El Coco

Floklore inspired rogue-like

This game has been the first original project I've worked on at this company and I've had lots of responsabilities developing it.

This project was partly developed along another game, so for most of it I was the only programmer, and so, for the whole project I've been in charge of the programming.

We had limited time and resources so good planning and structure, applying patterns and versatile and flexible code was key.

Company

Reco Technology

Genre

Action, Rogue-like, adventure

Platforms

PC, Nintendo Switch, Play Station 4, Play Station 5,Xbox One, Xbox Series X

Status

Released on Nov 28, 2025

Role

Lead Programmer

Since I had to build most of the game's pillars and structure on my own, I've been responsible of many aspects of this game. Some examples include:

Creating the main character, its movement, attacks, stats, UI, etc.
Creating tools and systems that allowed the designers to create and implement enemies on their own at a fast pace, using behavior trees for their logic.
Creating a common set of systems and classes for attacks, projectiles and summons and their handling for the player, enemies and neutral entities.
Creating a system of code injection based on what I've called traits, which is the core of the power up system of the game and is also used for modifying enemies or applying status effects.
Managing the entire game flow. Runs, levels, deals, shops, bosses, the tutorial, etc.
Implementing all different level types you can find in a run.
Managing data storage and saves.
Implementing editor tools for testing specific levels, power ups, etc.
Localization, including systems to add values dynamically reading them from the previously mentioned trait system and have it all appear properly in the power up descriptions and other similar cases.

And probably there are many more things I'm missing. My main focus on this project was to make it so iterating and adding content was fast and reliable, and also have the game build in such a way that we could easily decide how much content it would have. And if we had time, making it easy to add more. The game is very modular and all of its systems work as independently as possible. Changing the different parts of the game, adding new features, removing those we don't like, rebalancing the game, etc. It all can be done easily by the designers with little to no help from programming. I'm very proud of how this way of thinking has allowed us to make this game with such limited resources and how its given the designers the ability to bring their ideas to the game on their own, quick and easy. If it weren't for this approach, this game couldn't have been completed.