Space Action Hero

Description:

Space Action Hero is a 2D sci-fi space shooter where you control a spaceship flying through space and battling enemy spaceships. Free the galaxy from the threat of the invading forces and usher in a new era of peace. Gameplay includes firing and dodging projectiles, meteors, and enemy ships. Destroy enemies to gain power-ups including speed boosts, increase your fire power to a double shot, and shields. Fight your way through levels and waves to get to the boss battle at the end that has several phases.

Development:

I started and finished Space Action Hero during June of 2022 in an attempt to learn Unity by participating in a course on Udemy. Through this course, I learned how to add power-ups, create phases of a boss battle, animate sprites, add music and audio effects, UI, and taking advantage of Unity's particle effect system.

Challenges:

One of the biggest challenges I had during the development of this game was the animation system. I had an issue animating the boss specifically where it would skip the first phase of the boss battle. After retracing my steps, I noticed that I put the animation instance on the wrong part of the boss's body, and simply had to make a single instance of the boss and it's shell before assigning the animator to the singular instance. Regardless of the bumps I encountered while trying to animate the boss, one of the things I was most excited about learning more about animation and connecting it to gameplay. Since I am mostly a programmer, animation and art is not my strongest area.

What went well:

One of the things I thought went very well was keeping to a schedule in order to finish the game in a timely manner. I was able to stay motivated even when I hit walls like the animation bug.