What I Learned
I made everything on this project except for the music which is a copyright-free loop.
I learned that it is possible to make something satisfying to play in a short time. You can get the most out of basic gameplay by correctly using specific tools.
CUBETROY is by far the project that took me the least amount of time to make (I'd say around less than 10 hours of actual production time), and despite this, I believe it is the most satisfying one to play because of its simplicity.
I put most of my efforts towards adding juiciness into a retro game with barely any feedback for players to enjoy. Due to that, I learned which effects are the most effective or when they should be used to work best.
I also redesigned the gameplay of the initial duck hunt game. I intended to add nervosity to the original game with those design changes.
Concept
Flow
The main concept is much simpler than the original game. Red and orange targets appear from the bottom of the screen at a random horizontal location. You have a few seconds to shoot them up before they fall down. The game ends if you fail to do so.
The cubes appear gradually faster over time, making it harder to keep up.
Scoring
Red and orange targets differ from each other. Shooting red targets will give you 1000 points, and shooting orange ones will give you 2500 points (they are smaller and rarely spawn).
When the game ends a menu shows up comparing your score and your high score.
Game Feel
The quick-aim approach was more suiting for a computer game, especially if you remove the "Nintendo Zapper" that was sold with the original game (which made most of its appeal). At first, I wasn't quite sure as to how I should replicate the usage of the accessory without the accessory itself.
I ended up creating a virtual gun, to best reproduce the feeling of the original game, it follows the player's cursor. The game works the same way without the gun, but I think it adds a lot.
Graphics & Music
Graphics
I opted for a neon aesthetic due to the lack of time. Still, it also allowed me to implement juiciness with neon particles when shooting and breaking targets, which I found to be very effective (especially when coupled with a screenshake).
Music
For the music, I opted for a copyright-free cyberpunk loop.
I tried to enhance the music choice by making the game harder once the beat drops.
Retrospection
I'm very proud of how CUBETROY turned out in the end. It shows how much I can accomplish even in such a short period of time.
As I said earlier, I believe that CUBETROY is my most enjoyable game so far, which was the goal when starting this project.
It was also a success as a school project. I got a good grade on this exercise and professors enjoyed CUBETROY overall.
What went wrong:
The project's organization wasn't the best
The difficulty reaches its peak at some point and the game doesn't get harder.
Overall the game is just meant to show off the juiciness. Its replayability factor is pretty low due to the lack of content.
