The Making of SkyRider: Behind the Scenes

Ever wonder how SkyRider: Jetpack Adventure was made? In this post, we'll take you behind the scenes and show you how our small team created the game from scratch!

The Beginning

SkyRider started as a simple idea during a game jam. We wanted to make a fun game that anyone could play on their phone or computer without downloading anything.

Our first version was super basic - just a blue square that could fly up and down to avoid red squares. Not very exciting! But it was enough to show that the core gameplay was fun.

We spent a weekend building that first prototype. It was buggy and ugly, but we could already tell it was addictive. Everyone on the team kept playing it during breaks!

Finding Our Style

We knew we wanted a sci-fi theme, but we tried a few different looks before settling on the cyberpunk style you see today.

First, we tried a space theme with stars and planets. Then we tried a more cartoony look with bright colors. Neither felt quite right.

When we tried the dark cyberpunk city with neon lights, everything clicked! The contrast between the dark buildings and the bright player character looked great, and it fit perfectly with the jetpack gameplay.

We spent about two weeks just getting the look and feel right. The cyan and purple color scheme was inspired by classic cyberpunk movies and games.

Building the Obstacles

Creating interesting obstacles was one of the hardest parts. We wanted each obstacle to feel different and require different strategies to avoid.

The first obstacle we made was the drone. It was simple but effective - just a flying enemy that moves in a straight line.

Next came the lasers, which were inspired by security systems in heist movies. We liked how they created a timing challenge.

The skyscrapers were added to give the game more of a city feel. At first, they were just solid blocks, but players found them too hard to avoid. That's when we added gaps you could fly through.

The spinning fans were the last obstacle we added. They were tricky to program because of the rotation, but they added a nice variety to the gameplay.

Challenges We Faced

Making games is never easy, and we ran into plenty of problems along the way!

Our biggest challenge was performance. Early versions of the game would start to lag after playing for a few minutes. We had to rewrite a lot of the code to make it run smoothly on all devices.

Another big challenge was making the game feel fair. If obstacles appeared randomly, sometimes players would get impossible situations. We spent a lot of time tweaking the spawn system to make sure there was always a way through.

Sound design was also tricky. We wanted the game to sound exciting but not annoying. We went through dozens of sound effects before finding ones that felt right.

Testing and Feedback

Once we had a playable version, we shared it with friends and family to get feedback. This was super helpful!

Some early feedback we got:

• "The jetpack controls feel too sensitive"
• "I can't tell when I'm about to hit something"
• "The game gets too hard too quickly"
• "I want more rewards for playing well"

We used this feedback to make lots of improvements. We adjusted the controls, added better visual feedback for collisions, smoothed out the difficulty curve, and added the coin and power-up systems.

Launch Day

After three months of development, we were ready to launch! We were nervous but excited to share our game with the world.

On launch day, we shared SkyRider on social media and some gaming forums. We weren't expecting much, but to our surprise, people loved it! We got thousands of players in the first week.

The best part was seeing people share their high scores and compete with friends. That's exactly what we hoped would happen!

What's Next

We're not done with SkyRider yet! We have lots of ideas for new features and improvements:

• New game modes like Time Trial and Endless Night
• Character customization
• More power-ups and obstacles
• Weekly challenges with special rewards

We're a small team, so we can't add everything at once, but we'll keep updating the game as long as people are playing it!