Unity Prototyping: from 2D to 3D workflow
Some takeaways from starting a prototype in 2D and switching to 3D
The creative process behind Journey (the seminal atmospheric game from thatgamecompany) fascinates me a lot. I appreciate how the developer team was able to find the essence of their game in 2D, and later translate the whole experience to 3D.
Hence why I’ve decided to work on a similar pipeline myself. Here’s a screenshot from my personal research project, MechaRabi, or more precisely of how it looked in 2D at the beginning:
The game concept involves a main character who can attack enemies with an energy bolt. The character can summon robotic minions at the press of a button. Such minions possess two behaviour modes: Peaceful (during which they will follow the main character obediently) and Aggressive, which triggers their war mode and the beginning of their attack routine against the enemy.
I set up this prototype in 2 weeks~, working on it mostly during my spare time. I felt that there was something worth pursuing in terms of the game loop, so I switched the project to 3D.
I was quite happy with how the mechanics translated well from 2D and 3D, which was my plan from the beginning. This motivated me to further continue working on this personal research project. Meanwhile, I can already share some takeaways from this pipeline:
Working in 2D allows quick implementation of ideas, due to lesser loading times, reduced import time, flexibility in creating art placeholders using Aseprite
I was particularly happy with how testing in 2D allowed me to quickly isolate the interesting parts of my gameplay (namely, the robot assistants) and get rid of what was non-necessary right from the first hours of experimenting
Consequently, going from 2D to 3D encouraged me to keep the focus on my initial vision and keep only the strong elements of my idea.
I would encourage other developers to try this route, as a disciplined exercise for improving consistency and conceiving an interesting gameplay loop while restraining the scope as much as possible.
To play devil’s advocate, this is hardly a one-fit-all solution when it comes to prototyping. In a game focusing entirely on traversal and spatiality, for example, this 2D to 3D workflow passage could prove even misleading as the introduction of the third dimension could possibly jeopardize the entirety of a 2D-only design.
Nonetheless, I had fun following this process and I’m likely to keep it as away to quickly iterate on personal research projects.