[WIP] Android Game - Crossy River

Hello everyone!

Background
I recently released my first game, which taught me the basics of game design/development and how to use Unity. There were a couple things about the development which I was not very pleased with; I purchased pre-made artwork (limited creativity), had to design every level (tedious as solo dev) and user-engagement was lacking (no leaderboards/achievements/etc).

What I wanted to achieve from making a new game:

• Learn the 3D side of Unity3D
• Auto-generate random levels
• Create my own artwork
• Integrate Google Play services

So with those goals in mind I did a few days of research/brainstorming and decided a 'crossy' style game is something I would enjoy creating. While I am not a great artist, I could still put some blocks together.

Crossy River
Project Start Date: 10/9/2015

Spoiler: Characters

I wish I found this sub-forum sooner so I could have posted my progress to date but better late than never. Look forward to hearing from you guys. Thanks!

 

Here is a game-play video from a few weeks back

 

I think your game world is much more interesting than the one in Crossy Road. Shows more creativity / better ideas at least based on the CR levels I have seen. Not that theirs is terrible by any means. Just it reminded me a lot of Frogger and yours looks significantly different and has a much different "feel".

 

Thanks Gar! I definitely wanted it to have a unique look and feel with some different style obstacles.

 

It has potential, but seems to have the same issue as many other games have.

I'm not really a fan of clones, but the few I do like have one thing in common: They do something original. Your game seems like a complete clone (gameplay wise), the graphic style I do like better than crossy road, but its still not enough to be its own game. I would suggest doing something different, maybe make some powerups or something, alternate worlds (like under the ocean as well as above), or even doing something like making a coop option (for tablets) and having two players compete side by side. There are many things you could do but I would shy away from keeping it the same, Smashy Road is just one example, they kept the same graphical feel and the same menu/earning characters idea, but added a whole gameplay aspect. I'm not saying you should make yours this drastically different, but you get the idea, some change is good.

The only issues I saw with the graphics is the sharks teeth seem to be floating, and a 'quack' sound was the only animal sound the game had, it kinda seemed out of place.

Overall not a bad concept, I look forward to seeing how this turns out.

 

Hey Raven, thank you for the great feedback, I really appreciate it. I completely agree with you that I need to start transforming the game to be more unique. I was thinking of doing multiplayer a couple weeks back but noticed that Crossy Road had already announced they are doing it for Apple TV so it wouldn't really help with the cloney feel.

Powerups are something I think I will work on next. I have 2 so far I am considering; 1) slow down time of everything except player and 2) a starfish power where the player could bulldoze through anything in its path, sending it flying.

 

New video to show progress!

@RavenOfCode I added the slow time powerup!