Game development is hard

Over the past few weeks, my friends and I have been working on creating a game from scratch in our free time, despite having no prior experience in this area. Let me share how it all began.

My friend and I were sitting in a nice bar, enjoying some cool wines. We were talking about life after 30 and reminiscing about the awesome times we had playing console games when we were younger. These days, we rarely have enough time to play. I'm a backend developer, and he was working as a developer for accounting software (though he recently started learning JavaScript and found his first job in frontend development). I told him about my school days when I learned Macromedia Flash to build small games.

Then my friend Igor said:

"You know, I have a friend named Vitaly who works in a grocery shop but also wants to build games."

And that's how it started. Three people from completely different backgrounds coming together.

We decided to use Unity because it seemed like the fastest way to build a game these days.

I focused on the backend part and developing an HTTP client for Unity to communicate with the server.

Our journey looked something like this:

1. What's the idea for the game? After talking with friends and drawing inspiration from tutorials, we settled on a concept and decided to build it into a product.
2. Where to get assets? This was challenging, but we searched the Unity store. Thanks to Black Friday prices, we spent $45 and got a UI asset package.
3. Where to get player assets? We searched online, found suitable assets, contacted the owner, got approval, and updated the info popup in the game.
4. Test, test, and test again.
5. How to earn money? We added in-app purchases and an option to watch ads to continue playing, but we designed it so it doesn't break the gameplay. You can still enjoy the game without spending money, and the ads aren't intrusive.
6. Get feedback. We implemented gyroscope controls, but based on feedback, we might need to change this approach.
7. Currently, our game is available on Google Play: Sweety Jumper - Android.
8. We don't have a marketing budget or ads to promote the app yet. This would require more investment, but hopefully, if people like it, word-of-mouth might be enough!
9. I would recommend using gameanalytics.com to track your users (DAU, MAU) - at the very least, you'll have statistics about your players.

In future articles, I'll try to describe the main challenges beginners face when using Unity and getting started with game development.

Our Games (hopefully more than one in the future!): Sweety Jumper - Android

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