Fight of the Valkyries 2:
Second Movement
Balloon Fight meets Hogs of War.
Development Info
Dev Name: FOTV 2: Second Movement
Released: 2019
Genre: 2D Side-Scrolling Platformer
Engine: Unity 2018
Development Time: Three Weeks
Role: Solo Developer
-
Programmer
-
Artist
-
Design
Key Responsibilities
-
Concepting - Designing and developing core gameplay loop
-
Programmer - writing all game scripts using Visual Studio 2019 and C#
-
Scoping for a short development time
-
Concepting and Creating all art assets and animations
Development Goals
Getting to grips with Unity: This project was created as a way for me to get a handle on the unity engine. I'd programmed games without an engine before, but this was my first time creating a game using an engine.
​
Understanding Design: One of the reasons I chose to recreate Balloon fight's Mode C, was to understand their design decisions. In remaking the game, I began to understand all of the little design decisions that made the original fun - User Feedback, Signposting and Tight Controls.
Postmortem
My own spin: The original Type C gamemode was essentially a long vertical auto-scrolling gauntlet that the player gad to complete in one shot. This kind of design was emblematic of the NES, expecting the player to replay the same game over and over to commit the level layout to memory.
Of course, I was making a short game that would likely only be played by myself and a few lecturers, so I had to make the levels shorter, and create a lives system to allow the player to finish the game in a shorter period of time.
​
Programming for others: When programming for this project, I was constantly thinking of who was going to be reading the code. The code that I wrote was people first - code was commented and formatted to be as understandable and as readable as possible. Even if what I wrote wasn't the most efficient, I believe the ease in which the code was read was what got this project an A in the end.
The Original Game: This game is a sequel to my original Fight of the Valkyries game.
The original FOTV was created using the Microsoft XNA Framework in tandem with Visual Studio 2016. This original design was a clone of Balloon Fight mode A and was made purely to get comfortable programming - little was added to the design.
The original balloon fight was the perfect blueprint for me to pick up the basics. Three game-states; one enemy type; one score pickup and minimal graphics. I also thought it might be fun to storyboard a trailer for the game, which you can check out below.
