What is Safari Zone?
Safari Zone is a creature collection game with rogue-like elements. The player chooses a spawn area and can travel a set distance before their time runs out. The player can use different items to index creatures, which also awards the player with money. Money accesses new areas to discover new Creatures or use items to perform better on a Safari Zone run.
Aspects Of Note
This project is the first time I had released a project via Steam, which had been a great learning experience. Something a lot of developers that I know personally have yet to do themselves. Releasing on Steam meant that I couldn't just upload a zip with the controls like I could on itch.io, it means a complete storefront had to be made with trailers, descriptions and plans for pricing. The trailer can be viewed here.
I learnt a few things that were outside my realm of knowledge, two of them were a save file system on console and releasing a game on Steam;
- Save Files: I had created a save system already for Quest Quest but I had adapted it to work with Xbox One / UWP. Unfortunately, the Unity Xbox Live tool that allows players to sign in and streamlines cloud saves had broken during the development of Safari Zone. I could find no solution on the GitHub page for the tool, so I came up with a solution to write it to the system memory to serialise it.
- Steam Release: Aside from the trailer and marketing material, I had to implement different functions and API's I had not used before. One of these things is the Steamworks API, which I implemented to track player stats and achievements. I also had to set up when to detect controller input as the Steamworks API had a way of handling control schemes, this broke my control scheme system that would automatically swap to controller support if that input is detected.
Player backpack while in desert
Player in a starting area by a lookout
Spawn select screen
Splash screen without UI
