How long would it take you to make a level of your favourite retro game in Unity?
Unity and modern computers mean you have so much more power than any retro game developer could dream of and a system that makes it very easy to write games.
So the challenge is to post your favourite retro game and an estimate of the time it would take to develop a level of that game in Unity.
If you make a time estimate please break it down into elements (people make more realistic estimates when they think about the details):
Game Title (with screenshot or ideally video including first level)
10 2D Sprites [1 hr]
6 sfx [1 hr]
1 song [2 hr]
Level layout [1 hr]
Controller [1 hr]
Player Character [1 hr]
Enemy Characters [2 hr]
Collectable elements [1 hr]
UI [2 hr]
Playtesting [1 hr]
Estimated to build time: 13 hrs.
Then if you can spare the time, and you attempt to make the game’s first level and see how long it takes and report back with an update.
If anyone has good tips or tricks they know or find along the way to speed up their game development, please share?
Also if you do make the level, what do you think Unity could improve to make the development process faster?
I think your 1hr estimates for making sprites etc is grossly underestimating, lol. I can think of several good platformer games or shootemups on the Amiga for example where making even one level probably would take several months.
How about rather than pulling these numbers out of thin air you just try doing it yourself and then tell us how long it took. If it’s only 13h in your estimate, that’s basically no time at all, right?
Ah, okay sorry. I thought you were just blowing hot air because that estimation seemed ridiculously short to me. In that case, just ignore my comment. It would certainly take me a lot longer to make a game like that, but I’m much more of an artist than a programmer.
Your right the proof of the pudding is in the eating.
You could still give it a go, just add in some padding time for programming/learning, choose a game with a simple mechanic (not far from the learning sections examples!). Or you could try one of the graphical programming solutions e.g. playmaker.
Cannon Fodder Level 1 Estimate Before Working
1 Jungle Trees
1 Grass
1 Bird Flying Over
1 Soldier Sprites 4d
1 Enemy Sprites 4d
1 UI Sprites
Chevron
Grende
Rocket
1 Sfx Shooting
1 Sfx Dying
5 Music
2 Level Layout
1 Movement
1 Bullets
2 Playtesting
2 Bits and Bobs
21 hours
My actual time spent:
How long it really took
About 5-6 hours.
–Minus–
Music
Good Artwork
Good Animation
UI Elements / Individual Troop Control (it’s follow troop leader)
Bird
Rockets and Grenades (Not sure you have these in the first level) Also may have got controls wrong, e.g. LMB Move RMB Shoot at CrossHairs!
I have few very fast competition entries, those timeframes are very unrealistic.
One sprite definitely does not take 10 minutes.
One fully animated character model can be done at 3 hours at fastest speed and only if there’s no texturing required, and animation cuts every corner.
One musical tune can easily take a day or several.
PLaytesting in one hour is not happening.
Controller script takes longer than a hour to write.
Level layout will take WAY more than 1 hour, unless the level is an empty square room.
Yeah, I thought so too, hence my kinda snippy comment for him to try it out himself. Usually, comments like “oh, it’s just going to take 10 minutes” are only made by people who haven’t tried it themselves and don’t know how much time it actually takes to make a game. But I’m glad he’s actually going to try it out himself and see how long it’ll take.
Used 5.5 so no tilemap, that was a pain, just randomly generated the grass tiles under handset trees.
This is an MVP (Minimum Viable Product) version of Cannon Fodder Level 1, with programmer art and usfx created sound fx. I think it just about manages to recreate a shallow copy of the original and is nowhere near on pixel art and animation levels.
So can you take a retro game you like/love and remake a MVP version in Unity in a short space of time?
Well @Arowx you and I each made a Space Invaders game in Unity last year using our preferred development styles and I think that was surely no more than 13 hours? Had to be because I remember working on it and writing posts about the development style I was using at the same time. Plus we made different builds for performance tests.
I’d say your 13 hours is very reasonable for a Space Invaders or Asteroids game. Something like that.
BUT…
As others have mentioned and I have mentioned so much people are “sick & tired” of it (lol)… it really comes down to the presentation. That is the bottleneck. That is the time-sink.
While people can (and some do I am sure) iterate near endlessly on programming (or even game design) most people do not. At least outside of assets for the store. Not from what I have seen anyway. Most folks seem to iterate for a long time on the graphics.
And that is what makes the projects vary so much in time. That is what makes most game projects take so much time to complete.
If you’re thinking just knocking out sprites in 1 or 2 colors and call them done then I think your original estimate is quite reasonable.
But most people won’t see it that way because they are used to either iterating for a long time on graphics themselves OR they are used to seeing the results of other people iterating on graphics for a long time.
A single sprite image can vary in time from 1 minute to a couple of hours (or more!). That is how much impact the graphics can have on the scope of work & time required to complete a game.
Which is why I’ve been focusing on finding a minimal solution because I do see it as a huge issue that needs to be overcome.
But anyway yeah I am sure you can knock out your Cannon Fodder level in your 21 hours. At least a huge chunk of it. IF… IF… you don’t waste hours and hours just on the graphics. Redrawing the very same things over and over. Touching up the images over and over.
OOPS! I forgot to mention the same thing can easily be done on the sound FX and music just that again… for some reason most people don’t seem to focus nearly as long on the audio as they do on graphics. But they still have the same potential for time-sinks.
Months and months. Actually I’m trying to sort of do this right now by making a Star Fox clone.
The problem I’m currently struggling with is getting the damn thing to FEEL the same. The majority of time I’ve spent on this project has been trying to get the aiming to not only feel similar, but work consistently.
