Devslopes Defender 2D Game in Unity 3D

This is Part 5 of my eleven-part review of the course Devslopes 3D Game Development Academy.

Devslopes Defender 2D Game in Unity 3D

Course Company: Devslopes
Instructor: Jacob

Rating: ******
5/6

This is the only 2D game
That we learn to make in this course.
It’s an oddity that stands alone,
But attracts like a powerful force.

It’s a little less complicated
Putting images in your scene.
You only have the X and Y
Axes on the screen.

We don’t use 3D models.
We use images instead.
Map pieces are called tiles,
Which can be placed onto a grid.

Animated characters
Are multiple images called sprites.
We can make them run and jump
And get into complex fights.

Our instructor this time is Jacob,
And he tells us all upfront
Exactly what we’re making
From the back to the side to the front.

We’ll be only using one screen
And one camera in one scene.
Everything takes place here,
All that’s done and seen.

We’re shown a path through a forest,
Along which towers are found.
Enemies will try and destroy them.
You’re to knock them all down to the ground.

That’s the game in a nutshell.
It doesn’t sound so hard,
But making it is a different story,
So we begin to move forward.

He shows us the assets. They’re simple enough.
And we import them into the engine.
We make some useful folders,
Giving the project a sense of direction.

Every Unity scene has a grid
Which we now see before our own eyes.
We lay a tile onto it
And tinker with its size.

When tile and grid space are as one,
We begin to make a picture.
We add some grass, some trees, a path,
And some ornamental fixtures.

We put different parts on different layers
To show the illusion of depth.
The trees look closer than the ground,
And we can see this all in-depth.

Our game needed some enemies,
So we animated some,
And quickly decided where they’d walk,
And where they would spawn from.

We made a GameManager script,
Which carries great importance.
It starts when we open up the game
And controls all the events.

It’s the program all the other
Scripts draw from and add to.
We put the GameManager in the game,
Because we really had to.

We put some GameObjects on the screen
Spaced out along our path.
Jacob called these SpawnPoints
And they followed simple math.

Each enemy would spawn at the first
SpawnPoint to the left.
They would then continue right,
Passing each point till there’s just one left.

At this last point they would disappear
And a counter would increase.
If too many enemies escaped,
The Player would feel Game Over grief.

We learn a lot of other things
That we don’t understand why we need.
We eventually come to realize
That it’s strong coding indeed.

We’re introduced to Raycasts.
In this instance it allows
Us to select a tower graphic
And place it with our mouse.

We just finished all the easy stuff.
Now it gets complex.
We learn strange and novel methods,
Like Translate and Mathf.

We have a lot to think about,
So we do a little at a time.
We learn how to use projectiles,
And make them travel in a curved line.

Projectiles just seem simple,
But some of the mechanics involved
Are sophisticated enough
That great Unity has them solved.

Next comes figuring out and implementing
A system to keep track
Of enemies alive or dead
To keep your game on track.

We learn some good programming
And how to best organize the code in our cubicle.
We add some sound and GUI,
And build it into an executable.

And there you have it. It took some time,
But we have completed a lot of work,
And in the process learned a lot
About how 2D games work.

Jacob’s a good teacher.
He got us to jump into this and dive.
That is why I’m rating this
Online course a five.