Hello everyone!
It's been an exciting journey working on our game, Contention Space. Today, I'd like to share with you some of our experiences during the development process, the challenges we've faced, and the achievements we're proud of.
Contention Space is a space exploration and combat game, drawing its inspiration from a variety of sources, including classics like Asteroids and Galaga. The design process was filled with many brainstorming sessions and back-and-forths until we landed on our core mechanics.
Unity - The Bedrock of Development
Unity was the foundation and framework that supported every aspect of Contention Space. Its extensive feature set and flexibility enabled us to implement intricate mechanics, from maneuvering spacecraft to designing AI behavior. Each exciting moment, quiet exploration scene, and intense combat sequence was brought to life using the powerful capabilities of the Unity engine.
Blender was our tool of choice when it came to 3D modeling. This encompassed everything from our spacecraft to the asteroids and environmental elements that populate our game world. As is typical in 3D modeling, we encountered challenges, like refining designs and handling the occasional vertex mishap. However, through continual iteration and improvement, we successfully created 3D models that enhanced the visual aesthetic and the overall gameplay experience of Contention Space.
Music was an integral part of our project. We used BandLab, an online platform for creating music and collaborating with other musicians, to construct our game's soundscape. Composing the right tunes to underscore the thrilling highs and tense lows of the gameplay experience was a creative challenge that we relished. The result is an original soundtrack that not only enhances the atmosphere but also heightens key gameplay moments.
Our journey through game development was significantly aided by artificial intelligence, particularly OpenAI's ChatGPT-4. This AI-powered tool proved to be an invaluable consultant, providing creative solutions to coding issues and contributing innovative ideas to narrative development. Whether we were untangling complex code or brainstorming the nuances of our game's story, GPT-4 was a trusted and insightful ally.
One of the highlights of this project was collaborating with award-winning authors to develop our game's narrative. Their expertise added an extra layer of depth to Contention Space, resulting in a captivating storyline that goes hand-in-hand with our engaging gameplay. Our talented writers crafted a narrative filled with engaging character arcs and exciting plot twists, sure to keep players engrossed.
A deeper Look:
One of our significant challenges was implementing the AI for the hostile spacecraft. Using Unity's navigation system, we set about creating enemies that could both chase the player around the map and evade their attacks. After a lot of iterations, we created an AI system capable of providing an engaging and challenging experience for the player.
Audio was another critical aspect of our project. We wanted to provide an immersive experience for our players, and sound played a huge role in this. Implementing sound involved a fair amount of coding, and we faced a few hurdles along the way.
One issue was ensuring the game respected the player's sound settings. We used PlayerPrefs to store the player's preference for sound effects and music, and we had to ensure these settings were correctly applied whenever a sound effect was triggered or music played. There were some issues with music continuing to play even when disabled, but after some debugging and adjustments to our scripts, we solved this problem.
Our game includes a shop where players can purchase upgrades for their spacecraft. Implementing this shop required a mix of UI design and scripting. We faced some problems with type and namespace not being found, which after troubleshooting, were resolved by adding the necessary using directives.
To enhance the performance of our game, we experimented with multi-threading. This was a complex task because Unity's main features are not designed to be used from multiple threads, and we had to use ConcurrentQueue to make it work. The process was challenging but rewarding, significantly improving the game's overall performance.
Finally, we added a multiplayer component to our game. This was a significant milestone, but not without its challenges. We had study database systems and ensuring a smooth, synchronized experience for all players.
Despite the challenges we faced during development, the process was a rewarding one. Not only did we come out with a game we're proud of, but we also learned a lot about game development, Unity, and problem-solving.
Seeing Contention Space come to life from just a concept to a full-fledged game has been an amazing experience. We're looking forward to sharing our game with all of you and hope that our journey has inspired some of you in your game development endeavors.
Stay tuned for more updates as we move forward. Here's to the infinite possibilities of game development!
Until next time,
The Contention Space Dev Team
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