Welcome to Our Devlog! The authors of our development team will share their individual and team development journeys, filled with challenges and lessons learned in creating our Unity game.

Bernardo:

The process, in general, was quite challenging because it was my first experience with Unity. I learned about the importance of file organization and file management in general. The entire process is quite labor-intensive, and we need to organize tasks for the workflow to proceed. The tool itself is very comprehensive, and we need a lot of practice to understand everything it has to offer.

Mycael:

For me, Neo Arena was a valuable and enriching experience. Despite facing challenges during development, such as needing to relearn Unity platform functionalities due to the time I hadn't used it, I managed to overcome some difficulties I didn't imagine I could.

Regarding the game's design, it was mostly our team member Victor's idea to use the cyberpunk theme as the main theme of the game, as well as the core mechanic of the game being a one-hit kill and defeat enemies. With this foundation, we made decisions collectively throughout its development. We ultimately decided as a group to have the game in a top-down perspective, and I believe the fast character movement added a dose of excitement to the gameplay. Additionally, implementing mechanics such as shooting, high score, and enemy spawning brought new learning and skills to my development repertoire.

Team collaboration was also a crucial factor for the project's success, with all three participants supporting each other in different stages of development. Although the initial idea was somewhat ambitious and not all planned elements were implemented, the final result was very satisfactory, creating a clean and enjoyable game to play.

Overall, this experience certainly contributed to my personal and professional growth, allowing me to expand my knowledge and skills in game development, which I can now apply to future projects.

Victor:

Developing this game was a real adventure, full of exciting challenges and incredible learning experiences for our group. From the beginning, we dove headfirst into defining the vision and key mechanics of the game. In an exciting brainstorming session, we had the valuable guidance of Professor Marcelo Fardo, who served as our mentor, and together we came up with the idea of a cyberpunk hack 'n' slash game. Our goal was to create a fast-paced, action-packed combat experience that would captivate players.

Immediately, we moved on to the prototyping phase, where we thoroughly explored character animations, collisions, and movement, as well as enemy mechanics. We wanted to ensure that combat in the game was exciting and responsive, so we dedicated ourselves to refining every detail.

Our team worked together cohesively, which was crucial to the project's success. We learned the importance of efficient communication and clear task division. By assigning specific responsibilities to each team member, we were able to progress more quickly and maintain a good development pace.

Another crucial aspect we learned was the importance of testing and iteration. We conducted numerous internal and external testing sessions, with valuable player participation. The opinions and feedback we received helped us identify balance issues in the game, adjust difficulty, and enhance the overall user experience.

Finally, one of the most important lessons we learned was the need to document everything. As we progressed in the project, we realized how vital it was to record every step and decision made. This documentation served as a guide during development and will also be valuable for future reference.

Overall, the game development process in Unity was a challenging and rewarding journey. We learned about game design, programming, optimization, teamwork, and documentation. I'm confident that this knowledge will be applied in our future projects, allowing us to constantly improve our skills and provide even better gaming experiences.

Looking ahead to the future, I'm excited about applying all this acquired knowledge to upcoming projects. I'm sure these experiences will allow me to continuously refine my skills and create increasingly immersive and exciting gaming experiences.