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Jonas Tyroller19 Oct 2018

Making a Game In 10 Minutes! - (Brackeys Challenge)

Key insights

6 takeaways

01
Rapid prototyping under extreme time constraints, such as a 10-minute window, requires a disciplined prioritization of scene architecture over feature complexity.
02
Iterative testing is essential during high-pressure development, as coding without immediate verification frequently results in critical bugs and logic errors.
03
Common failure points in time-constrained projects include poor time allocation and the omission of essential configurations like correct script parameters.
04
Effective rapid development demands high technical familiarity and the agility to pivot quickly when initial implementations fail to function.
05
Successful rapid development relies on balancing environment setup—including lighting, camera positioning, and object prefabs—with the implementation of core mechanics like movement.
06
Minimalist games can achieve high engagement by incorporating dynamic elements such as camera rotation and procedural difficulty scaling.

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Transcript

brakus I accept your challenge you challenged us to make a game in 10 minutes AIESEC challenge accepted check out the original video somewhere here I'm gonna link it and now we're gonna make a game in 10 minutes in unity let's go full disclaimer I made through test runs of this first test run took me one hour so gonna be a really tight one I'm so nervous starting the timer 8 3 2 1 all right Jonas off the pass is busy now editing Jonas is doing the commentary lighting to 0-0 shut up Jonas you're not talking anything interesting so my strategy was pretty much setting up everything in the scene first and then doing the coding so that's what you see right here setting up my scene ed was a slow start come on visual studio start fast oh yeah some

really dumb stuff like visual studio starting up costing me a lot of time here already 2 minutes in and I pretty much got nothing so far and starting with the player script here because that's probably the most important part okay here we go that's the player now I'm not quite really just trying to write the entire script in one go because there will be no time to come back to this later on here we go that's the player done I hope it works what makes this even more stressful is that you don't have the time to test anything out so will it work or did I already screw up now we just need to write the spawner and then the game's basically already done just writing this pod or good joke because the spawner script is definitely more complicated than the player script it will take more time and I even forgot to change some things in the scenes or I'd rather do that really quick costing me even more time now let's write the spawner 4 minutes remaining oh geez see just a second ago I was pretty confident that I would still be

able to do it now I was definitely starting to feel the pressure so I ran to fully dry art mode and code it as fast as I could which is not exactly super-fast I guess yeah come on make another line you can do it yes oh my god three minutes the spawner is supposed to spawn a bunch of cubes and then the goal of the player is just not to touch any of them the tricky part about this is getting all of the parameters right without any testings or the spawn rate the difficulty curve two minutes and without the test runs this part would have been pretty much impossible as I've said earlier I had a relatively slow start Jesus Christ so I had to cut some corners with spawn algorithm in my test runs all of the spawn cubes had different sizes which looked really cool I kind of forgot that but there wouldn't have been any time for that anyway so

here you can see me once again fixing up stuff in the scene that really shouldn't have happened as I've said my strategy was setting up the scene first and then just doing the coding needless to say that didn't really work out I forgot so many little things all the time 50 seconds remaining let's give it a test run why am I not seeing anything this is not good this is just a general rule in game development whenever you code something without testing it never works will I be able to find the back within the next 30 seconds though yeah I'm checking the light maybe all of the cubes just were invisible because there was no light that was not it I already checked the light settings like three times in this video right the spawner needs to cube oh my god 17 seconds remaining please this needs to work now Jesus no why is there nothing

on the screen 5 seconds no what is wrong oh my god my heart this was stressful okay there's one block ah what the hell is this why is there an equal sign here no way that caused me the time come on now it works are you kidding me this didn't sit right with me this horrible defeat okay try hard mode activated three two one go you know the drill let's just speed this up about 20 times what we do not have the time to watch all of that again this time I had a way better start once again it took me about two minutes to get started with the coding but I didn't forget as many settings in the scene so that will save me some time later on here's the player

script done immediately getting started with the spawn script and last time I got started with it I had four minutes now I had five minutes remaining so that meant enough time to coat my really cool spawn pattern it still got super close in the end just have a look no no no no no here I just figured that I hadn't created the cube prefab yet so I just created a cube and directed into the spawner script really quick go 50 seconds please please just work [Music] this already a lot better but I can I can barely see anything all the light needs to be the same position that's the camera but of course there was still something wrong oh my god I'm rich fast

well the flames a fast o.o tiny tears are famous missing [Music] okay I would say this counts if it works no this count oh Jesus my heart this is so difficult oh my god I didn't knew this would be so stressful please work now please this looks good in my opinion there are two little details that make this game feel pretty great first of them is this light camera rotation you see that the entire camera

is rotating around its own axis and the second point is that all of these blocks are more or less aligned with the cameras movement direction so that makes for a lot of cool and dynamic lines the longer you play the more blocks there are and you get faster and faster over time as well so even though there's no high score yet it's already pretty addicting on this YouTube channel I document my journey to becoming a game developer I share absolutely everything I learn on the way so you can become a better game developer as well hope you enjoyed watching this and hope to see you around peace out

Summary

Developing a functional game within a ten-minute time constraint serves as a high-pressure exercise in rapid prototyping and efficient workflow management. The process highlights the critical importance of iterative testing, as coding without immediate verification frequently leads to unforeseen bugs and logic errors. The primary challenge involves balancing the setup of the game environment—such as lighting, camera positioning, and object prefabs—with the implementation of core mechanics like player movement and obstacle spawning.

Initial attempts often fail due to poor time allocation and the omission of essential scene configurations, such as missing prefabs or incorrect script parameters. A successful approach requires a disciplined strategy where scene architecture is prioritized to avoid last-minute debugging. Even with a refined strategy, the lack of time for comprehensive testing remains a significant hurdle, as even minor syntax errors or misaligned assets can render a project non-functional until the final seconds.

The final product demonstrates that even under extreme time pressure, a compelling experience can be achieved through simple, dynamic elements. By incorporating features like camera rotation and procedural difficulty scaling—where obstacle density and speed increase over time—a basic project can evolve into an engaging, albeit minimalist, game. Ultimately, this experiment underscores that while rapid development is possible, it demands a high level of technical familiarity and the ability to quickly pivot when initial implementations fail to yield the desired results.