Guild Diaries #9: Pirate Torty - What I Like, Dislike & Learned

For a game that is only a little over a month old, this first release is not perfect. In fact, far from perfect. So I think at this point, it is important for me to reflect on what I like, dislike and learned while making this unpolished diamond.

What I Like:

1. Decent vector graphics

What started out as an idea for a pixel art assignment turned into an ambitious feat of drawing 2D vectors instead. With zero prior experience and knowledge in vector art, I truly surprised myself when I realised I could draw decent background and character art using Photoshop. The graphics in this game is something I am quite proud of.

2. Tons of animations

In order to breathe life into the characters, I made tons of animations in Unity for this game. Probably about 30-40 clips in total. It is the highest amount of animations I've ever made for a game. These animations do make the game much better and pretty to look at.

3. Cutscenes

I've always liked to play games that add a little story element to it. While in Pirate Torty, the story is nothing but a simple dialogue and images, I really like the simplicity of it and the fact that at least there is a story so the game is not just a 2D Platformer about a pirate throwing hats.

What I Dislike:

1. Low fidelity animations

The animation method I learned when using 2D characters is to use sprite sheets. And boy, do those take up so much time! I mean, one character would need like 20 sprites just for its basic animations. At some point, the animations don't look smooth frame by frame as I got exhausted drawing the animation sprite in detail... Some characters do have choppy animations and it's hard for me to look at.

2. Some levels

I'm very new to designing levels so as a game developer, I forigve myself for making boring and horrible levels. But if I were a player of this game, I would absolutely hate how some levels seemed linear while some seemed too confusing and difficult to get through. Sigh...

3. Lack of 'game feel'

Yes, this is the ultimate reason why this game looks nothing like a game, but a beta. It's lacking in that 'game feel'. The low quality animations coupled with horrible levels is a combo for a low quality game. But a game without an environmental layer of sound effects and 'feel' makes it even harder to consider this a well-made game.

4. Inadequate sound effects & music

FL Studio was a tough nut to crack, but composing music was a brick. Uncrackable. Yeah, I mentioned in a previous post that I'd like to give a shot in composing my own music for this game because I wanna feel like it's 100% made by me. But sadly, FLStudio turns out to have a steep learning curve and it's free version is not making it easier to compose... At the end of the day, I have only limited music and sound effects imported to this project that are from royalty free websites.

What I Learned:

1. Skeletal Animations

I should have gone with rigging the character instead of making a sprite sheet. It's more time-efficient and the animations would have turned out looking smoother and cleaner. Lesson learned.

2. Kirby!

When it comes to level design, there's no right way to get ideas. But what I know is that I should have played some Kirby games for ideas. It's not that hard to pick up my Switch and looking back, I wonder why I didn't do it. I could have gotten way more ideas. Lesson learned.

3. Audacity

FLStudio was too pro for me. I should have done more research and gone with Audacity instead. I could have at least made something in that software in 3 hours. Instead, I spent a good 15 hours on FLStudio with no results so yeah... Lesson learned.

4. Free assets are not illegal assets

Though I felt terrible for using royalty free music and sound effects at first, I realised that there's no shame in using them. It's not like it is illegal and the game is still 100% mine, whether or not the music and sound effects is created by me. Yeah, good lesson learned.

So this is the end for this long post. Obviously there's more that I have learned from this experience but it shall not be mentioned as this post is going to be too long. It is without a doubt that game development taught me how to overcome hurdles and expand my creative boundaries. I've surprised myself many times about what I can do as I tend to undersestimate my own skills. It has been a great journey with Pirate Torty. And it will definitely not be the last.

I look forward to the many future journeys I will embark on in the future!

Till then, keep gamedev-ing!