DC Mix

Two games into the DC series, Engro Foods wanted a third entry that felt different from the first two rather than a reskin of either. DC Mix became a color-sorting puzzle: pour colored liquids between test tubes until every tube holds one uniform color, with Olper's branding woven into the identity and enough strategic depth to hold a mass audience past the first few levels.

Color-sorting puzzles have a deceptively large design space. The difficulty curve needed to scale through tube count and color variety rather than opaque rules, so every level felt solvable through careful thinking rather than trial and error. The pour animation needed to be smooth and readable: players must track which tube is receiving liquid and follow color layering at a glance without pausing to decode the interface. Adding a timer introduced urgency without tipping the game toward frantic tapping, which required careful balance between time pressure and the cognitive space the puzzle mechanic demands. Olper's branding had to sit inside a clean UI without cluttering the tube grid that is the game's entire visual focus.

A custom liquid-layering system, built in Unity, tracks color segments per tube as discrete data. The pour mechanic validates every move against the game's rules before executing the animation, preventing illegal pours while keeping interaction fluid. Levels were hand-authored across increasing difficulty bands: early stages use three colors across four tubes; later stages scale to six colors and eight tubes, expanding the solution space without changing the core rules. A timed scoring system awards points for completion speed and move efficiency, rewarding both careful planners and fast solvers. Olper's branding was applied through a bold palette coordinated deliberately with the liquid colors to keep UI chrome and game elements visually distinct.

DC Mix shipped as the third Engro Foods DC game, on the original timeline. The pour mechanic and layering system ran without a single logic error across every authored level in testing. Early stages worked as an accessible on-ramp while the later ones delivered real strategic challenge, and the timed scoring structure kept players coming back to beat their own efficiency rather than stopping after one clear.

"DC Mix asks something different of the player compared to the rest of the DC series. The puzzle layer gives the campaign a different energy while still feeling unmistakably Olper's."