Unity Dev: From Prototype to Work of Art

Let me put on my game face.

The game started out in the prototyping stage (to learn the importance and benefits of prototyping check out my previous article). While the prototype works, it lacks pizzazz.

Here, all I have added is a simple background image to show that we are, indeed, in space (finally). The game play is exactly the same — nothing has changed, but it already looks much better.

Next I bring in the player ship game asset. All I did was replace the blue cube game object with the player ship sprite, added the player movement script, and a collider to the sprite. Already the game is looking completely different.

The size of the BoxCollider2D (or hit-box) on all of the game objects is a matter of preference. This is where testing and testing and testing your game will make a big difference in playability. For example, how hard do you want it to be for the player to get hit by either an enemy ship or enemy laser? Small changes will make a big difference in the enjoyability of the game. I like having it just a bit smaller than the image so that the player can experience ‘close calls’, ramping up the excitement each time.

Next, I replaced the laser mock up and enemy ship mock ups with the final game assets. Notice how this looks COMPLETELY different but the only code I changed was swapping OnTriggerEnter with OnTriggerEnter2D since these assets are sprites and not 3D objects.

Pretty cool, huh? While it is starting to look really good, it still needs some polish. What’s a Space Shooter game without animated space ships, power-ps, and explosions?

The first power-up I’m planning to implement is going to be a triple-shot power-up and I will be doing that in tomorrow’s article (Day 13).

See you there!

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