How to complete the first project

Greetings to all readers of this article! About two years ago, I first discovered Unity and viewed the spaces of this engine. And it seemed to me something incredibly complicated and confusing. And here I, possessing only initial knowledge of programming in C, decided to make a full-fledged game of my dreams, because I had heard about the low threshold of entry.

But now I can say: I am one of the few who brought my first project to release! I did it, moreover, without investing a penny in it.

Part 0, or the first acquaintance

My preparatory stage began with views of various videos, reading documentation and forums. These and these lessons have helped me especially. A bit annoyed by a detailed analysis of the interface, especially in video tutorials. Anyway, I gradually began to understand what was happening, and I was already pleased with the placement of objects on the stage.

I am primarily interested in creating 2D games. Not because I could not make a 3D game (I experimented with 3D before, though without programming, but some platformers were obtained), but because 2D graphics, in my opinion, opens up more possibilities for the gameplay, the plot, makes the game more unrealistic.
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Part 1, or ideas and enthusiasm

Thinking to make a big game, I decided that management should not be difficult to understand and be suitable for all devices. Thinking so, I decided to make the control just two buttons, which on the mobile device will be replaced by clicking on the right and left of the screen.

The first thought to do so is to control the fly flying through the obstacles was discarded. I decided to make a small black eye with a ball that can only roll.

After a long series of experiments, I managed to write a script that simply applied forces to the ball left and right. Ball rode. I was terribly pleased, experimented, worked on. For quite a long time, a number of significant changes were made: the ball began to roll only when it came into contact with the surface; moreover, it had a maximum speed for which it did not enter.

But soon I got sick of it, and I made the discovery.

Discovery number 1 : the world should be as accessible as possible for research. Even in the level game.

But it is difficult to make an interesting game in conditions where the hero cannot jump, and in order to climb vertically upwards, you will have to build an arched structure.
And I decided to add transport. Later, he became, perhaps, the main feature of the game.

The first transport added just flew into the air like a balloon. When a player touched him, he would get into transport (that is, their Rigidbody2D would simply be fastened), and by pressing a space or a special button, he could get out. This has already added the possibility of free flight and more space for creating levels and developing the territory.

Part 2, or the embodiment of ideas

Encouraged by the first success, I began to add a lot of different objects, started to deal with animation (the key frames turned out to be familiar from Blender), and the following type of transport has already become animated: a ball and orchestra appeared on the scene. I discovered the new features of Unity's 2d engine and created new content: this is how boxes appeared, wind, snowman, mold, which fell from their seats at the sounds of the orchestra ... But enthusiasm gradually began to fade.

In fact, there were no fans of the game, there was no experience, it was difficult to figure out in many ways, and the introduction of new functions created many problems: I still didn’t understand much and trembled at every error produced by the compiler.

Part 3, or patience, patience and patience

Having been horrified by the huge amount of work that I had to do, I began to lose interest in the project, but sometimes, literally clenching my teeth, I almost forced myself to do the project: I understood that in this case my hopes for understanding Unity and following the deepening Knowledge of programming is not exactly justified. Sometimes I did it just with disgust.

Discovery number 2 : It takes a lot of patience. A lot of patience. Especially if you're the only enthusiast in the team.

And I'm not only the only enthusiast, I'm generally the only one. And I motivated myself. After several months of hard work, I finally felt that the main work had already been done: boring and scary save games, a pause, the transition between the levels was finally done and you can start creating full-fledged levels.

Part 4, or release the game in the light

I started telling friends about the game, being already sure that I would bring the game to release. The interest that was shown supported me. I started making levels, and I decided that the style of the first chapter would be in the Limbo style, in black tones, and with a round terrain, in the second location there would be standard platforms and already more colorful graphics.

Opening number 3 : the levels should set the player tasks of a different plan, but gradually introduce the rules of the game

Having read articles on Habrahabr, I tried not to frighten the player with novelty objects, but gradually introduced them into the world. So, at the first level, the player recognized the basic mechanics, at the second he met physical objects, and so on. With the ability to lose the player met only at the fifth level. And, it seems, afterwards, no one complained that he did not understand how a particular part of mechanics works.

I was in a hurry before the release, so I decided to postpone something for later.

Interlude, or where to get resources

I had to paint myself, since I am the only developer. It turned out ... satisfactory. However, you can judge for yourself. It is better to ask for help from the artist if he knows his business. Although with the transition to drawing initially in vector graphics, my drawing style improved a little.

I was more fortunate with music: although I was a layman, I was able to write tunes on TuxGuitar so that they wouldn’t stop hearing. There were no complaints.

He took sounds from open sources or recorded them himself. My cry of a dying character made me smile at many, despite the tragedy of the situation.

Part 5, or score players

The players, although they were not so many, took the game quite positively. I did not manage to do the training, so I wrote the control next to the download link. No one complained that he did not understand the rules. I identified a number of the following pros and cons:

+ players highlighted interesting gameplay and various levels
+ players are not confused in the management and game mechanics
+ the game, as it turned out, delays

- inconvenient control: the character had great inertia
- noted mediocre graphics
- players could get stuck on the same level and not pass on
- and vice versa, to some it seemed too easy.

Part 6, or work on the bugs

Having spent almost a year on developing a new update, I corrected some of the flaws: the control became more convenient thanks to a faster deceleration of the character, the ability to skip levels, and for fans of complexity - a complex mode. In addition, bosses were added, the world and character became more alive (for example, the sounds of the orchestra woke sleeping creatures - after all, the world is created from such trifles), secret levels were made. Rewrote old scripts written without much experience.

One of the main innovations was unobtrusive learning, which can even be overlooked: it is built into the gameplay. The player is guaranteed to guess what needs to be done, seeing the arrows in two directions in front of him, and only gets more pleasure from it.

Discovery number 4 : listen to your fans

Of course, if you are a developer of 2D-games like “3 in a row”, and you are offered to be transferred to 3D, and you add a mode where you walk through mazes and shoot crystals, then you don’t have to rethink everything, of course. And sometimes offer ideas and more absurd. But still, fans are direct users who can tell what they want to see in the product. For example, a complex mode has appeared. I gnashed my teeth, there was a crisis, similar to the fact that in part 3, but smaller: I already knew that the game was generally liked by people. And I did.

And in the same way, I was almost forced to suffer with angles and a camera and completely redo the level where the boxes fell on the player. But now the player has seen where they fly to him from and when to dodge.

Part 7, or we go to a large audience

This part is not finished yet. Despite the fact that the audience is quite loyal, it turned out to be very small. I was not sure about the release dates and success, so I started promoting the game only about a month before the update was released. And only in social networks. And only in VKontakte. I was blocked on Twitter and Facebook (apparently, for the lack of friends and subscriptions), but this is another story. Nevertheless, now I am trying to rehabilitate myself and am preparing for release in the Play Market.

By the way, it turned out that, although social networks actively advise, I was able to attract only about 30 subscribers and 200 views of the global update with their help. And only about 80 downloaded. What a pity. Tellingly, the record was posted by a group of about 3 thousand subscribers, but scanned about 20 against my 200. It seems that this is far from the most effective method.

But what can I say? At the cost of enormous effort, I brought my first project with patience and diligence (not counting medium-sized projects in programming environments and game designers, where programming skills are not needed) before the release, and I can already be pleased with it. And if they perceive it as a whole positively - this is even better.