Unity Tutorial 03

Welcome back to my blog,

A screenshot of the first part of the tutorial

At the beginning of week 3's tasks, I was continuing on with last week's unity tutorial, finishing off the last few bits of the car game. This involved coding the vehicle to move from left to right, rotating the vehicle when turning, taking control of the vehicle and cleaning up your code. This was a really nice tutorial to work on and I would love if the game design process was always this straight forward and pleasant.

 A screenshot of the second part of the tutorial

In the second part of the tutorial, we were challenged with fixing problems in an existing game's code. The game was a plane flying through gaps in a wall, the plane moved backwards, spun in circles and had no controllability. This tutorial did not include any visuals to follow along to, so it proved to be a bit more challenging. With the aid of my good friend Google, I was able to finish this tutorial, but I did ignore the 'bonus' part of it as it was implied to be optional and I was truly not bothered.

Reading 3

I found this image from searching 'scholar' - source

Welcome back to my blog,

I have been using Google Scholar to research into my two subtopics - Game Design Documents and The Structure of a Game. Below are the beginnings of my findings:

Game Design Documents

sources used in this research:

• https://www.kth.se/social/files/581afc07f276545fe24dbde2/BaldwinGameDesignDocumentTemplate.doc
• https://books.google.ie/books?hl=en&lr=&id=Eks3DAAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PA109&dq=game+design+document&ots=uSo5aeHFUT&sig=CHK9omBQB_1E0HFQ_9-5ndVnbr8&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=game%20design%20document&f=false

A game design document is the blueprints or plans for all elements of your game, it can (and most likely will) change and evolve as you finetune your game concept. It should include:

• The name of your game
• Copyright information
• What version of the game it is, including the author and date of publication.

As for the actual information on your game, the document should include a detailed account of the game's storyline, the mechanics, artistic style, level design, audio, obstacles and rewards. Your document should be detailed enough that if it were handed to another person, they could go ahead and develop your game without having to re-consult you.

The Structure of a Game

sources used in this research:

• https://books.google.ie/books?hl=en&lr=&id=2Adk9hp8nh8C&oi=fnd&pg=PR5&dq=structure+of+a+video+game&ots=eiftlaK_4y&sig=rJhDb3ww-CpWSKIIKEy0GN0Egmw&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=structure%20of%20a%20video%20game&f=false
• https://books.google.ie/books?hl=en&lr=&id=9kPRGPc4zHQC&oi=fnd&pg=PA226&dq=video+game+structure&ots=DAuYMpAyFb&sig=y_DAIl7RrZNMf8dtvMA-6gXotXc&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=video%20game%20structure&f=false

The structure of a game is a blanket term for several elements of your game development, these include:

• Rules - the guidelines of what the user needs to achieve to get from A to B.
• Narrative - the storyline that drives the game forward.
• Interactivity - can your character interact with other characters?
• Space - the environment in which your game is set / the world around the player.

Based on the second reading, I have learned that the concept art for a videogame is the most real version of the game in it's earliest stages, it is used as a reference point to look back on. It may deviate from the original but it is completely necessary to progress and evolve in your game design and development. Concept art is used throughout the game's development to visualise what is being done in 1s and 0s.

Feedback Thoughts

self-explanatory image above - source

While researching project feedback online, I came across 'A fixed mindset could be holding you back - here's how to change it' by Anne Kelsey-Sugg and Ann Arnold. It was mentioned that praising a child for everything they do can result in a fixed mindset. This leads to the child growing up into an adult who believes that they are brilliant at everything and do not need to further develop their skills. I disagree with this to some extent, as it is up to the individual to decide themselves if they are good or bad at something and to then take on the responsibility of improving their skills. I do however agree with what the authors say about the then grown adult possibly blaming their shortcomings on others. 

I also read 'Why it's so hard to hear negative feedback' by Tim Herrera. He explains in the article that when receiving negative feedback, our bodies all have the same reaction of tensing up, shallowing our breathing and feeling as if our fragile egos are being threatened. We also tend to build our social groups around people who don't give us the sometimes necessary negative feedback. But as he explains, it works both ways. We avoid giving it out as much as we try to avoid hearing it. To learn and improve we need to understand that the feedback does not come from a place of hate or jealousy, but is given in good faith by those participating. This is especially important for my course as we have a lot of feedback sessions amongst the year group, and sometimes it can be hard to hear if you feel like you've put in the effort. 

