So You Want to Make a Brawl Stars Fan Game
It's not as straightforward as you'd hope. I spent about three weeks figuring this out after downloading my first project file, and there are a few things nobody really explains clearly in the early tutorials. The basics involve getting a game engine set up, importing or making assets that resemble the Brawl Stars style, and then writing some code. Most people start with Unity because there are more community resources for it, but Godot is lighter and honestly better if you're just starting out and don't want to deal with Unity's overhead. I went with Unity first, got stuck on the package manager for an afternoon, and switched to Godot. Here's what you actually need to do in order:
1. Download the engine. Unity Hub or Godot 4.x from their official sites. Don't grab anything from third-party links. Don't install "Unity mods" from random Discord servers either. You'll waste hours debugging things that aren't your fault. 2. Pick a template to study, not copy. There are open source Brawl Stars clones on GitHub. GitLab too. My recommendation is to clone one and just run it. See how the movement is coded, how the hit detection works, how the map loads. I found that copying movement code straight from someone else's project without understanding the variable names was a terrible mistake. My character kept sliding past walls because I didn't realize they were using a custom friction system instead of the built-in physics material. 3. Start with a circle that moves. Not a full game. A circle. It moves when you press arrows. It hits something and the thing disappears. That's day one. I know it sounds dumb but most people skip this and try to build a full brawl mode in the first session and get frustrated when nothing works.
4. Add a second player or a bot. Then add shooting. Then add health bars. Then add a map.
Get the Full Details
The Stuff Nobody Warns You About
Asset legality is the big one. Brawl Stars characters, names, logos, even the color palettes are Supercell intellectual property. If you make this game and put it online with their characters in it, you will get a takedown. Probably faster if you monetize it at all. I learned this the hard way when a friend hosted a test server and got an email two weeks later. He took it down immediately but the lesson stuck. So you design original characters that look similar but aren't identical. Different names. Different colors. Same general vibe. That's the only safe path if you plan to share this publicly. Another thing: networking. Local multiplayer is fine. Online multiplayer? That's a whole separate hill to die on. Most beginner guides skip this entirely. If you want actual online play you'll need a backend. Photon, PlayFab, or build your own server with something like Node.js and WebSocket. I tried Photon first, got the free tier working in about four hours, but the lag on match-making was rough. Switched to a simple WebSocket server on a cheap VPS and it was noticeably better for a small group of friends.
Common Pitfalls That Will Waste Your Time
Importing assets from Sketchfab or other sites without checking licenses. Some are CC0, some require attribution, some say no derivative work. Read the license. I once imported a free asset pack and discovered three weeks later that the author explicitly prohibited fan games. Had to remove everything and find replacements. Not setting up version control from day one. Use Git. Set up a .gitignore for your engine. Commit every time you get something working. Your future self will thank you when you accidentally break the movement system and can't figure out what changed. Trying to make everything at once. One feature at a time. Movement. Then shooting. Then enemies. Then UI. Then networking. Then polish. The order matters because each layer depends on the one before it.
What Tools Actually Help
Aseprite or LibreSprite for pixel art. It's cheap or free and it's what most indie mobile games use. For sound effects, Freesound.org has stuff you can use if you check the license. For music, same place. Don't just take songs from Brawl Stars or you'll get flagged immediately. For testing on actual mobile devices, Unity lets you build to Android directly from the editor. Godot does too. I always test on a phone, not just in the editor, because touch controls behave differently than keyboard input and you'll miss things if you don't.
Where to Find Starter Projects
GitHub is the main place. Search for "Brawl Stars clone Unity" or "Brawl Stars clone Godot." Filter by most stars to find the more established projects. itch.io also has a few free starter kits. The quality varies a lot. Some are just a single scene with nothing in it. Look for repos that have commits in the last six months and a README that explains what's included. There isn't one official starting point from Supercell. They don't provide SDKs for fan games. Everything you find will be community made. That's fine if you understand what you're working with, and it's a headache if you don't.
When to Just Play Instead
Be honest about your timeline. If you've never coded before and you think you'll have a playable fan game in two weeks, you won't. A basic prototype takes a beginner maybe a month of consistent work. A polished version? Six months to a year, if you stick with it. If that's not what you signed up for, you might just enjoy the game as it is and move on. There's no shame in that. Making games is hard even when you know what you're doing. Knowing that upfront saves a lot of frustration later.
