Game Design Blog

It’s been a while since I last made a post and with the end of year project starting last week I have a heap to write about!

So in short my game went though, I have an amazing team of 6 currently and the dev process is in full swing, but last week I came to a realization of the workload behind a clicker game. I mean I knew what I was signing up for but at the same time I wasn’t ready for this:

Cosmic Colours!

2 Day game jam made in a team of 3 (Sean Beyer, Gurkaran Singh and I).

Squiggle, still kicking, still alive (barely). I took a break briefly as admob reward videos were getting to me and instead chose to focus on some more feedback and minor things.

Pretty new particles! Made some more visual colour changes and gem pickup, still tweaking these to not be overwhelming. Using unity particles is also something I haven’t played around with much so this was also a good test with them. WIth this I also added a tiny screen shake when you die, this will need a little tweaking but it looks good for now.

I also added tonnes of tiny animations such as a little bounce to your score total when you get a point, a grow and shrink ping pong for the ‘tap to play’ on the main menu and probably like at least 3 more.

I replaced some of the hard to see colour palettes with more vibrant, distinct colours such as the following.

BEFORE

AFTER

The biggest issue still looming over me is admob reward videos, I have banner ads working no worries but the reward videos just aren’t having any of it. 

I also have small bugs with flicking colours which I ‘think’ I’ve fixed but it works fine for a while before breaking again so I have no idea what’s happening.

Lastly I haven’t implemented audio yet as I do want to spend a lot of time on that and I worry that if I spend too long on that I might end up pushing the release date further back than I anticipated.

There was never a goal so to speak to release this game quickly, learning from other games I might as well spend more time here making it pretty before releasing it then worrying about prettying it up afterwards.

Space Shot

A 2 day game jam made within 2 (8 hour) uni days!  The game is simple, drag and draw lines to fire your rocket in that directions, the distance of the line determines the force. Reach as high as you can while avoiding planets, asteroids and more!

Download now on: iOS Android

Squiggle App Icon Design

Squiggle - More GIFs

Since last week I spent most my time working on UI and some quality of life features (such as the continue function and the highscore popup). I also spent a day randomising the obstacles which makes my score average 5 instead of 30 so I might end up removing the randomising.

Squiggle is moving a lot faster than I thought, a problem that has arisen that I didn’t think would be an issue is that I’m not sure when to call the game ‘done’, when do I decide that I don’t wanna add anything else. This is only an issue because I keep finding small things that make the game feel 10x better but aren’t required (such as the ‘new’ icon on the shop when you can afford a skin and the highscore popup).

The last big things left to do; Create UI for when you’re playing, Parallax background (maybe), Visual bug fixes,  Testing.

Burn Out

I started working on this game on Wednesday and since then I have been working on the movement to make it smooth and responsive. I took Saturday off and avoided the game for a day and on Sunday I had and idea of how to fix it, the new version is shown on the right. 

There are also some other changes like gems now counting and spending as well as the ‘new’ image on the shop when you can afford a new theme.

Also scrounged around the App Store to find some similar games, a lot help show off small mechanics but none show off what the game will be like.

Where did I go?

Recently I’ve been away from a lot of social medias, mostly due to me being really burnt out over the last project I was working on (and buying a PS4 might have a bit to do with it). None the less I have started a new phone game which I am hoping to release in a month or so, this time I am doing everything by scratch!

So far I have all menus done, and I’m about to start moving onto audio and I’ll have to learn how to seamlessly play one track after the other using a few samples I have lying around.

Completed a purchasing screen for characters, themes and coins. Using temporary art (Obviously) it allows the player to buy characters with coins or money and keeps track of all information between sessions using PlayerPrefs.

PlayerPrefs can be used for things like High Scores, Unlocks and more.

Quick Guide on saving using PlayerPrefs

This line will set the value of “Char4Unlocked” to 1, this starts as 0 by default so by setting it to 1 after the player has purchased character 4 I can use a line like: 

Here I can set what happens if the player owns the item, I can use this just after they purchase the item and at the start of the script to ensure the player keeps the everything they purchase.

Lastly ensure to have something like this:

New week, New game

Started a new module at uni this week and for this module I decided I’d keep the phone game train going! This game is an endless runner in which the player must keep 1 finger on the phone at all times or they will lose! The GIF shows movement with the A and D keys however on phone the character follows the finger with no delay, meaning players who have faster reaction times will be able to get from one side of the screen to the other very quickly.

Total work time so far: ~15 hours 

More Info:

Puppy Pairs

For class we were tasked with making a board/card game over 2 and a half days and this is what designer @cassandra-jade-gray and I alongside artists Emily, Michelle and Damian came up with. It’s fun to say the idea started as a Trump V.S Hilary board control game and through the magical creative process we ended at breeding cute puppies to make money.

One Page Design Document 

Made a thing?