When creating this prototype I just wanted to get something playable finished, here we are.

As it is I wanted to get down the core gameplay that one would experience when playing, that is an PvE shooter.  I've kept it simple and because of that I haven't been able to implement much of any feedback I obtained from the Concept Document in regards to what I have now. BUT that doesn't mean I don't have plans to.

When making this prototype I was able to enlist the help of a friend to get some pointers on making the enemy and bullets the player shoots while the rest I used a couple of tutorials online to accomplish. As it stands the biggest issues I did have were with the enemy AI as programming isn't something I'm the greatest at.

Going back to my Concept Document, I did obtain feedback that I will be utilizing in future updates. Enemy health, player health, damage, and a "main base" being the big denominators. Enemy and player HP needs to be balanced in such a way that players don't end up being one or two shot and enemies don't end up being so easy to kill one doesn't even have to worry about fighting. As such I plan on making a couple of versions in which the player has 3HP, both players and enemies deal 1-2 damage per hit and enemies have 2-3HP, whilst another version will have the old setup. I believe testing like this early on will yield better results than finding out later when too many things must be changed.

In terms of a "main base", Archae-Ranger didn't originally have any big goal for the player and as such no incentive for them to continue playing. After being told this I realized that giving the player NPCs that offer goods, dialogue, and have different interesting personalities can help alleviate this as well as an actual story behind the location we are at.

I will be using Unity and Clip Studio Paint to make by game, I have not a lot of experience in Unity and what I do have is from nearly two years ago. The reason I chose Unity over Unreal (an engine I have more recent experience with) is because of two things. 1) Unreal is a powerhouse and not in a good way, using it will destroy everything I hold dear to me (my computer) 2) Unity's 2D engine and by extension its library is v a s t and arguably far more applicable than Unreal would be for me in this concept. 

That does bring me to an issue I saw while making this prototype, I'm rusty and easily forget things especially when it comes to phrases and numbers, its part of the reason why I am more of an artist than a programmer currently. Because of this development will most likely be slower for me as most of what I will be learning will require me to find a tutorial or other existing example for me to create it. As such I will be mostly putting art on the backburner and focus on getting the game, blocky shapes and all, working as I want it to.

All in all I believe this is a great experience for me to be doing, in most of my game projects I have had people to fall back on when it came to areas I lacked. But I'm excited to see where I can go with this now that I am on my own.