Sam’s Spaceship Runner: Jedi Reflexes Required

Remember Sam? He works with instructor Clint as part of Game-U’s New York Accelerate program. Fresh from his triumph with dungeon-conquering ninja warriors, Sam’s taken on a new project – a 2D, space-themed, horizontal runner! Check out his progress.

Using Unity, the professional gaming engine, Sam started his runner with player and enemy objects, as well as a custom camera that gives the game a side-scrolling feel. With Gimp and a drawing tablet, which converts stylus impressions into digital artwork, Sam created his own sprites to represent the player spaceship and the enemy mine. To make the game multilevel, he added three Unity “scenes,” where the enemy mines come in different shapes and properties, for the player spaceship to traverse. The spaceship must successfully navigate all three minefields to win!

To give his game more functionality, Sam worked with the programming language C# to return the player to the beginning of a level if he or she collides with a mine. Meanwhile, a successful level completion (no collisions) causes the player to immediately jump to the next level. Sam gave his game more realism, and alerted the player to mine collisions, by adding an explosion effect whenever the two objects make contact. Finally, still working towards maximum functionality, Sam created his own Main Menu screen with a button, programmed with C#, that loads his runner’s first level when clicked. The menu background is of course in keeping with a space, sci-fi theme!

Excellent work here, Sam! You’ve got a cool game in the making, and you’re doing a great job mastering programming in C#. Keep at it! We’re excited to see all the amazing things you’re learning!