Personally, I appreciate any form of feedback as it informs me if what I'm working on is worthwhile continuing with or if I need to go back to the drawing board with my idea. In work, we are told to use our own initiative with whatever we are doing, so It is up to us to decide what happens and we are then expected to deal with the consequences, good or not.

4 Game Brainstorm Ideas

Welcome back to my blog, 

I've had a few game ideas from a brainstorming session today and I'd like to share them.

The first game is based on an idea I had about spreading awareness of sexual health. The main character would be a penis or vagina (depending on user preference) who's main goal is to collect sperm cells which then count towards points (1 sperm to 1 point). The character would take damage from STI's, which will come in the form of small enemy characters (different character designs depending on the STI). The STI's could have different effects depending on which STI they are intended to represent. The character could also boost the amount of points they get and become partially immune to the STI's damaging hits if they collect contraceptives (not just condoms, to inform the user of other options). The idea comes from the likes of Temple Run or Super Mario Brothers. The character could jump over gaps in the floor or interact with the surrounding world. The world in which the game is based would be a clinic or hospital to go with the sexual health message of the game. There will also be messages at the end of each round with a sexual health fact for the user to read. 

The second game idea that I came up with was a chasing game based off a Cops and Robbers game I played as a child. The game would be a police pursuit of a getaway vehicle (the character is the car of the cop or robber). The user can choose between being the cop or robber character. The game would aim to get to the safe house before the police catch you or to catch up to the thieves before they make it to safety. Gasoline would be used as a booster to speed up the car of whichever character is chosen. Points would be allocated for the number of pedestrians the driver avoids, and damage taken for the amount hit by the speeding car. The game would also be timed rounds of around 60 seconds, to put pressure on the player to do better or to come back and beat their previous time. There may also be an option to take a secret route that moves you further towards the safe house (5-second delay from the other car). The setting of this world is the streets of Dublin City Centre, with famous landmarks hidden in the back as the car zooms past.

Screenshot from Super Mario Bros. - source

My third idea has a message about being environmentally friendly. The idea is to create a game for younger children, educating them about the importance of recycling and not harming the planet. The character will be a simple human in cartoon style in gender-neutral colours (to avoid designing multiple characters). The character is then damaged by pollutants, such as smog or toxic waste, and the more of these that the character comes across, the more the clean and lively world behind them dulls. The character can get boosters and/or gain back lives from collecting recycling signs which will be randomly generated in the map of the game. The world in which our character lives will be, in the beginning, green and full of life such as trees, flowers etc.. But as the game progresses, and the character takes on more damage, the worse of a state the world becomes, also increasing the risk of them coming across more damage causing pollutants.

The fourth and final game idea I came up with was to have a dog as the main character. The aim of the game would to navigate your way through a warehouse, owned by an evil cat (enemy), without being caught. The reason for this being that the evil cat has kidnapped the dog's owner and is keeping them hostage at the top of the warehouse. Each floor would be a new level, increasing in difficulty as the game progresses, with more and more enemies to fight off, or hide from. Boosts such as invisibility can be used to sneak past the cat's evil henchmen and points can be collected in the form of dog treats. Damage is taken from the henchmen, if caught, the game will resume from the level you just began on, but if you are killed then the game begins from level 1 again. Once you reach the roof of the warehouse, the dog's owner can be seen, but standing between you is a giant cat, reading for the final boss fight of the game. The game will publish a leader board in order to encourage users to come back and hopefully incite some healthy competition between them.

My game ideas may be a bit over-optimistic for my capabilities but I am excited to learn if I can create the exact game that I picture in my head when looking at these ideas.

Here's a link to a thread that shows the collecting part of the games I mentioned.

Unity Tutorial 01

screenshot from Johnny Vegas' tutorial - source

It was hard to get a hand of how to use Unity, even with the tutorials as it is completely unfamiliar to me. The first video was a bit easier to grasp, but once the second one began I found myself getting lost or being in a complete state of confusion. Applying the texture was not the hard part, but editing the sizes of the tiles took me a while to understand.

It took longer than expected to get through the tutorials as things like details and adding grass caused a bit of stress for me when it did not work, so a break was needed. Scripts made nearly no sense to me so I will not comment on that section of the tutorial. I will revisit these tutorials again so I can improve on the parts which caused problems.

Overall I'm not fully confident but I definitely have a better understanding of how Unity works as well as a little (emphasis on little) bit of an understanding on how to use it. I fear I may struggle in this module as it's something that is completely out of my own comfort zone and seems alien to my way of thinking.