Arolf Delano Santos
Toaster Launcher
My First Unity Game Project
Toaster Launcher was the most significant development project. It was the first real game I made and I had the creative freedom to create any type of game I wanted from scratch. Every single asset I made on my own and the scope of the mechanics is simple enough for me to program.
It is an arcade game where the player must launch toast to destroy explosives raining from the sky before they reach the ground and explode.
Game made in Unity and Microsoft Visual Studio | Visual Assets made in Aseprite and Photoshop | Audial Assets made in SunVox and Bfxr
Making of the game
Design Process
When it comes to handling projects completely on my own, I can design plans in my head, barely needing to write them in charts, graphs, or such. The plans I do write are story transcripts and lore, as seen in my earlier project, Abracademia: The Visual Novel.
Toaster Launcher, being a game relying on gameplay rather than story, makes it quick and easy to design the mechanics. I immediately thought of an arcade shoot 'em up like the ones I played when I was young and using the knowledge I gained from my Third Year studies.
Still trying to familiarize myself with the world of programming, I scrapped some popular elements such as power-ups, multiple levels, and data persistence as they are too advanced for me to figure out under the set amount of time. The gameplay was simple: shooting, dashing and increasing difficulty. Without power-ups, the gameplay serves as a test of skill, especially once the game reaches its highest difficulty with constantly spawning high-tier enemies.
Making of the game
Art and Sound Process
Working in group projects mostly as an artist, and in my own free time, composing music under the alias, Aratonati, this process became my favorite part of its development. This is because I already had the experience needed to create the visual and audio resources for my game.
Having used 8-bit software such as Aseprite and Sunvox, and with Toaster Launcher planned to have a goofy atmosphere (despite the enemies being explosives), it was natural for me to once again use a pixel art and chiptune approach.
