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    A Beginner's Guide to 2D Shooter Games: Beginners' Guides, #2
    A Beginner's Guide to 2D Shooter Games: Beginners' Guides, #2
    A Beginner's Guide to 2D Shooter Games: Beginners' Guides, #2
    Ebook178 pages1 hour

    A Beginner's Guide to 2D Shooter Games: Beginners' Guides, #2

    By Patrick Felicia

    ()

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    About this ebook

    In this book, the second in the "Beginner's Guide" series, you will create a simple 2D shooter game, create challenging gameplay and learn techniques to code more in less time.

    This book can be read as a standalone (you don't need to have read the previous books in the series, although it may help) and focuses on scoring system and lives (e.g., keeping track of the score), user interface (menus and in-game information for 2D games), movement of the spaceship (e.g., left, right, up and down), missiles and explosions (i.e., fire missiles or create animated explosions upon collision), Artificial intelligence (e.g., moving independently or attacking the player) and improving your C# programming and Unity skills (e.g., important and useful functions and principles that you can reuse in your own games).

    The main idea behind this book is to save you some headaches when you need to create your 2D shooter and to help you to find the time to actually code your game, by explaining simple and effective ways and best coding practices that you can use easily to create more code (and games) in less time with less stress and more fun.

    The content of each chapter is as follows:

    • Chapter 1, Creating a Simple Level, shows you how to create a simple level for a shooter game including a spaceship that you can move in all directions, missiles that you can fire, and meteorites that appear in random locations and that can be destroyed or avoided by the player.
    • Chapter 2, Adding Special Effects, explains how it is possible to create simple, yet effective, visual effects to improve your game. Along the way, you will learn how to use sprite sheets and slice them to create your own animations.
    • Chapter 3, Improving our Game, explains how you can add some interesting Artificial Intelligence to the NPCS (i.e., enemies) so that they can detect and shoot at the player; you will also learn how to keep track of the health of the player and the NPCs.
    • Chapter 4, Polishing-up the game, shows and explains how to make the game even more challenging by progressively increasing the difficulty levels of the game, to add a temporary shield to the player, along with sound effects.
    • Chapter 5 provides answers to Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) related to the topics covered in this book.
    • Chapter 6 summarizes the topics covered in the book and provides you with more information on the next steps.

    The method explained in this book has been tried-and-tested, and I can guarantee that after reading this book, you will be able to create your own 2D shooter games; this is because the book includes step-by-step instructions, plenty of screenshots and explanations, and a format that is easy to read (just like a friend or a friendly instructor would explain coding to you: in a casual way, yet concise, accurate, and informative).

    After buying the book, you also get access to the author, if you have any question, and to plenty of free add-ons worth over $100 exclusively made available to you including a member area with weekly updates, a private Facebook group where you can post your questions, over 25 tutorials (video and text), cheat sheets, discounted paperback copies, and much more!

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPatrick Felicia
    Release dateOct 8, 2020
    ISBN9781542900492
    A Beginner's Guide to 2D Shooter Games: Beginners' Guides, #2
    Author

    Patrick Felicia

    Patrick Felicia is a lecturer and researcher at Waterford Institute of Technology, where he teaches and supervises undergraduate and postgraduate students. He obtained his MSc in Multimedia Technology in 2003 and PhD in Computer Science in 2009 from University College Cork, Ireland. He has published several books and articles on the use of video games for educational purposes, including the Handbook of Research on Improving Learning and Motivation through Educational Games: Multidisciplinary Approaches (published by IGI), and Digital Games in Schools: a Handbook for Teachers, published by European Schoolnet. Patrick is also the Editor-in-chief of the International Journal of Game-Based Learning (IJGBL), and the Conference Director of the Irish Symposium on Game-Based Learning, a popular conference on games and learning organized throughout Ireland.

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      Book preview

      A Beginner's Guide to 2D Shooter Games - Patrick Felicia

      Create a simple 2D shooter game and learn C# in the process

      Patrick Felicia

      A Beginner’s Guide to

      2D Shooter Games

      with Unity

      Copyright © 2017 Patrick Felicia

      All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in retrieval systems, or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher (Patrick Felicia), except in the case of brief quotations embedded in critical articles or reviews.

      Every effort has been made in the preparation of this book to ensure the accuracy of the information presented. However, the information contained in this book is sold without warranty, either expressed or implied. Neither the author and its dealers and distributors will be held liable for any damages caused or alleged to be caused directly or indirectly by this book.

