How I Started My First Game!

The UntitledRPG was initially a project I created to learn how to create a game from scratch in Unity. I purchased a few courses from GameDev.tv where they taught me how to implement some of the features that are currently in the game already.

Watching a course or a tutorial isn't enough to create the next big thing though, so I took it upon myself to add more than what the courses were saying. Using asset packs from Synty Studios for the art style, and a few other asset packs to create more polish for the game.

The courses for the entire game took me around 3 months to complete as I was also working on my degree from Full Sail University at the time. The courses taught me a lot about programming design patterns, how to create custom editors, folder structure, organizing my code, and more. This helped me on my journey to developing my own game from scratch. Once I finished the courses and got the foundation of the game working, it was time for me to start working on features that the course did not teach me as well as polishing the game up to look like I wanted.

---

The first major feature I wanted to implement into the game was a day/night cycle. I picked up an awesome asset pack called Enviro Lite, and was able to put it into the game with ease. After some C# scripting, the UI was able to display the time of day. Once the day/night system was in place, I noticed that it can get very dark for the player at times, so I set up two ways for the player to see better at nighttime. The first system I created was an automatic torch system that would turn the torches on and light a fire in them whenever the time of day reached a specified time. This was challenging to get right because I needed to make the light look like it was fading in and out at specific times. The use of the asset pack made it easier because of the event-based logic in the programming. The second system I added into the game was a light that follows the player at all times to brighten up the area around them. I noticed that when the player gets away from the torches and walks out into the wilderness, it gets too dark again. This wasn't a challenge to create because of the previous auto-torch system I already made. I added it to the light on the player, and the same thing happens. Now the player is able to see throughout the map, no matter the time of day.

---

Once I created these systems I took a break from the project to focus on the remainder of my degree program. During this time I was starting to try and think of future things I could implement into the game when I had more time. Gathering ideas from other games such as Diablo 1-3, RuneScape, Path of Exile, and other RPG/MMO-type games. I thought long and hard about how I wanted to make this project into something bigger, since this project was just a project that started off as a learning project, it had no clear goal. After graduating from Full Sail University with my Bachelor of Science degree in Game Design, I knew I would have more time to dedicate to this project. I still didn't know what direction I wanted to take the game, but I knew what kind of gameplay I wanted. Something casual, relaxing, but also a lot of flashy abilities and combat, similar to Path of Exile and Diablo 3. I knew what basic features I wanted in the game and started working on those to get a foundation game with all the systems working. This would allow me to quickly create content for the game when I have a clearer goal for what the game is about.

---

The second feature that I implemented into the game was the minimap. I had recently learned how RenderTextures worked in Unity and wanted to try it out myself. I created a simple minimap that displays icons for the player, enemies, and eventually other features in the game. This system was relatively simple to create because of all my experience learned so far from other throwaway test projects. The minimap is crude for now, but it works. There are plans to change the minimap to look cleaner in the future.

---

The third feature I implemented into the game was an ability that let the player transform into a ball of light so that they can move faster and see where they are going in the dark. This feature was added because the player character can sometimes be slow, and if the player needs to run away from a fight quickly, they can transform into the ball of light and run away. This feature was difficult to implement and caused many issues at some points. The first problem that happened was when I was trying to put the ability on cooldown. With the way the ability system was made from the course, I was not able to create the transformation ability as easily as I had hoped. Originally, the abilities were also items that can be placed in the inventory or on the action bar. Since the transformation ability is not an item, this had to be reworked. The cooldown system also was initially supposed to work with abilities that were also items so that had to be reworked as well. After many trials and errors, I was able to successfully implement a new system where the transformation ability can be placed on cooldown separate from abilities that are items as well, while still using the same system. This was a goal that I placed on myself when I started reworking it because I knew that I would have to create more abilities like this in the future.

---

These are just some of the features that I have implemented, and I plan on adding a lot more in the future as this project grows. It is my first big game project and I am developing it by myself through the use of tutorials, courses, asset packs, and lots of coffee.

If you got this far, I'd like to thank you for taking the time to read a little story about how this project began and I hope to continue working on it for the foreseeable future.