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The TL;DR

• My first experience coding for a game

• Developed solo

• Created over the course of approximately 60 days

• $0 Budget

The Requirements

• A playable game to be submitted as a capstone project

• Playable in browser

• Demonstrate basic game design principles

The Process

• Began using Unity as a part of the course and was overwhelmed with the amount of information and learning required to make a game

• Started more simply by trying to recreate single mechanics using Unity

• Created a surprisingly interesting mechanical concept based on a wind-up flashlight while trying to replicate a mechanic from Darkwood

• Created a prototype of flicker by using the flashlight as a core mechanic that was very simple but complete enough to playtest to find fun gameplay

• Spent a long time working with pathfinding to get intended enemy behaviors

• Added elements like menus and narrative elements

• Added analog effects to both capitalize on the analog horror format that was popular at the time as well as drawing attention away from the limited art assets

• Went through several cycles of playtesting and revision

• Built and submitted a full version of the game

• Fixed major bugs but halted further work because of difficulty working with my messy code

What I learned

• Games can only reach a certain size if they’re not built to scale well

• I can describe the logic that I want well enough to translate it into usable code

• Playtesting the core mechanic as the first step of the process worked out extremely well

• Enjoyable effects and game feel can still be possible without an artist or budget