Design Case Study
Coconut
Incremental / Tycoon Game | Designer & Developer
Progression, economy, and long-term goals in a commercially released incremental game.
66,000+ Steam downloads
164 hours reported median playtime
2 developers collaborative development
Overview & My Role
I collaborated with a partner to design and develop Coconut, a Cookie Clicker-inspired tycoon game. My work spans gameplay implementation and systems including progression, economy, shop, inventory, prestige, leaderboards, and rewards.
Core Loop
The game connects short-term earning and shop decisions with longer-term progression and prestige. This is a high-level view of those systems, rather than a fixed sequence every player must follow.
- Earn
- Shop & Progress
- Build Long-Term Goals
- Prestige & Return
Systems That Support the Loop
Immediate decisions
The economy and shop give earnings a purpose. Inventory tracks what the player has acquired, connecting moment-to-moment activity to persistent progress.
Long-term reasons to return
Prestige provides a recurring progression goal, while leaderboards add a point of comparison. Rewards connect a simple repeating activity to goals beyond a single session.
Design Questions
These are balancing considerations for the systems, not claims of formal player research.
- How should progression costs scale so advancement feels understandable?
- How often should a player reach a meaningful upgrade?
- When should prestige become more appealing than continued progression?
- How can simple mechanics support long-term goals?
Release & Perspective
Coconut reached 66,000+ Steam downloads, with a reported median playtime of 164 hours. These are release metrics; they do not establish which individual design decisions caused players to stay.
View Coconut on SteamTechnical Implementation
Built with Godot and GDScript, with Steam SDK integration. I implemented automatic saving and loading to preserve progress between sessions. We used Git and an agile workflow to collaborate.