2D. Sounds old-school, doesn’t it? Of course, the easiest thing to do here is to hire a specialized 2d game art outsourcing company. This will allow you to solve the issue of developing a game of the highest quality. But nowadays, the development of 2D games acquires a special charm. You feel like a connoisseur to whom the truth that is inaccessible to others has been revealed. But one sense of beauty is not enough – 2D development has many nuances. Obviously, the main feature of 2D games is the absence of the third dimension. How to determine who is closer to the viewer: a car, a bush or a huge combat robot? 

To solve this problem, all 2D-engines have a mechanism for sorting sprites – that is, two-dimensional graphical objects – along the Z-axis. It can be called a Z-order or Sorting Layers – in any case, it can be used to move objects from layer to layer. In other words, the problem has already been solved for us. You can not waste your energy on the invention of the bike, and pay attention to the features of specific engines and genres.

Sound and animation

Sounds and animation are not so important for prototype development in most cases. But you have to understand that working with them in 2D differs significantly from 3D. In the 3D world, animation is skeletal: each model has a “skeleton” (rig). Moving its parts, the developer animates the model.

And in 2D animation is created frame by frame: you need to create an atlas of images to make them a sequence of frames of animation (sprite sheet). Walt Disney did everything with a brush and a roller, and it was a masterpiece (c). In the same way, you can create very beautiful cartoon characters. Like in Cuphead, which was developed on Unity.

But the sound in 2D makes it easier. If the absence of the third dimension imposes restrictions when drawing the world, the work with sound, on the contrary, becomes simpler. There is no need to take into account the distance from the listener (the character in the game) to the source of sound – the listener will always be the player himself.

But does a prototype need music at all? It is impossible to give an unambiguous answer (as well as with animation). Let’s take a look at Hidden Folks. This is not just a 2D game, but a real work of art. The whole sound in Hidden Folks consists of strange grunting and stuttering of its developer, which in itself is a unique commercial offer of the game. Every touch to the screen of the smartphone makes you smile. Well, if the recording of grunting is not suitable for you, in Asset Store Unity you can find a huge number of paid and free assemblies for the prototype, and sometimes for the release version of the game.

Where to start

Recommendations on the choice of genre can be found in the article of the last cycle. Here we will also speak about some ways you can go to a beginner developer. Some people think that there are not so many variants and you should definitely graduate from a specialized university with a good professorship. But if you dig deeper, you find an endless ocean of knowledge, which lie right in front of your nose – it remains only to grasp the opportunity provided by the Internet.

• Tutorials. Tutorials differ from courses in that they give a clear algorithm of actions to reproduce the result. They do not go beyond the scope of the task and are perfect when you need to do something specific, until you have lost your enthusiasm.
• Online courses. This is a more professional approach, which will allow you to already understand what you are creating and work more productively.
• Specialized companies. You can also hire specialists who are well versed in 2d game concept art. They can solve any task quickly and easily. That’s why you should pay attention to this approach to solving this problem. In most situations, only a professional can do what you need to do.