Prototype - Magic Smasher

Intro

Magic Smasher was another small prototype made during my path of learning Unity and C# (based on Unit05 of the Unity Gameplay Mechanics course. I'm publishing this to show my approach, thought processes, and decision making during development. I try to keep these short and concise, if you have any further questions or feedback, I'd love to hear from you! Reach me on Twitter at @PhilipDrobar.

My goals going into this:

• Physics-based clicker game (like Fruit Ninja), no keyboard input.
• Coherent theme (medieval fantasy)
• Win state: None. Fail state: Missing a clickable object. Player goal: Getting a high score.
• Time: About 1 day.

My approach on...

OVERALL LOOK AND UI: On this one, I wanted the UI to be a bit more integrated into the game screen itself, so I added the wall flags to provide a natural canvas for the score and the score values, then placed copies of the objects on the score value board. This makes it clear what the player can click on and what reward or penalty they would get for it.

GAMEPLAY: When testing, I saw that sometimes, the objects would collide with each other mid-air, making it easy for an object to fall back down quickly, causing a game over-state. Thinking about solving this, I opted to actually not with the following reasoning:
Usually, the only object that would still be around while the next one spawns would be a skull, which gives players a penalty for clicking it. If the player realizes the collision is a risk, they could potentially avoid it by just clicking the skull anyway, taking the penalty but also avoiding a potential game over. This adds a small layer of strategy, though it would have to be tested if it might still seem too frustrating overall.

What I would do next to improve this prototype:

• Add audio.
• Add more object variety, maybe even with different behaviors.
• Make a super-rare object appear, flying in from the top of the screen.
• Add a lives-system to prolong gameplay.
• Enable the player to buy lives in exchange for score to add a layer of strategy.