Flank I — From Prototype to Art!

When working on a game, it’s a good idea to start with a prototype until you have a better understanding of your core gameplay. Ignoring the visuals and sound right away can help you create something functional so that you have less to change later after you add some polish.

Once that’s done, however, you get to the fun stuff — making it pretty!

Polish Phase 1

My current project, working name “Flank,” is moving out of prototyping stage. I’ve started adding art and making it unique.

Here’s how Flank started. The player was a cube, enemies were red capsules, and the projectiles the player threw were silver capsules.

Then I found character sprites here and added one to my player.

Next, I brought that character to life with some 2D animations! I started with 4-directional run and idle animations. It was my first time using blend trees for 2D animation, and it made the process SO much easier.

Next was to create the world the player runs around in! So I used the background tile-set found here to create a simple scene using Unity’s tilemap.

Then, I updated my enemies with these new sprites, including a running animation.

And finally, I got the ninja stars here and updated the player’s projectile.

There is much more polishing to do, but the game already feels much more alive. And now I can get back to implementing better functionality and more features, before I once again move into the polishing phase.

Bringing your game to life with art is such a gratifying experience. But having the right functionality in place first makes it even better. So it’s worth the wait.