      First published: January 2017

      Published by Patrick Felicia

      Credits

      Author: Patrick Felicia

      About the Author

      Patrick Felicia is a lecturer and researcher at Waterford Institute of Technology, where he teaches and supervises undergraduate and postgraduate students. He obtained his MSc in Multimedia Technology in 2003 and PhD in Computer Science in 2009 from University College Cork, Ireland. He has published several books and articles on the use of video games for educational purposes, including the Handbook of Research on Improving Learning and Motivation through Educational Games: Multidisciplinary Approaches (published by IGI), and Digital Games in Schools: a Handbook for Teachers, published by European Schoolnet. Patrick is also the Editor-in-chief of the International Journal of Game-Based Learning (IJGBL), and the Conference Director of the Irish Conference on Game-Based Learning, a popular conference on games and learning organized throughout Ireland.

      Support and Resources for this Book

      To complete the activities presented in this book you need to download the startup pack on the companion website; it consists of free resources that you will need to complete your projects, including bonus material that will help you along the way (e.g., cheat sheets, introductory videos, code samples, and much more).

      Please open the following link:

      http://learntocreategames.com/2d-shooter-games/

      In the section called "Download your Free Resource Pack, enter your email address and your first name, and click on the button labeled Yes, I want to receive my bonus pack".

      After a few seconds, you should receive a link to your free start-up pack.

      When you receive the link, you can download all the resources to your computer.

      This book is dedicated to Helena

      ––––––––

      [  ]

      Table of Contents

      1 Creating a Simple Level

      Adding the spaceship

      Shooting missiles

      Managing Damage

      Level Roundup

      2 Adding Special Effects

      Introduction

      Adding special effects to the targets

      Adding an explosion

      Creating a scrolling background

      Level Roundup

      3 Improving our Game

      Introduction

      Keeping the player in the field of view

      Applying Damage to the player

      Adding artificial intelligence

      Level Roundup

      4 Polishing-Up the Game

      Improving AI

      Adding a temporary shield to the player

      Adding a score

      Adding Audio

      5 Frequently Asked Questions

      User Interaction

      Firing Objects

      Improving Gameplay

      6 Thank you

      Preface

      After teaching Unity for over 5 years, I always thought it could be great to find a book that could get my students started with Unity in a few hours and that showed them how to master the core functionalities offered by this fantastic software.

      Many of the books that I found were too short and did not provide enough details on the why behind the actions recommended and taken; other books were highly theoretical, and I found that they lacked practicality and that they would not get my students’ full attention. In addition, I often found that game development may be preferred by those with a programming background but that those with an Arts background, even if they wanted to get to know how to create games, often had to face the issue of learning to code for the first time.

      As a result, I started to consider a format that would cover both: be approachable (even to the students with no programming background), keep students highly motivated and involved using an interesting project, cover the core functionalities available in Unity to get started with game programming, provide answers to common questions, and also provide, if need be, a considerable amount of details for some topics.

      I then created a book series entitled Unity From Zero to Proficiency that did just this. It gave readers the opportunity to play around with Unity’s core features, and essentially those that will make it possible to create an interesting 3D game rapidly. After reading this book series, many readers emailed me to let me know how the book series helped them; however, they also mentioned that what they also wanted was to be able to create a simple game from start to finish, publish it and share it with their friends.

      This is the reason why I created this new book series entitled "A Beginner’s guide"; it is targeted at people who already have completed the first four books in the series called Unity From Zero to Proficiency, and who would like to focus on a particular aspect of their game development. This being said, this new book series assumes no prior knowledge on the part of the reader, and it will get you started quickly on a particular aspect of Unity.

      In this book, focused on 2D shooter games, you will be completing a 2D shooter game and also code in C#. By completing each chapter, and by following step-by-step instructions, you will progressively create a complete 2D shooter game.

      You will also create a 2D game that includes many of the common techniques found in shooter games including: moving a spaceship, using moving targets, weapons, explosions, moving enemies, simple artificial intelligence, and a user interface.

      [  ]

      Content Covered by this Book

      Chapter 1, Creating a Simple Level, shows you how to create a simple top-down level for a 2D shooter game, including: a spaceship that can be controlled, missiles, and targets that can be destroyed.

      Chapter 2, Adding Special Effects, explains how it is possible to include visual effects that improve the quality of our game; you will learn how to make the targets blink when they are being hit, add explosions when NPCs are destroyed, and also include a scrolling

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