For this game I decided to go with Unity as the game engine due to its user friendliness and the use of C# as I have experience with Java. Additionally I have created my own partial game framework in the past with Java and OpenGL, and that gave me enough experience to learn I don’t need to make my own wheel again. For this project I decided to try and figure out game play mechanics first, using simple place holder graphics for now. My idea with this approach is that my vision of what things look like may change as I am adding functionality and personally I would rather the end-game stretch be fun things like graphics instead of trying to code functionality only to find out my approach was misguided.
A little hint about the game structure is that it is a 3rd-person top-down pixel art game where you will have some rpg-like features requiring skills/money but will also include elements about designing and altering the space on the planet with structures or objects.
Core concepts in development right now:
- Alien AI
- User screen interactions.
Core concepts worried about developing later:
- Save system for game.
- Architecture of levels, e.g. 1 world map/scene with separate zones, or a different scene for each zone – I worry about persisting data/objects between the scenes however.
- Performance of game near end-game. This game will have 100’s and potentially up to 1000’s of characters that will need to be rendered in a single scene.