How I Made a Game in One Month

The story of MoonGun, or, how to turn prototypes into complete games

During November of 2020, I participated in the Github Game Off Game Jam (a mouthful, I know) and developed a game by myself in the period. The experience also allowed me to apply many of the skills and topics I have been writing in these past months about game design and development.

MoonGun, the game I developed, was the 85th Overall Best Game, from a rooster of over 500 games, and achieved the 38th position for Best Theme Interpretation, 40th position for Best Audio, and 48th position for Best Graphics. It also gathered a good amount of positive feedback.

In this piece, I’m looking back at the process and sharing the methods I have used, including the stages of conception, planning, development, and release. Moreover, this subject allows me to reiterate some of the topics previously discussed in my articles, presenting them into a final working product.

Before jumping into the main subject, I have a few important notes: this report is meant more towards the game design aspect than the technical side of game development. The game was developed using Unity 3D (version 2020.1), which I am fairly familiar with and have already built other games with. Even though the project was done all by myself, I…