Fighting Game Project - Grinding Gears... #1

My Task for the first 2 weeks:

Creating the main menu, options menu, level select and character select.

Idea:

Our idea for this game was to create a Smash-bros-style game with a steampunk aesthetic.

Some features we wanted to include:

1v1 focused gameplay
Mixed-Media: 2D characters on a 3D stage
A steam gauge that builds up as players land hits on enemies can be used to deliver powerful attacks.
As we were going for smash-bros-style, we thought aerial combat should be considered as players will spend time off-stage and in the air.

Character Ideas:

Each one would have some weapon powered by steam to allow them to execute a Steam attack.

A large Tank character with gauntlets, maybe a robot.
A character with a gun - similar design to 'Order 1886'.

Stage Ideas:

Airship.
Clock-Tower.

Creating the main menu, an interactive experience:

The main menu design was created with free assets from the Unity Store(Black Hammer, 2019, Positron, 2019, MiMU STUDIO, 2017), this was to save time so our artists could focus on making the stages and the characters.

I used unity's UI tools in order to add buttons and Text.

Swapping between menus is done by disabling the previous menu and enabling the current one.

Level Selection Menu

Level Selection involves a simple script that stores the name of the stage selected and will load it once characters have been locked in.

Currently, I have placed a placeholder name and black shadow where the map previews will be so I can test the functionality and I can just add each stage icon later on when I get it from the artists.

Options Menu: Changing it up

I struggled with the options menu as I had never worked with changing those before. I found a great tutorial on YouTube to help me put it together:

I still need to add some more options for the rounds. e.g. Round Timer, Number of Rounds, etc. I need to make the input recorded so it can be called when the stage is loaded, which I will probably use PlayerPrefs for, as that is saved on the players system.

Another thing I would like to look into fixing is the game auto starts in Full screen but when you open the options menu it changes into windowed mode.

Character Select:

The Character Select for each player works by Showing a preview of the selected character and if the player wishes to pick that character they simply need to click on the preview of the character. The arrows on either side of the characters are used to cycle through the characters.

Currently, I have no art for the characters so the boxes are empty and I haven't implemented the selected character spawning on the stage yet, which is my next task.

Early Example of the menus with placeholders:

Communication: The downfall of many projects.

During the first week, we had great communication, with 2 meetups in the first week to brainstorm ideas and tasks for each member. After each member was assigned a task, however, things became a lot quieter. Our producer didn't poke us to finish our tasks by a certain time, which left me feeling unmotivated and admittedly, made me spend way longer than necessary on my tasks.

It wasn't until the end of the second week that I decided to share my progress on the menus with the team and suggest a meetup over consolidation week. This made me extremely worried about the project's schedule and future. Something that I hope doesn't continue into consolidation week so we are not rushing/cutting things down in the last week.

References

Black Hammer. (2019, February 18). Fantasy Wooden GUI: Free | 2D GUI | Unity Asset Store. Retrieved 18 May 2023, from https://assetstore.unity.com/packages/2d/gui/fantasy-wooden-gui-free-103811

MiMU STUDIO. (2017). 2D Casual UI HD | 2D Icons | Unity Asset Store. https://assetstore.unity.com/packages/2d/gui/icons/2d-casual-ui-hd-82080

Positron. (2019). Steampunk & Fantasy UI Pack. https://positron.itch.io/steampunk-fantasy-ui-pack

Brackeys (Director). (2017, December 6). SETTINGS MENU in Unity. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YOaYQrN1oYQ

RumpledCode (Director). (2020, September 11). Unity Tutorial—Simple Character Selection System. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3qlRgICRoeA