Day 15: Unity 2D Game Development: From Prototype to Work of Art

Cubes to Sprites

The time has come to convert my colorful 3D cubes to fun 2D sprites! The core mechanics of my game is a 2D space shooter. Initially, my 3D cubes can shoot lasers, dodges incoming enemies, and collect powers-up. But what I think is fascinating when switching away from the prototype is that art can be anything. My player could be a shark with a laser gun, shooting pirates riding down the sea, or a bumble bee shooting stingers defending against bears. Despite those fun ideas, the main goal was to create a space shooter.

So before swapping the assets, I had to download the assets online from GameDevHQ Filebase and this neat website I found called OpenGameArt. Then I imported the sprites into my Unity project and made a few changes to the background, player, and enemy objects. Since my player was a 3D cube to use a 2D sprite. I had to make a few adjustments to the player prefab. Some changes included a sprite render, rigibody 2D, and capsule collider 2D. I tinkered around finding a background I liked and adjusted the scale values of the assets. I finally concluded what I wanted the game to look like.