Retro Space Rail Shooter
Retro Space Rail Shooter is a game template you can purchase on the Unity Asset Store: https://assetstore.unity.com/packages/templates/packs/retro-space-rail-shooter-132618
As author of the template, I created all of the template assets, including scripts, 2D and 3D artwork, sound effects, scenes, prefabs, etc (the menu backgrounds are heavily edited versions of public-domain NASA photos).
The original Starfox for SNES, and the SuperFX chip that Starfox and other SNES games used to render 3D graphics, were major inspirations for the visual style here. I created custom shaders to reproduce that particular visual style, including the checkered shading technique (pixel crosshatch). By default Unity applies bilinear filtering to your game output when it is rendered at a lower resolution than the screen resolution, so I also wrote a custom post-processing system for upscaling low-resolution graphics while maintaining the hard pixelated edges that we would see in classic consoles.
I used Blender 3D to build and UV-map the 3D models, and created textures/2D sprites in Adobe Photoshop.
Features, as described on the Unity Asset Store:
+ Single-player on-rails shooter gameplay. Steer your ship to aim; shoot down enemies while avoiding obstacles and enemy fire.
+ Scoring system
+ Player inventory / power-ups system
+ Laser cannon and homing missile weapons
+ Player lives and respawning
+ Several types of AI and movement patterns for enemy / NPC ships
+ Retro flat-shaded player spacecraft model with two variants
+ 5 retro flat-shaded enemy spacecraft models, plus 1 retro flat-shaded enemy carrier model
+ Functional enemy prefabs for each enemy model
+ One complete level demonstrating all gameplay features, plus several scenes demonstrating specific concepts and gameplay features
+ Menu Main scene
+ Settings scene
+ Two music tracks and dozens of retro-style sound effects
+ Graphical presets to create a more authentic retro look. Quickly set your resolution and framerate to emulate 16-bit, 32-bit, 64-bit, or high-def platforms
+ A custom retro shader that gives your models an authentic 16-bit look, with flat-shading and checkered shading inspired by the Super FX chip*
*This project is not affiliated with or endorsed by Nintendo.
I created the 3D graphics and corresponding shaders to recreate the visual style of early 3D games like Starfox for SNES.
My custom shaders include a checkered-shading (pixel crosshatch) technique to emulate the look of SuperFX graphics.
The graphics can be rendered using a low-resolution post-processing system I developed for an even more authentic retro look.
I also designed the menu UI (background image incorporates public domain NASA imagery).
The level-complete screen. Background image incorporates public domain NASA imagery.
In addition to the 3D graphics, I designed the effects sprites and HUD, again to emulate a retro style.
A limited color palette and flat shading help recreate the retro look.
The horizontal band in the background starfield provides a subtle guide for the player to keep track of their orientation (pitch).
Movement patterns for the enemy units recreate the classic feel of older games.
