Search Unity

  1. Megacity Metro Demo now available. Download now.
    Dismiss Notice
  2. Unity support for visionOS is now available. Learn more in our blog post.
    Dismiss Notice

[Android] [RELEASED] Blocky Tourist [my second game][$200 game]

Discussion in 'Made With Unity' started by basucox, Aug 29, 2015.

  1. basucox

    basucox

    Joined:
    Jun 1, 2014
    Posts:
    5
    Hi everyone, I am really happy to share with you my second game, made with Unity.

    The name of this game is Blocky Tourist, It took me about 6 months from planning, creating prototypes integrating new features and refining gameplay. And finally it is released!

    I am a Hobbyist, and i would like to share some notes on the process of creating this game. if you are not interested on the notes, you can avoid them and pay attention to the project title.

    and, to clarify, $200 is the amount of money I spent on the creation of this game, meaning buying assets from the asset store. It does not include my work time, which i do not include since I am a hobbyist.

    THE PROJECT

    https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.uniproductos.blockytourist

    Avoid obstacles, collect coins and run as far as you can in a Blocky Town. Unlock different characters and upgrades that will help you to advance further. You control the character by swiping your finger to the left, right, up or down to avoid the obstacles. Blocky Tourist is an endless runner game developed by the amazing amount of 1 single person!

    Rush and grab coins and power ups, dash across different cubic obstacles in this pixel world, and avoid to crash before this fun ride ends!


    SOME NOTES ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF THIS PROJECT

    I wanted to share with you a little bit of my conclusions on the experience of creating this game. First, I consider the biggest challenge for me was having the persistence to actually finish the project. At the beginning I planned a much bigger game, with a lot more features than i was able to integrate, and not beeing happy with that I had the wishful thinking of having it done in 2 months. At the second month I realized that i had embarked myself in a project that was bigger than I was able to complete and I had to do something about that!

    There is when a big help came in the form of a word: PRIORITIZING! I had to focus more in the more basic elements of my game and leave the details for later, meaning future updates or never. having priorities helped to create a basic prototype that was somehow functional, and that was a good start. Establishing the importance of a problem to be solved helped me to think in a more organized way that allowed me to approach its solution more methodically. solving the problems one by one.

    After some time the game was ready to integrate the art assets. At the beginning I was planning to hire an artist that would create all the artwork for this game. Well I really was not expecting the amount of money on that quotation. For someone that is just starting to develop games it is a bit difficult to risk paying a big amount of money when chances are that most likely you are not going to succeed, so my decision was not to continue with the idea of having unique art but instead look for options in the asset store, and that was amazing! very high quality assets at very affordable prices. maybe it is not unique, but at least i can proceed with my game. If any of you reading this is an artist that publishes in the asset store, I would recommend you to create more modular packs instead of single assets. art in a game should have coherence and if the game is a collection of randomness, well it is not going to look good.

    I found the amazing modular pack that you can see on the game, but then it did not work really good on my prototype, since sizes sere different, so I had to modify the scripts for it to work, and that was the down side of it. not having art tailored exactly for your game means you need to be flexible. Adjusting a lot of things was necessary and it did not come out very well in some cases. for instance, for the new art to fit, it was needed to change the size of some game objects, and that really affected the logic of the game. Another example would be the textures of the pack were very well optimized to see them from above, but from an angle they were just not functional. since I am not an expert, most of my solutions were workarounds, and having the issue solved was good enough to move to the next priority.

    Once i had the main scene working, the game was not even close to end. I had to create a scene for selection that would send information to the next scene, and a store, game over scene and so on. Every problem had to have a corresponding solution. It was also necesary to create the UI, a feature to which i was not very familiar, since it has some complexity for the beginner (and here is an advise, please set up the canvas from the beginning, otherwise you would have to do a lot of work). There was a point where a problem would lead to another and you really doubt if that will ever have an end, and off course, the more time the project was taking, the more you would think about giving up, since at the end of the day a game is no something you are obligated to do.

    I believe that to create games Discipline is very important. I do not consider myself as disciplined, but the interest that causes on me the creation of new experiences trough games that can be shared with others, that gives me the moral to continue. Now I am really proud to share with you this project and notes, hoping that they will be of use. and well, maybe in the future we can even work together in a different project.

    CONCLUSIONS

    1.
    The 3 things that helped me finish.

    -planning
    -prioritizing
    -DISCIPLINE

    2.
    I will not put myself in a project that is too big if i am alone.

    3.
    Asset Store is amazing, it has a lot of free things and some not free that really worth it.

    4.
    I would rather do six small projects of one month than one bigger project of six months, seriously!!!


    And if you also want to see my first game, here is the link.

    http://www.kongregate.com/games/LuxStudios/supermassive-black-hole
     
    Last edited: Aug 29, 2015
    theANMATOR2b likes this.
  2. EETechnology

    EETechnology

    Joined:
    Aug 15, 2015
    Posts:
    185
    Looks like a cool game but im not very sure if its the same game that you are describing
     
  3. basucox

    basucox

    Joined:
    Jun 1, 2014
    Posts:
    5
  4. EETechnology

    EETechnology

    Joined:
    Aug 15, 2015
    Posts:
    185
    OH. I just realized that. Both are pretty cool. Well done !!!!!
     
  5. theANMATOR2b

    theANMATOR2b

    Joined:
    Jul 12, 2014
    Posts:
    7,790
    Thanks for the write-up basucox.
    Very nice for first, second & third time developers.

    Edit: Care to share more information on which features you over-scoped on and which ones you de-scoped and cut for the final game? And how you decided which ones would be de-scoped and cut. This info would be great to learn about for devs designing there first/second game.
     
  6. basucox

    basucox

    Joined:
    Jun 1, 2014
    Posts:
    5
    Hi. tanks for the comments!!

    and to answer the question on which features I decided to discard, they were for example, that every character had to have special features, like powers, that were unique, that was way too much work. for example, being able to pause the game, there was going to be enemies as well, the character should have been able to jump over obstacles, this kind of features were the ones i had to leave for later.

    the ones i put more work on was the implementation of the model i created on the prototype to the actual art from the asset store. as well as meny small details about canvas confuguration, and the store configuration. the comunication between scenes was an issue that made me work a lot, particularly the effor was to try to keep things organized.
     
    theANMATOR2b likes this.