Arcana
Arcade Shooter Made from Scratch
Game Designer/Scripter
ENGINE: Unity 5
LANGUAGE: C#
DEV TIME: 8 Weeks
GAME MODE: Single Player
Download
Arcana
Download
Design Doc
Game Overview
Game Summary:
Arcana is a score-attack, single-player shooting game inspired by The Binding of Isaac, created in Unity 5 using C# scripting. The player’s goal is to achieve the top score possible over 30 waves by killing enemies and betting their own weapon strength and health to get a better score multiplier. Each wave, the player receives one of 22 powerful Tarot cards, each of which come with a game-changing effect, like The Lovers, which duplicates your main character, giving you twice as many shots but also making you twice as big. These cards last for four waves and combine with each other to create synergistic or anti-synergistic results.
Screenshots:
 |  |  |
|---|---|---|
 |  |
Development Timeline:
-
Weeks 1 & 2: Designed and coded core shooting, moving, wave, and enemy game play, including controller support.
-
Week 3: Designed, coded, and tested the weapon and health upgrading/gambling system.
-
Week 4 & 5: Designed and coded the card system.
-
Week 6 & 7: Added juice and improved visuals. Modified and balanced card effects.
-
Week 8: Final card system balance pass and bug fixing.
Postmortem
What Went Well
-
I was able to finish the game on time with room to polish and add juice.
-
I got a lot of practice in Unity and C#.
-
I was able to create and implement interesting synergies between cards that added a lot of depth to the game.
-
I achieved my design goal of making a 2D shooter with an interesting scoring system.
What Went Wrong
-
Since some of the design changed through production, the game has too many scripts and sometimes divides functionality over different managers.
-
I wasn't able to add more varied enemy, weapon, or terrain types to the game in the time allotted.
-
I overused the Singleton design pattern, leading to difficult to track bugs.
What I Learned
-
If functionality changes, its better to take the time to design an appropriate architecture for the new system rather than bolting it onto existing code.
-
Juice is really what takes a game from mediocre to great.
-
Highlight what is coolest about your game over everything else.