My 3 Hour Game Challenge (x-post from /r/Unity3D)

Hi Reddit,

this past week I challenged myself to plan and build a full, publishable game in 3 hours or under. I worked under a time limit so I would stay focused and understand what its like to fully finish a game, with ads, screenshots, the google play dev process, etc.

Overall, it was a valuable experience. Here's a bit about it:

• Core Game Development:
  • The idea was simple: find a simple addicting game that could be built quickly, without too many assets (cuz I suck at art). The mechanics had to be super simple but satisfying.
  • After I thought of the core mechanic I moved on to "game feels". Camera shake was a quick way to make the game that much more satisfying.
    • Another way to keep the player on their feet was to make the game get faster. As the game gets faster, the player can also move faster, which allows more "skilled" players to get higher scores.
• A near miss system is also implemented to allow the player to benefit from taking risks.
• Polish
  • just some camera effects, finding fonts, particle systems, etc.
  • The dynamic color palette
  • This stage took a lot more time than I'd thought, however it really brought the game together and made it more like a real game. Its so important to nail camera effects and details (I barely delved into it, the smallest changes made the biggest differences), it really changes the game.
• Ad support:
  • I made sure that I had the most time to deal with ads, as I had never dealt with them before. I couldn't get unity ads to work for me, so I switched to admobs. It was super easy to use, and I (along with users) prefer the banner ad for this type of game. It was an awesome experience testing the ads and figuring it out, and seeing numbers popup on my AdSense / play console.

I've been playing with Unity for about 5 years now, purely as a hobbyist. Until now I've been just building small mechanics and mainly focusing on the code/game mechanic, and never experienced creating a complete game. I realized that while I was not passionate about this game in particular, I was passionate about game development, and that was a major factor to completing this game- to learn about the process of releasing a game.

This is not close to what I can accomplish in unity, and there are people that can build way more in 3 hours- but I think that even though this isn't my best work, it is a valuable experience to "finish" a game. For the people out there who are way more experienced than I am or just beginning, if you haven't done so already, I highly recommend just trying to put out a game for the sake of finishing one- it could take you less than 3 hours.

Here is the link for those who are curious: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.GKDev.cuberunning

Feedback and questions are highly appreciated.

My next challenge will be a 12 hour game!

Thanks.

Submitted October 17, 2018 at 07:51PM by GKDevGkdev https://ift.tt/2NMCkMk