The importance of planning out your game!

So, the project, the ‘Space Shooter’ game, has reached an ‘Alpha’ build. For now, the player can play it endlessly, but without much meaning to it. We still only have pretty much only one weapon type, one enemy type that doesn’t even try to hurt us; the whole game is relatively easy - and that is neither challenging nor entertaining.

Original image from the talkingtalent.prosky.co website.

Thus we need to plan out in which direction we want to take the game from here on out. Planning is essential because it helps us achieve the goals that we have set. It allows for more efficient use of time and other resources. Planning means analyzing and studying the objectives and how we will achieve them.

“If you fail to plan you are planning to fail” - Benjamin Franklin.

I will divide the changes into five main categories: Player, UI, Enemies, Powerups.

The player will get some limitations as well as some buffs:

• Limited ammo count, as well as a new ammo collectible.
• The shield will have three levels of strength and a visual representation of each of them.
• Camera Shake, for when the player gets damaged to simulate some punishment and a stressful system.
• The player will also receive an activable ‘Thruster,’ which will give him a speed boost.

As I have mentioned, there will be a couple of powerups:

• An ammo collectible to replenish the ammo count for the player.
• A health collectible, which will replenish one life for the player.
• New weapon-type collectibles!

I will also create a UI representation for the active powerups and the ammo count for the player, and the thruster “fuel” bar.

And of course, mainly I will be introducing new enemy types, with different behaviors - be it by other movements, giving them weapons, shields, models, etc.

And most importantly, we will be adding a boss as well! So I look forward to that!

Iron Golem from the Dark Souls franchise

As we make all of these improvements and changes, there will be a lot of tweaking to find that perfect balance between the difficulty, the challenge, and between what we give to the player as his options to beat the game! So that if he fails to win the level or that stage of the game, he will want to try and try again.

We will do all of this and more in the upcoming articles, so stay tuned!

But that is it for now, thank you for reading and feel free to follow me for more articles - and as always, good luck and see you next time.