The Making Of: Laser Defender

THE COURSE

I created the bulk of this game following along with a course.  A few of the new things I learned include:

• Using Unity's "new" input system
• Using mathF.clamp() to restrict the player's movement
• Creating a waypoint system for enemy movement
• Using scriptable objects
• Adjusting physics layers in the editor
• Using the Singleton pattern
• Making an endless runner instead of individual levels
• Creating a parallax effect using materials

ON MY OWN

After I completed the course, I implemented a powerup system on my own!  The powerups themselves are a combination of scriptable objects and prefab variants.  I used coroutines to give the powerups a time limit.  I also added more enemy types and set up additional enemy waves and waypoints to make the game more challenging.

THE INCIDENT

Once I finished development on this game, I posted it on my portfolio and wanted to make my code available for review on GitHub.  I had not yet learned to use git with Unity and accidentally deleted my entire codebase.  This was quite upsetting.  My brother was also very disappointed because he wanted to see some improvements made in the future, so he encouraged me to find a way to recover the project.  In the end, I was able to recover it and I learned to use git so it would never happen again!  My codebase has been made available here.

I am looking for suggestions to improve Laser Defender, so comment any ideas you have!  Your idea just might make it into the next iteration :)