I would like to suggest a course from GameDev.tv.
I figured if I don’t ask I don’t get, and this may perhaps fall into the realm of something you might be able to create in future once your back log has cleared.
I would like an extensive tutorial on how to create a certain genre of game, initially the game can seem like you’re average incremental / clicker type game. However, it has certain mechanics and design implementations that separate itself from the usual structure of such games within that genre.
It involves elements of resource management, and town management with minimal 2D graphics and display. The game also features “unfolding” game mechanics which as the player continues to invest their time new features are revealed naturally as the player delves deeper into the games systems, I essentially would like to suggest a clicker game of this nature done as a tutorial so that we know the best practices for developing such a game.
Here is what we could learn from this experience, or what I think should be important
- A well rounded “Keyword or Event” system
so when a word or block of text is mentioned via the message system, it can unlock perhaps a new button that allows the user to perform a new action, or perhaps a new mechanic entirely.
A message system that keeps a log of what the user has done, so the player never forgets their past actions, for example when the player clicks a button to collect wood, the log would say “the user has collected 20 wood” it could also display the story of the game, so when the player achieves a milestone, and suddenly the log would print “a woman stumbles into the room.” Which would activate another chain of events such as a new location to travel to.
- The proper way to implement a incremental game and to learn good structure
Seeing people with a bit more experience go through a game of this genre would allow people to know how to structure their projects better, I would suggest personally the use of scriptable objects, events, Canvas system and keeping most of the code independent from the inspector, to really challenge how they see a project. Most clicker game tutorials these days rarely ever use these unique unity features and will stick to the basics of a GameManager and not even remotely touch these other systems.
- Resource Management
Another good thing people would learn is that of resource management, usually in a clicker game, you only need to well… “click” and the resource is produced, and you make money in incremental fashion as you buy “upgrades” the difference with this type of twist on that genre though is, it takes into account more than one type of resource. Instead, players will need to manage say “wheat” for example and keep that up, to produce villagers, if the wheat resource is not maintained that will have a net negative effect on your villager number, and this will also have cascading effects, perhaps you can assign roles to your villagers to get stone, well if you don’t feed the villagers, you don’t get the stone, which further then robs you of an “upgrade”. (see CivClicker for a good example of that).
- Minimal User Interface
Doing a game of this structure would also help people see that, you don’t need massive 3D environments or stylish 2D pixel art to create an interesting gameplay loop, and that a lot of the games user interface can even be done in code with Instantiate or object pooling! As the game story could be told through a “journal” or “log” in text and the story unfolds as the player continues clicking and unfolding mechanics, Whilst still maintaining Canvas (I suggest this as even though I believe the USS and UTML) will be the future of user interface for unity, however Canvas is wildly more understood and more beginners would be accustomed to that.
and much more…
Examples of the structure of this type of game are as follows:
Example 1: “A Dark Room” by Michael Townsend of Doublespeak Games
The source code is even available in a public Github, however it is written in Javascript and its user interface is HTML / CSS. For my learning, I struggle to decouple the code in Javascript to C # for use in the unity game engine, however this still doesn’t mean its the best way to go about creating a game like this especially in Unitys case where we have access to things such as Scriptable Objects, Events and Templates and Prefabs.
I would also like to suggest that the course be more intensive and more sufficiently planned for future expansion, for example using Unitys more up to date Save system implementation as Microsoft has now made Binary saving and loading obsolete and also PlayerPrefs is everywhere these days and isn’t exactly a secure way to save and load data, especially if the user wishes to have an in-game store or shop within their game / app.
More so, I would also like to see unique unity features implemented into this project. Such as “Scriptable Objects” as these are excellent ways of storing large amounts of data and perhaps this project done in one scene. This would teach a lot of people a ton of skills and also help someone like me see how a project of this nature is structured correctly.
Another example of an excellent incremental game done in a different style is also “Civ Clicker” but again this is done in Javascript and HTML and CSS. Which again, is the hurdle I and many many others fall at.
Example 2, “Civ Clicker” although I could not find who created the project but the company seems to be “Deathray Games” and again, the project is open source and available on Github.
https://civclicker.sourceforge.net/civclicker/civclicker.html
Here are the Github repositories in the hopes a content creator like yourself can sift through code and perhaps translate that to the Unity Game Engine, and hopefully (an extra great bonus) update the games architecture with more flexible Unity features such as more modern save and load features / Unitys Canvas system / Scriptable Objects.
Thank you so much, a devoted GameDev.tv user and fan of your work, who thanks to your business idea and dedicated content I have developed a new and loving hobby and passion!