As the lead programmer for this game, the biggest challenge was ensuring that at each stage of development, we had not overscoped on the numerous mechanics we wanted in the project. I was not immune to wanting more and interesting mechanics, and thus it was in discussions with the project lead that we pruned mechanics that would take too long to complete, would clash with existing ones, or proved to be too tricky to implement with our physics systems.

As a designer, I created the star system for scoring. The system uses a point and objective system as follows:

Players can score three stars. The first star is point-based, achieved via delivering cargo.

The other two stars are achieved via completing objectives, e.g. delivering to a destination 5 of its perferred cargo. My teammates asked me why I wanted to use this system, compared to a simpler point-based star system like we used in Hangry Guardians.

I came up with it as I wanted the game to have more replayability while creating more interesting challenges for veteran players.

The intent is to keep the point requirement low so players can easily achieve a star. This is important as later levels are locked until the player collects enough stars. However in order to collect all stars in a level, more difficult objectives would need to be fulfilled. This allows casual players to progress through the game, while giving more experienced players a challenge.