At this stage, our main game idea was defined, so I need to create at least a basic ocean animation just to experiment and try what I can do in a short amount of time to scale the game. It is not to make a Proof Of Concept (POC) but to start manipulating animations in Flutter. 

First, we needed to make the proof of concept of our main gameplay, to ensure that it was possible to make it and that it has some fun to play.

So basically, I started to write some code to make some PNG images, downloaded from random sites, to move around the screen like fish. It was pretty simple, due to Flutter widgets Animation and Image already existing. In a matter of minutes, I make a simple ocean screen with some fish moving around in a linear direction.

– But that is not really what we want. At first, the fish’s image doesn’t move back and their movement is not natural at all. Also, we need to have smooth movement –

After that, I thought about what I needed to implement, and the collision was my biggest fear. I have already worked on some school projects where we made our collision system, and it can be pretty messy. So I started to make some web searches on what I could do to optimize my time and found that the best solution wasn’t to make my special game engine but to use what was already available.

To summarize, at the end of the day, we made a pretty great screen test with some fish that can move in a custom way. It is the very first start of our development, and this made me realize one thing, the amount of work will be consequential so I need to be as efficient as possible. And for that, I have just the right package, Flame engine, that I will discuss in the next blog post.