Version 1.1

48 Hours

That's the time it took for me to create this game. It wasn't easy. But the intention from the offset was to make sure I learn Unity as fast as possible in a more real world scenario. I put it up on Instagram in the form of "Stories" as a way of both generating interest in what I was doing but also as a way of setting myself a hard target. If only I knew about it then I could just as easily not do it. But with the social exposure came the added pressure to create something, anything.

46 Hours

It was just constant learning at this point. My main area of focus was to create a player controller. I wanted it to feel enjoyable to control the character and to not feel burdened by it, whether that be my speed or jump height. So I watched a few videos on youtube to help me create this character controller.

44 Hours

We're already 4 hours in and I'm redoing the character controller again. I can't stick to any particular script or idea on how to create the character controller. At this point I have only created 3 assets for the game, each being 1x1 pixel sprites in different colours for the player, floor, and goal. I figured only having these would help me quickly prototype something especially given my woes with the character controller. I've gotten the controller to work now but still having issues with the colliders. No matter what I do the character jumps around as it collides with the floor. There must be something to this, why on earth is it doing it, I've followed all the tutorials to the T.

42 Hours

I hadn't actually followed the tutorials to the T, actually, my colliders were different. 6 hours on this one simple but crucial element to my game, this is the one part of the game I need to be getting right, it's a platformer for christ sake. My issue was that have two box colliders touch was making the player jump around and quite frankly not do what I wanted it to do. I changed the collider of the player to a "Capsule" collider and just like that, the issue was resolved! At this point it's about 3am so I figured it was time for bed.

34 Hours

I started to wonder just how much time was actually going to be wasted sleeping through this project. I got up about midday on the Saturday, determined to get this game across the line today so I could refine the next. How naive I was...

30 Hours

Already the headaches have started. The character controller. It probably won't surprise anyone reading up to this point that the character controller issues had once again reared it's ugly head. On this occasion the player character was actually overlapping the floor... I considered actually make that part of the game and showing some of the top of the floor so it looked like the player was running along a floor. I decided against this, I had already pivoted from my initial concept a lot and had already conceded so much that I couldn't leave this bug in knowing that that's what it was. It had to be fixed.

26 Hours

Fast forward 4 hours and I've once again redone my character controller. But this time there's no issue, except for the one I tried to fix during my next hour.

25 Hours

I gave up fixing this issue. I wasn't sure if the issue actually came from the colliders or if it was the camera or mixture. The player is constantly updating it's Y (up/down) position as it detects the collider, something it shouldn't be doing as of the Unity tutorial I followed for this script. The effect this has on the player is minimal however if you look close enough at the player you will see variations with his eyes moving up and down when stood still. This, I thought, was an issue I was ok with, it's very subtle and doesn't have an impact on the game being playable or not. Moving on.

24 Hours

A day to go until this need to be done and I've got the most basic and rudimentary prototype in place. Now to actually design the level and get my assets created.

21 Hours

I quickly create my brickwork assets for the background and have a chunk of this to quickly interlock and replicate across the level. Easy win. Next is the floor, I get that done with little to no drama and reward myself with the more enjoyable task of creating some posters to emulate the real life underground. A quick google search brings up some former ad campaigns from the underground itself and 3 of these are still in the game at this point (Arrows, Mountain, and Bubbles). I then decided to create some easter egg posters. I thought it would be fun if I created ones that paid homage to the current games I enjoy playing and indie hits, but also ones that would be more obvious to the player. 'Among Us' was the first quickly followed by Hollow Knight. Frances kept on providing suggestions to help improve the game and give me feedback and why she didn't like particular elements. This sort of feedback, I found, was absolutely crucial to bettering the game and it's assets. 

17 Hours

It's 5am and I'm ready to go to bed. It was productive day dominated by design but the game was looking more fleshed out with all the assets. I'd started to put these into Unity but I needed to resolve some tilemapping issues for the background as the interlocking started to duplicate some rows. Problem for tomorrow.

11 Hours

11 Hours to test, and complete a game. Half of the assets weren't even in Unity at this point with my level design being in a design file to help me set out the level itself. Everything needed to be imported and improved and tested and I was running out of time.

2 Hours

This was it, the game had been tested everything was in Unity but I still wasn't happy with the interlocking of the tilemap. On the plus side I was able to create the character after a few iterations (one such iteration looked like an emo Adam Driver). I think next time I might save some of the iterations for posterity. 

-1 Hour

Ok so technically I didn't hit the deadline for submission to Itch. But! This was only due to issues exporting the game, I tested this for about 2 hours and considered the best way to go forward initially going to create 3 versions for Linux, Mac, and PC. However I didn't really want people to have to download a game file just to play a game that lasts about 20 seconds. No, instead I wanted them to play it on Itch itself like I'd done with other titles before this project. In order to do that I had to update the engine to allow support for WebGL, potentially breaking my game in the process. After a quick skim of it it all seemed fine. Release.

-2 Hours

I noticed an issue with the game after it had been play tested in front of me.  "Mind the Gap" text had vanished. Simple patch and uploaded it backup in place of what was there. No big deal.

Summary

If you've gotten to this point then well done. These were just a few of the issues I faced in creating the game and whilst I had a thrill of releasing the final product it was a long way off what I had initially planned, a LONG way off. If you're wondering just how long I've been playing around with Unity to get to this stage, it's been about 3 weeks. I started to watch tutorials in early January and have already completed (sort of) a demo of an RPG-like game. This project was only ever meant to be a test of what I could actually do and what I could learn and I have to say I've very much accomplished my goal in that regard.

Seeing the feedback I've had on my game has been absolutely incredible and I can't really thank people enough for that. That sort of commendation really helps me to drive forward in creating these games and to better both them and myself.

Future

Following the feedback I've had a number of good ideas being floated my way and also had a few wishlisted items I wanted to implement in the original game but just didn't have the time to. So, I'll be updating the game to version 1.1 this weekend which will see a few of these ideas and items implemented. I'm looking forward to seeing people play the updated version and have already made a start on the update.

Sneak Peak