Unicorn Quest Progress: Sprites for Spells

     This week has been about chipping away at Unicorn Quest's spell sprites so that I can see them with my eyes instead of my imagination. I want to make a post showing off each one along with descriptions when they get done. The way each spell works has changed a lot (as expected) while making the sprites and the new ideas greatly outdo the old. I'm really excited to see these things in the game so I can play around with how they feel.

     I've gotten many of the sprites done for 4 of the 10 spells done. I can't say for sure how many extras I'll need until I see how each one looks in action and make adjustments. I drew each one and its upgrades on paper to nail down the looks I'm going for.

     I've been at it for a few days in a row so I decided to change things up a bit to keep me sharp. Today I'll be coding the spell switcher and have Clover animate based on which spell is currently selected, after that it's a matter of adding in the projectile and coding how each spell works.

If you haven't been already, you can follow me on Twitter and Facebook where I usually post sprites I finish as soon as their done just because I feel so proud sometimes.

Minimizing The Unity Scene Count

     I want to use as few different scenes as possible. In TriGrid I made the mistake of having each level have it's own scene. Whenever I changed something not involving prefabs, I ended up having to reopen and edit all 60+ of them. I've been reading up on single scene development for RPGs made in Unity while drafting ideas for making it work.

    I considered having the background image behave like sprites and have it's own animation set (to swap the image for a new room) while the wall colliders could be prefabs. But that;s when I considered how much more efficient it would be to just have the background sprite, its colliders, and it's stationary objects be in one big prefab like the pause menu. That way I can have the whole thing quickly pop up after the loading scene closes.

Scenes look like this before loading now.

     Having the game set like this can make adjustments easier to do and room code management easier to make. Doing this is giving me the happy feeling of making the game more feasible and possible. It'll also make level debugging a matter of swapping prefabs and respawning Clover.

Gushing About: Spider-Man 2

     Everybody liked the Spider-Man 2 game right? One of the greatest licensed movie games ever right? But people only remember the most fun parts. The free roaming around New York and stopping crimes. Do you think a game with only that in it, fleshed out of course, would stand on its own?

     With the new Spider-Man movie coming out I got to thinking about how an HD game with just the free roaming of Spider-Man 2 would be. There is something that feels great about that game that I wish was expanded upon. This could work with Superman too even. Maybe I should make a 3D open world super hero game someday. Then of course there's Sony's inFamous which I think handles the idea really well already.

     What are your thoughts on Spider-Man 2 and super hero games in general? Talk with me in the comments below.

Lessons Learned From Feed The Plant

     Taking the detour of quickly making my spin on Flappy Bird was a very refreshing and fun experience. It's rewarding having a fun and simple game out there. It's a favorite among the people who normally playtest my games. I've proven to myself that if I were to make another arcade style game, simplification is the way to go. Feed The Plant was my chance to limit myself to a small game with no progression features or plug-in integration I wasn't comfortable with.

      It's pick-up and play nature has given me further insight into the bite-sized nature I have in mind for my future RPGs. Alongside that I learned a thing or two about shrinking my game file sizes, I practiced spriting to the point were I feel like I can draw anything, and I figured out an interesting bit about making app icons.

Have a postmortem-ish breakdown below.