Paper Tanks!

Fight through waves of enemies in this game inspired by Wii Tanks!

Features 25 levels and 8 unique enemy tanks.
Can you clear them all with limited lives and reach the end?

Also features dynamic music where each tank is tied to an instrument.
I wonder where I got this idea from...

(Spoilers) Tanks Wiki in order of apparition

Pink: slow speed, slow bullets, low fire rate

Orange: an upgrade from pink in almost every way

Green: fast bullets, predicts your movement (shoots where you're going and not where you are)

Aqua: really fast, chases the player, short range shotgun

Red: nuke bullets that explode in a big area on impact

White: goes invisible, predicts your movement

Black: fast bullets, predicts your movements, can shoot down player bullets in its vision

All the sprites used in game are hand-drawn on paper and then scanned, take a look!

Some thoughts

This is the second game I've made. It's quite a step up from the simple project I first released. It took me some time to make (about a month), but I've managed to complete it and learn a lot along the way.

I remember some years ago when I first tried to get into game dev. My programming skills were too basic, and I just couldn't understand how to use a game engine. I was also too obsessed with trying to do things the right way, even before I started implementing any features. I would spend a lot of time trying to make sense of the engine documentation and watching tutorials while being too scared to do any actual work. During that time I also tried to make a similar tank game, but only managed to implement some basic controls before I got overwhelmed and quit.

Since then I've spent some time learning other stuff related to programming and slowly started becoming more confident. Still, during this period I would come across some amazing indie games and really skilled creators. I admit to have felt inadequate and envious, they seemed to have a natural talent for creating all sorts of cool things while I struggled with the basics and easily got overwhelmed. I just couldn't stand it anymore, I wanted to prove to myself that I could also create something to be proud of.

So with newfound determination I got back into game dev and found out I could now understand some concepts much better thanks to my previous programming experience. But what really changed was my approach to creating: I forced myself to just make stuff without worrying too much about the end result or the implementation. I had to refactor the game a couple of times, but for the first time I felt like I understood what I was doing and I could implement features and solve problems without wasting too much time. In the month it took me to make this game, I learned to do things my past self would have killed to know.

Even though I've been practicing a bit, I still don't know how to draw. What might seem like a style decision actually just stems from my inability to draw unlike a five year old and from not knowing how to use a drawing software. Not to talk about the audio department, that part took me way more time than it should and I don't blame you for turning off the sound halfway through the game.

What I'm trying to say is that in the end I still managed to create a little game that makes me somewhat proud, and that didn't come from talent or whatever but just from changing my mindset and finding joy in an activity I always thought of doing but was too scared and pessimistic to even try.

Sometimes I still feel inadequate when I look at skilled game developers, but at least now I know that if I really want it, I too possess the capabilities to learn and improve my skills in this amazing field.

Thank you for reading and for playing my game :)