Gushing About: Super Smash Bros.

     I'm not talking about any entry in particular, but the series as a whole. This is a game series that continues to have a strong impact on me with every sequel. Each game giving me something new to love, understand, and appreciate.

     When asked "What's your favorite game?" my go-to answer is the latest Smash Bros. game. There is something magical about getting all your favorite characters and cool ones you never heard of to run around and fight. This series means the world to me and I'm going to gush about why.

DragCore Unity Setup

     Feels so very good being here again. I'm back into Unity making all the little game pieces work together. It's really my favorite part. Having a playable prototype and beautiful art assets just beats everything. My parents are also giving me newfound respect for development. That basically amounts to less chores and interruptions while they let me do my thing. I love that. I get to just focus all month and finish this game. Now that we're on the last mile of the race, I'd like to explain how I set up Unity to make things easy and efficient.

Amazon App Submissions

     Amazon is really easy to upload to. I thought there was a development fee, but it's actually free. There's a simple and colorful interface that let's you put android, computer, or web apps on the Amazon market. Yesterday, I submitted my Android apps to the Amazon market so I could be more available during the holiday season. My android games were made with Unity and making them Amazon friendly was just a matter of changing the app store links in the main menus. I just hope my apps get up on time and don't get tossed back with errors. I don't have any Amazon devices to test on or money to get any so it's just wishful thinking for now.

TriGrid's Lost Features

     A few features got cut from TriGrid during development. There were going to be 100 challenges instead of 60, but I made the level select sprites 3x4 instead of 5x4 and didn't want to change them all. The purple triangles would originally cling to walls but that behavior led to constant errors so I reverted them to behaving like yellows that turn more frequently and never changed them back.

     Every time the player moved, the blue arrows where going to move one space in the opposite direction. That led to problems in the level design though. Sometimes it was just impossible to catch one from behind and it basically destroyed all hope of beating a level within a time limit.

     When I came up with shooter mode I debated making that the primary game and having Challenge mode be a bonus, but I decided that Shooter was simpler and felt like a worthy award for mastering all the challenges (it also made a compelling in-app purchase). I also had multiple pages of text in the tutorial menu but shortened them to one sentence when I noticed most test players skipping the instructions completely.

     Things don't always go as planned and problems arise during development sometimes. It's up to you as a developer to adapt and evolve the game to overcome these obstacles. I'm happy with the way TriGrid turned out.