Timber

Timber is a reflex game where you alternate chopping left and right to cut down a tree before a falling branch squishes you, all while racing against a shrinking time bar that only refills when you chop in time. I built the entire game solo in C++ using the SFML library, as one of my early projects while learning game programming outside of a game engine.

Technically, the game runs on a single main loop handling input polling, game state updates, and rendering each frame, using SFML's Sprite, Texture, and Clock classes directly rather than an engine's built-in systems. The tree's branches are managed as a fixed-size array with a side enum (left/right/none), shifted down and repopulated with pseudo-random values each time the player chops, and collision is just a positional check against the player's side. The countdown timer is rendered as a resizing rectangle shape tied to a delta-time-based float, background elements like the bee and clouds move independently using their own speed/position variables, and SFML's audio module handles chop, death, and background music playback. Everything from state transitions (start, playing, game over) to UI text positioning is handled manually without any editor tooling.