I have started the “Design and Publish Your Original Game” course after finishing both the Essentials and the Jr. Programmer pathways.
I have decided to create a strategy game, where the player receives a certain number of points per round and spends them on placing units onto the battlefield. The player progresses through rounds, with each round becoming harder as the “enemy” picks harder units to fight the player’s.
I have a prototype showing two teams (opaque and transparent) fighting each other. The red are ranged, and the blue are melee. Both (for the moment) fire the same rockets. You might as well note that the ranged have 2 lives, and the melee have 3. Also, I will swap out for real assets later, but I have the prototype with cubes.
If you have time, could you answer the next few questions about the game, ranked in importance:
a) Do you think it is too big in scope, or is it realistic for around two months?
b) How many different units (with different behaviours) would be best for the final build?
c) Any other comments, tips, or information you would like to give me?
I don’t really trust running a random exe. You might get a better response if you upload some screenshots or maybe a video of the prototype.
a) Do you think it is too big in scope, or is it realistic for around two months?
Not really sure how far along your prototype is. For now I’ll assume it’s a smaller game, maybe something like final fantasy 7 rebirth fort condor and not a full scale strategy game. I’d say a real strategy game like warcraft 2 might take a few years solo. If you’re going to use asset store art, audio and music then two months might be possible for an alpha build. I guess it really depends on the amount of time you have to work on it each week and how polished it’s going to be. I feel like six months would probably be less stressful.
b) How many different units (with different behaviours) would be best for the final build?
I think fort condor works well for a small game. I’d say Melee, Ranged, Defense would probably be enough with maybe elite variants. I tend to prefer a rock/paper/scissors style of combat. Then maybe extend it later with healers / heroes etc.
c) Any other comments, tips, or information you would like to give me?
I tend to find that non-gameplay related tasks can take a lot more time than expected e.g. UI, balancing the game etc. I’d say a good way to get a rough idea would be to write up a game design document, then create a list of tasks with time estimates for each task. Then decide how much free time you have a week that won’t result in burnout (I’d recommend less than 20 hours a week if it’s part time). If it’s your first game I’d say quadruple the estimated duration. After making a few games I’d normally double the estimated duration.
a) My plan is to limit myself in scope enormously, not to spend too much time on this, because I am aiming for (maximum) three months. b) I thought the same thing about the units, thanks for that. c) That makes sense, (definitely less than 15 per week).
I uploaded a zip file because Unity discussions didn’t let me put an mp4. I’ll change it to images, I didn’t think about that, sorry.
After roughly two weeks of development, I have finished the baseline for the game.
Just in case you would like to see a video of the game in action, here is a Google Drive link:
Unfortunately, you will need to have a Google account to view it; if you can’t, don’t worry.
