put down her enemies. A racing game where players can kill each other sounded fitting. I designed a race track with a variety of obstacles using the Valve Hammer.
Overview in Valve Hammer.
I used the Valve Console and the Lua Development Tools to debug the game logic script.
Valve Console
Issue commands to help testing such as adding bots or link the Lua debugger.
Lua Development Tools
Displays errors from the Dota 2 server, which includes the ones from my scripts.
Feedback
I tested the game with friends several times and went through several iterations to improve on the design. Players wanted a longer game and a more challenging course. I received positive feedback from the Dota 2 subreddit with several hundred upvotes, and a professional Dota 2 streamer Admiral Bulldog played it on his stream for more than 8000 viewers.