Calm Before The Brainstorm
Knowing that I am going to be making a game in Unity this semester was a shock to the system. Never had I imagined that I would be making a game on this course but I am actually looking forward to doing it and get some insight into the creative process that comes with it. Being a fan of video games for many years now I am hoping that my excessive up till all hours gaming sessions will have not been in vain and I can take some of what I think I know to be a good game into this task. In this post I will be talking about four games that I like and draw inspiration from when the time comes to make my own. I'm a huge fan of sci-fi games and first person shooters but I don't think that I will be able to make a game of that magnitude just yet. I have a 10 year old nephew who is forever on his tablet playing video games that are of a much simpler concept such as temple run which I find oddly addictive, so I will be aiming to maybe make a game along those lines for my project. Anyway, here are my four games that I will be looking to for inspiration.
1. Copter
Copter is a free to play arcade game that anyone can pick up and play. The concept is simple, get the helicopter as far as you can without it crashing. There is no end game to this as it just keeps going and going. The aim is for the user to try and set a high score then try to beat it again. The score is measured by the distance that you travel and as you can see from the picture it has a simple scoreboard, on the left it tells you how far you have gone in your current game while on the right it tells you your best all-time score. The controls could not be more easy to use, with the mechanics of the game constantly having the helicopter going down(crashing) and the only way to send it back up and keep it airborne is by left clicking and holding while letting go sends it back down, also there is no control over whether or not the user goes backwards or forward as the game is designed to only have the helicopter going in one direction. There are simple obstacles along the way that the user must avoid hitting or this will result in a game over. The level design and the object design in the game is fairly simple and looks like something that could be achievable with the skills I am learning in Unity.
2. Geometry Wars Evolved
Geometry Wars is a top down multi-directional shooter game made by a company called Bizarre Creations. It was originally a mini game that a person could play in the car game known as Project Gotham Racing 2 before becoming its own fully fledged franchise. I first played this game on my Xbox 360 and spent hours upon hours trying to beat my high score, also on the 360 you can earn achievement's by completing in game objectives and there is one in this game that still bugs me to this day that I was unable to complete. The game itself has a very simple concept with the user taking control of a small ship that is shaped like the letter c as you can see in the photo and survive for as long as possible while building up there score at the same time. The controls again are fairly simple to use with the left thumbstick the user can navigate around the rectangular map while using the right thumbstick to shoot the enemies. The game starts of at a small pace but it does not take long until you are bombarded with enemies on the screen and are left wondering how on earth am I going to beat all of these things. The user starts off with five lives and three map wiping bombs that will clear the map and give the user a chance to breath as getting touched by one of the enemies will result in you loosing a life. The game overall looks like one that I could possibly recreate using unity as it has a simple level design and mechanics.
3. Stuntman
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I would love to be able to make a car game, they provide a felling of their own when it comes to video games and always keep you on the edge of your seat. Stuntman is a car game that is not like any other car game, yeah sure you drive a car very fast in it but there are other elements to its also. The user plays as a stuntman and has to complete various objectives on each level in order to be awarded a gold, silver or bronze medal at the end. The reason I loved this game so much in the past is because it didn't just test you to see if you could finish in first place, you had to learn how to be fineness with the vehicle you were using. Depending on the movie you could be driving a regular car, a monster truck or a motorbike. The scenarios that the game put you in were fun to play for example one of the missions you are on the movie set of a spy film, its like a car scene from a James Bond movie. You get to control a car that can fire missiles and shoot machine guns which was incredibly fun. While I don't think I will be able to make this game giving my limited skillset it would be cool to make some sort of racing game.
4. FIFA
FIFA is one of if not the number one most played sports game across all platforms these days. Being a massive football fan I would love to know how a game like this is made one day, just so that I would never loose at it and avoid the countless times this game would break my heart by conceding a 90th minute winner. But being serious , FIFA has come on leaps and bounds since I first started playing it back in the day. It has had huge success over the years with the game building on itself year on year. The great thing about this game I feel anyway as a fan is that you know what you are getting when you buy it, there is usually only one drastic change to the game every year and that is the gameplay mechanics. The concept of this game is not hard to grasp and I don't think there is a person alive who doesn't know what the objective is in football. While I get that I will not be able to make a game of this stature with my current skills , It would be nice to maybe create a simpler version of a football game using Unity.
Helpful for getting started
I did some research into what would be helpful to get me started in using Unity and came across a helpful article that you may also like, you can find it here.
Hi Peter really like the ideas sound really good and I remember playing geometry wars in maths class. I also like the car game idea, looking forward to the final game idea concept.
ReplyDeleteHi Peter, I don't think you were the only one shocked that we had to create a game this year. The idea of Copter sounds fascinating and it is something I would definitely download and play. I think FIFA is great too, I used to play it sometimes but I can't really score so I stopped. XD
ReplyDeleteHi Peter, leaving another comment with some feedback XD. I really enjoyed reading about your game ideas,the Copper was a great idea and the geometry wars evolved sounds fascinating and I really like the idea of geometry shapes and the whole concept is great. I wonder if you could add something that could get the enemies killed in the game like a little space ship that wipes the enemies or something similar to that. How would the player get to the next step ? is there a next level possibly ? I think the next level idea could be added on and maybe in the next level there could be some other obstacles? Over all I think all of the game ideas are great and would work well, I hope your idea grows and finally becomes reality and I will be able to play one of them ! Great blog post.
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