Rakkhosh Must Die — Tower Defense Game
A from-scratch 3D tower-defense game in OpenGL/GLUT: seven escalating waves, weapons, traps, auto-turrets, timed power-ups and a boss fight, with hand-built physics, animation and HUD.

Defend the core
Scroll to watch it unfold. Each beat is one documented step of the project.

- 01
Build
Place traps and auto-targeting turrets along the enemy path.
- 02
Wave
Enemies march toward the central core.
- 03
Defend
Weapons, traps and turrets wear them down.
- 04
Power-ups
Collectible power-ups give a short advantage.
- 05
Core holds
Hold the core and the next, harder wave begins.
- 06
Outcome
Survive seven escalating waves and the final boss to win.
An illustration of how the system works, drawn from the write-up below. It is not recorded output.
Overview
A complete 3D tower-defense game written from scratch in OpenGL/GLUT — no game engine. You defend a central core from seven escalating waves of enemies using a mix of weapons, placeable traps, auto-targeting turrets and collectible power-ups, building up to a final boss fight.
Gameplay
Three weapons (a fast pistol, a piercing crossbow and a spread-fire shotgun) pair with slow/damage traps and turrets that upgrade as the waves progress. Three timed power-ups — a speed boost, a super-jump and a 'roundhouse' auto-fire spin — spawn on the map to collect and trigger. Four enemy types, from fast fodder to a 20-HP boss, each pathfind toward the core but switch to attacking the player when you get close, and speed up wave by wave.
How it's built
Every object — player, enemies, turrets, arena and HUD — is assembled from raw OpenGL primitives (spheres, cylinders, cubes, quads). Under the hood are custom systems for bullet physics and collision, sine-driven walk/idle/float animations, a timer-based wave spawner with difficulty scaling, switchable first-/third-/global-person cameras, and a 2D orthographic HUD drawn over the 3D scene — all driven by hand-written trigonometry and vector maths for movement, aiming and hit detection.
Scope
Seven waves, four enemy types plus a boss, three weapons, three power-ups, and full trap/turret/HUD systems — a complete game loop with proper win and lose conditions.
By the numbers
Tech stack & key skills
Core tools, methods and skills demonstrated in this project: