The Beginning
Tough but enjoyable, having decided to start this new year resolution of a challenge late into the month, about two weeks into the month to be percise I opted to start with something simple 2048!. This was a beloved game from my college days many hours of lab work and lunch time were spent playing this game throughout my first year at college. Over analysis of the gameplay, finding the best straigies compairing highscores with class mates. Any other course this would be wasting time but for a fresh Game Development student this was homework.
I had just moved to a Unity development enviroment for work developing a VR/AR digital twin for pharma labs and tourist attractions. The former booming at the moment the latter not so much (thanks COVID). It was not difficult to get going with Unity it was a blast and of all the times I have attempted to get into the engine this is the first time it clicked.
Successes
I was able to develop the base game loop in a matter of hours, styling and designing; treading lightly trying to not fall into my typical pit fall of over enginneering and perfectionism. There was plenty of helpful Youtube guru’s to shepard me though the first couple days and once the game was up and running I flew through almost everything. There were some sticking points. I piled on with the challenge by wanting to release this game to the Play Store by the end of my time frame, and (excluding the time it took to get the app approved) I certainly succeeded.
Confetti
I even found myself with a couple days for juice, to really make it my own, I added a cool particle system to the main menu to make it rain blocks, a celebratory flurry of confetti and cheer when a new highscore is reached and a personal milestone of mine a fully fleged flexable and expandable save system (Tried my best to not over engineer didn’t say I succeeded).
Splash Screen
I also spent sometime getting comfortable with the untiy animation system, I wasn’t really using it in this project but I can see it being usful in the future so decided to make a cool animated logo, doesn’t add much to the game, but for me atleast makes it feel just that bit more authentic like this is a legitimate project and not another couple week throw away project. Its not perfect but I made it in such a generic way expect to see this in most of my future games, changing and improving as I do.
Challenges
Mostly time, that was on me I started late, I continued to add more modifiers adding the additional challenge of setting up a playstore developers account, testing on mobile and creating all the required store assets but it was something I have always wanted to do and now I can check it off my developer bucketlist. If I had to pinpoint some sticking points it would have to be:
UI
Wasn’t anything I had ever really delved into in a game engine and there is definitly a learning curve. I had the knowlegde down of how an anchor worked and what each of the UI elements were but dividing them into layout groups, scroll areas and nesting multiples of these within one another is definitly more akin to web development that any game dev I had ever done before.
Play Store application
Setting up the play store account was a breeze but actually registering my application took way longer than I thought I knew there would be a review proceedure and it wasn’t exactly going to be a two click process but I guess I underestimated the work involved. Luckily I planned for this as it was an unknown to me I tried tackling it myself but Youtube was a great help again, showing me how to make the correct build for the play store submission, which store images I needed and at what resolutions.
Verdict
Release my first game, its far from perfect and there is a couple bugs as reported by my fantastic player base of 3 people but I am glad I finally got to share something with my friends and the feedback good and bad was inspiring.
The game is available on the Google Play Store, here. I’d appreciate the download if you have the time and give it a go. Feel free to reach out to me and let me know what you thought of my game and maybe leave a comment on the Play Store all of which would be great.