Paused old project, started a new one!

Again, I have not posted in awhile, my apologies! I blame school though. I am almost done with my final semester and I am ready to graduate and move on with my career! But, you guys are not here to read about that. For my update today I want to talk about my project, "Bomb Catcher." The title is tentative and I do not like it but it works for now. 

I think we all have this amazing idea for a game that we all want to make or have made one day. Like most of you I have that same idea and I would love to make it. But, I realized I was jumping in a little to deep of water for my skills. After reading countless articles on how new game designs need to think small and finish something first before they move on to bigger projects, I decided I needed to do the same. That is where my new project comes in.

A few of my friends here at Virginia Tech are in a class where they were tasked to design a simple game using a microcontroller and an accelerometer. I talked to them about the game and I thought it sounded cool and simple and I said "What the hell, Ill make it!" I decided that I would use Unity and I would code in C#. 

The game is simple. You control mine cart. The cart can move left or right. You can increase the cart's speed for short bursts. A cannon at the top of the screen shoots cannon balls after it moves. The cannon can move left, right, or it can stay in the same spot. The cannon can move random distances based on its location on the game screen. Once the cannon ball is fired you must catch it. If you catch it your score increases, if you miss it and the bomb hits the ground you lose a life. You have five lives to catch as many balls as you can. After a certain amount of catches the cannon increases it speed. If you lose all five lives then the game is over and you must start over. Simple enough right?

Here are a few pictures of my progress so far. 

These are two views of that play area. The bottom is actually what you will see when you play. The top is an iso-metric view to see how I made the scene.

The cannon fires a prefab. The prefab right now is just a sphere with a metal texture  Last night, I added a particle emitter to it. I want it to look like a spark trail(I think).

This is the model I am working on for the minecart. I have 0 experience with 3d modeling. This is my first attempt!

If you have any questions feel free to ask! Hope you like my progress!

-Dan