About three years ago I started learning how to code games with Unity through several online classes and a few free tutorials on youtube. Since then I have made several projects in the form of unreleased prototypes with the intention of returning to each and providing art and game design with hopes of eventually releasing them. Well, I’m happy to announce that my first project is finally nearly ready for an Alpha release!
The first project I have ever completed during my Unity education was a simple Breakout clone. Breakout is a game that was released by Atari in 1976. It featured a player controlled paddle, a ball and multi-colored bricks contained within a play area where the player would fire and deflect the ball with the paddle to destroy the bricks. The prototype I created consisted only of these features and I knew if I ever returned to it that I would want to add more features and change the design to make it my own.
To that end I mixed the basic brick breaker game design with the idea of aliens invading to destroy a city. I made the paddle: a UFO, the ball: an energy ball fired by a weapon, and the bricks: the destructible parts of buildings. I then added features that I think follow logically from that.
- Enemies in the form of police and military to attack the player
- Health and shields for the UFO
- Limited time and ammunition on the energy ball
- Innocent citizens to panic and die from the carnage
- Particle effects and explosions
- Buildings that collapse when taking enough damage
- Power-ups and boosts
- A menu/saving/option system
Those features more or less represent the current state of the game and I plan to release it in that form this weekend. Right now there is only the one level, but in the future I plan to make many more as well as a list of other features which I will add with plans to sell the app online. Some of those planned features include:
- A storyline
- Characters to pilot the ship and interact between levels
- Other UFOs to fly as well as upgrades
- A main character/UFO upgrade screen
- Additional weapons
- Rewards for the point system
- Boss levels
- more polished art and sprites
Building this game has been a great experience and I plan on taking it all the way to the end, but it’s also a safe and simple one with minimal emotional investment for the sake of learning and making mistakes. I plan to also finish up and release several other games, a scrolling shooter, a platformer, and several role playing games that represent the game design ideas I have been sitting on for a long time.
So with that said, I’m finding my efforts at game design to be very rewarding. I hope that as I release these games that people will enjoy them and that I can continue to make more. So, lookout for the Alpha release of my first game Invasion of the Eradicoid’s this Saturday, and I hope you will enjoy it.
Paul Flores 