Wanted to announce the latest game I’d been working on: Monster Match! It was finished about two weeks ago on Sept 26, but I’ve been slacking on writing these blog posts haha. This game is part of my “Game Jelly” series, which is basically what I call my game jam group between friends. This is the first post in the series, but not the first game I’ve made for Game Jelly.
In this series, I will do my best to document what I’ve learned from working on a particular game. I will also try to write individual blog posts on each new piece of knowledge that will serve as a guide for either my future self or somebody else.
About the Game
Monster Match is a game that mimics a dating app. It features a character customization screen, which is the first time I have ever implemented one of these (I’ve been wanting to learn how to create one for years, and now I’ve finally done it!) You create a profile for your monster, swipe through the potential suitors, and view your matches (and rejections) at the end.
In terms of gameplay, your monster’s traits determine how compatible you are with another monster, with opposing traits decreasing your chances of matching and like traits increasing your chances. The player’s goal is to look at these traits and attempt to match with as many suitors as they can.
Fun fact: We advertise the game as a monster looking for love, but in reality, the concept was to “become the town’s bicycle”, as our artist, Kara, has put it. In other words, your goal is to become the friendly neighborhood monster ho. 😉
What I’ve Learned
Here are some of the new skillsets I’ve learned from working on this game (ok, I lied, some of these I learned from working on my previous games, but I’m going to add them here because I also used them here):
- How to create a character creation screen
- Data persistence between scenes
- Correctly positioning and attaching game objects to a character
- Creating a color RGB color picker with sliders
- Creating a character randomizer
The Struggles
While working through this game, I encountered problems and bugs. I will also document these and write down how I remedied these errors.
- Game working in Unity editor, but breaking in build.
- Scene management
- Different serialization layout error
- DirectoryNotFoundException
Conclusion
I had a lot of fun working on this game! Despite its flaws, I especially love how the customization screen came out. Grateful for all my fellow artists who helped make this game come to life. 🙂