I Made A Feature-Packed Video Game in Four Weeks - Tips and Tricks for Rapid Game Development

After four weeks of late night coding, ripping my hair out, and none stop coffee drinking I finished making my first solo game - Super Mega Space Blaster Special. This wasn't a masochistic game dev binge, it was a challenge I set myself. I wanted to take a break from console development on our much bigger game, The Flawless: Art's Tale, and make a full-featured Steam game in only four weeks. I knew it would be difficult but I hoped that it would help me further develop my game development skills, release a game, and hopefully make something fun for all to enjoy in the process. This article focuses on some of the ways I completed my challenge, for a less game development focused article you can read my blog post: The Story of Super Mega Space Blaster Special.

Choosing the Right Tools

If you're going to make a video game quickly you need tools that you know well. I have loads of experience developing in Unity and coding in C# (in Visual Studio) so this was a no-brainer. I didn't want to use too many Unity assets, as I wanted to learn as much as possible from the development process. The only Unity asset I decided to use was Rewired by Guavaman Enterprises. This asset allows pretty much any controller to be used via the same code and I wanted to support Xbox, PlayStation, and Nintendo Switch Pro controllers with in-game images. Rewired made this easy and saved a lot of time. For graphics I went with Photoshop over Illustrator and other packages because I find it very easy to use. Back in the day I used to record bands and singer-songwriters. I always used Cubase and decided to go with what I know for the music and sound production to help streamline my development process. In the end choosing tools that I knew well over more modern tools or tools with better features worked to my advantage.

It's All About the Scope

Making a game in only four weeks required precision planning and just the right scope. Too much scope and you'll miss the target, too little and the game may not have enough polish or features to entice players. With this low scope I knew I wanted to charge the lowest price point on Steam, that's $0.99 (￡0.79, €0.79). This would mean that if the game was fun with loads of cool features it would be great value for money. I've worked on shoot 'em ups before (The Last Pilot prototype) and played loads of fun retro shooters so I decided the game would be a space shooter (shmup). I also decided to restrict the game to a single screen similar to Asteroids, The Galactic Plague, and Bit Blaster XL. This would eliminate the need for scrolling backgrounds and level design. I wanted to add as many features to the game as possible. I decided to work in a semi-agile style, creating a working build of the game and then adding to it until time ran out or everything I could add was included. I used Trello to keep track of my tasks and plan ahead. If you've never used Trello it's a great tool for both solo and team based development and completely free.

Which Features to Add?

I created a list of features I wanted in the game if time allowed. I gave priority to features that would tick off the boxes on the Steam store game page's feature list (see above screenshot). I also wanted to make sure each feature added to the gameplay experience and added value to the game.

Desired Feature List: 1) Full controller support, 2) Single player gameplay, 3) local cooperative gameplay, 4) local competitive Gameplay, 5) a large number of spaceships, 6) multiple game modes, 7) coins to unlock things, 8) challenges with coin rewards, 9) Steam achievements, 10) Steam leaderboards, 11) cross-platform cloud save, 12) a cool soundtrack, 13) a big-boss, 14) Steam trading cards, 15) ship upgrades for coins, 16) custom ship builder.

I actually managed to get most of the features in the game. Everything up to Steam trading cards is included, although the Steam trading cards won't go live until I sell enough copies (Steam explain more here). The 'ship upgrades' and 'custom ship builder' didn't make it into the final build. I will add them as an update or free DLC at a later date if the game proves popular enough.

Testing Times

Throughout the development process I ran small tests with a few of my friends. This allowed me to quickly figure out which gameplay elements were fun and added to the game and which weren't worth the effort. I tried things like physics based ship control and having ground vehicles as the second player but they didn't play well so were removed or changed. When working to a tight deadline decisions have to be made quickly and using this semi-agile method with quick stints of play testing allowed my decisions to be based on solid evidence. The end result was a fun, feature-pack little retro space shooter, built in four weeks. After submitting it to Steam I set up a Super Mega Space Blaster Special beta channel in the Bare Knuckle Dev Gaming Discord and recruited some beta testers. The game has gone from strength to strength with the help of some amazing beta testers. It's all set for its release on the Steam store on 18th June 2019 for the super mega low price of $0.99 (￡0.79, €0.79). I hope you'll check it out and let me know what you think in a comment or Steam review. #SMSBSp