Week 1: Diamondback

For week 1 I wanted to start with something simple. Something I already knew how to do. I managed to fail at this.

I decided I would make a simple shmup in Unity, but as soon as I was in the editor and seeing what cool things I could do, I immediately did this:

For some reason, I really wanted the player's ship to be pointing up at an angle. I also did this:

Since it felt like the player was actually shooting upward into the air, instead of forward into space, it made sense to have the player's projectiles sort of fall back downward at him or her after reaching their zenith. It ended up being a pretty cool mechanic, but all of a sudden my game functioned 100% on a diagonal plane in worldspace. This proved to be sort of an odd constraint to work with, especially when dealing with enemy behavior. The effect the perspective had on the game was definitely very cool though, and I got to make this thing:

   

All of these cubes move towards the player in unison, giving the illusion of there being a sort of odd, geometric terrain rolling far below the ship.

I unfortunately didn't have the time to implement any sound effects - chalk that up to poor time management, I guess. For my next project, I think I might start with sound. I've never tried using bfxr before, so starting from there could be very cool.

Anyway, if you're reading this and you want to try the game, it's up right now, right here!