Kevin's Game Dev Blog

Yeah, I know. I said I would update at least once a week. Then Alien Pixels From Outer Space released, and no updates after that until now. The reason for this is that there just hasn't been much of note to talk about since then. I kind of took a break due to fatigue after the last push to get the game out. Well, I'm back to it, and about to start my next project. Sorry about not communicating that I was taking a break. I'm still a bit new to the whole blogging thing, and honestly forgot about it for a couple weeks. I'll make a better effort to keep you guys updated in the future. My next project is based on something I made during a Ludum Dare in the Spring of 2017. I worked hard on it, but ended up with something that was really incomplete. The collision detection was terrible. It was either non-existent or objects were getting stuck on each other. Both of these extremes manifested themselves in the same build, and I couldn't figure out how to make it work prope...

So, due to having a completed game two days earlier than I thought I would, I decided to release Alien Pixels From Outer Space today! This is officially the first finished game in my portfolio! This is a pretty big moment for me, but it's just the first step in my game dev journey! You can play the game by clicking  here .

Well, here we go! After over a month of solo work on this, I am proud to announce the release date of Alien Pixels From Outer Space! Before getting to that, though, I have something to share about my history with game development. This is going to come as a shock, but.... ... ... Alien Pixels From Outer Space is actually the second game I've developed. Yeah, you read that right. My first game was a broken mess, though, so I'm not going to include it on this blog. The collision detection didn't work very well at all, in part due to the fact that it was developed in Game Maker Studio 2. There have been some great games made in Game Maker Studio, such as Undertale and Hyper Light Drifter, but it also has some problems that hold it back from being a serious engine, in my opinion. But that's a discussion for another time. Where am I going with this? Well, Alien Pixels From Outer Space may be the second game I've made, but it's the first one I can say I...

So, for the past month now, I've been working on this game. In hindsight, I probably should have started this blog first, so you could have had the whole development cycle, but, what can you do? The game is called Alien Pixels From Outer Space. It's a pretty simple Space Invaders clone made in the Unity engine. I've currently got several systems in place: Player movement Player shooting Enemies moving in formation Enemies in the bottom row shooting (wherever the bottom row is, those are the enemies that shoot) Enemy death upon being shot by the player Destructible barriers in front of the player Player death, and a lives system User Interface (UI) elements, including the level number, lives counter, and score There are still things to do, listed below: Title screen/menu Pause screen/menu Game Over screen A method to gain extra lives, based on score intervals Sound effects Additional levels A UFO that spawns at random intervals and awards bonus p...