1. 2D Shooter Game Workflow
Zachary Warren
Sprite development.
All of the sprites in the game for enemies and weapons will be animated, however the animations for
the ships sprites will not be show on this document as it would take up too much space.
These are the final 2 stages of the players sprite. I had to decide if I wanted a more sci -fi approach with
the black and blue one, or use a more realistic jet-like sprite, I decided to use the red and yellow jet in
the end, then creating another one, making it blue, for player 2.
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After I decided that the game would feature slightly more realistic sprites with the players being jets, I
then created the enemy sprites using the player sprites as a base, then changing colours and resizing.
These three would serve as the base-enemy for the game, not varying much from the originals, easing
the players into the game making their point rewards easy to recognize, as green gives 100, orange gives
200 and red gives 300.
I then began work on the harder and rarer enemies. These are the sprites for the two variations of
intermediate enemies that can attack the player.
These have been made slightly bigger for this document, and are slightly smaller in-game, however they
are bigger and easier to spot, making them clear as the bigger threats in the game.
2. As you can see, there are 3 sprites for the boss, these show the bosses health, as when it takes a certain
amount of damage, it moves from the sprite on the left, to the one in the center, and on its final stage, it
becomes the sprite on the right.
These are the sprites for the players weapons, the rockets will generate particles when used in game, so
they are less visible and the plasma bullets will move a lot faster, making them harder to focus on, this
means their sprites do not need as much detail, however they are both still animated with movement in
the rockets, and colour variation in the bullets.
These are the sprites for the enemy weapons, the top one being a weapon exclusive to stronger
enemies such as the bigger ships and the boss, whereas all enemies fire the bottom weapon. The top
sprite originally looked like this;
however the sprite didnt seem to work correctly when the weapon was being fired backwards but the
sprite shows a wave-like projectile firing forwards, therefore it was changed into a projectile that could
be fired in any direction.
The explosion sprites were the only sprites to be acquired on-line and they did have a much longer
animation, however I shorted it by removing some of the frames, as the explosion effect in the game
was not long enough to showcase the entire explosion.
3. Background Development
The background to my game is a long canyon, with scrolls and can go on infinitely as it is seamless. There
are also transparent clouds which scroll above the player at a different speed to give the illusion of
movement. The image has been condensed into a much shorted picture, which is why it appears
distorted on the document, however, in-game it is at its best. The canyon was originally in full colour,
with green grass and brown tree trunks with brownish canyon walls, however this was all given a purple
tint to give the illusion of night.
4. 2-Player
Having 2 Players was a feature I set my sights on quickly, so I implemented the second player by
duplicated the first and then tweaking the methods in which it is controlled. The colour difference is
similar to that of other games in which red/blue are the basic colours that the players could be such as
fighting games where the second player will be a colour variation of the first player.
If either one of players dies during the game, the level is over and many more enemies will spawn when
the second player is existant, however this risk is not without its reward, there is a massive amount of
points to be gained as having the second player increases the amount of points you will earn every
second, as well as giving you that extra firepower to fend off enemies on the other side of the screen.
5. Weapons
There are two weapons available to the player, the Plasma Cannon and the Rockets.
The Plasma Cannon fires plasma rounds in 3 directions, helping to clear enemies all across the screen,
however sometimes more power will flow into a different direction than another, keeping you on your
toes and making you stay mindfull of the flaws in your firepower.
6. The rockets are very helpful, as they can destroy all enemies in the game, as well as destroying incoming
projectiles. They require some level of accuracy though, as they do not stray from moving in straight
path at high speed and are not fully automatic, meaning the player must decide where the y want to fire
and move in line with that enemy, as they cannot hit them from an angle, like they could with the
Plasma cannon.
The image above on the left shows how the enemy plasma weapons can be fired from all enemies and
travels downwards in a straight line, and the image on the right shows the red balls being fired from one
of the stronger enemies. These can be fired and will travel to where the player was when they were shot,
making the game exponentially more difficult once enemies capable of firing these shots begin to spawn.
