Reading 4, I guess

Welcome back to my blog,

self-explanatory image - source

I will begin by saying I do not understand how to use the matrix whatsoever and hearing from people who have contacted Shaun, they do not either. If I could cry, I would.

Similarities between my topics

My two topics are the structure of a game and game design documents. Similarities between these two are very limited but not non-existent. Both topics map out how the game will work i.e. the structure of a game lays out how the story will flow and a game design document lays out what elements and visuals will be used to aid in the storytelling. Think of both of them as a form of blueprints.

How I will lay out my topics

When writing about my topics I will explain what they are, what they mean and provide an example for each. Although I do feel very unqualified to so so as we are only in phase two of basic game design, coming from a place of not knowing anything about it.

I think many students would benefit from a crash course in how to actually fill in a matrix as many of the titles that are required to be filled are confusing and new.

Unity Tutorial 04

Welcome back to my blog,

This weeks task was to begin a new set of tutorials named 'Feed The Animals'. This tutorial was pretty straight forward, but time-consuming. It begins by asking the user to user player positioning to move the player from left to right on the screen, as well as placing the player and animals.

After this is completed, the user must then place a food item that they wish to feed the animals with, I chose a sandwich. The player must throw the food at the animal to feed it. No problems were had in implementing these steps to work, so I moved on.

some screengrabs of my game in action

The tutorial then demonstrated how to randomly spawn the animals as they run towards the bottom of the screen as well as having them stop existing once outside the player's view.

I do prefer these tutorials over last semester's, but they are extremely time-consuming when trying to maintain a balanced workload with other modules, on top of the fact that we have a book to research and do readings for (which is completely new to the majority of us),

it is all a bit overwhelming.

Thanks for reading,

James.

Problems with Unity Tutorial 2

A very accurate representation of my feelings towards this - source

I know we were advised not to leave work until the last minute in case of this, but this week when I went to launch Unity it recurringly comes back with the message of an error and will not load the application. 

I have watched the tutorials and know what is expected of us to have had done for this week, but I cannot seem to find a way to fix this error, even after spending quite some time searching the internet for some answers. The error display reads 'invalid license' which I do not understand as I did not have this problem with last week's tutorial.

Apologies for not working ahead of the due dates like advised, It's hard to keep up with the workload. I may start attending the afternoon lab on Wednesdays to try and prevent this problem from occurring again.

Game Elements That I Like

 me right now - source

Hi welcome back to my blog,

Today, I was reading about game qualities and elements and a few things stood out to me. 

The first thing that caught my attention was game objectives. A critical part of any game is the objectives that the user must strive to achieve, this is what starts and finishes the game (the interesting parts are what are in between). Objectives mainly fall into 8 categories:

• Capture/Destroy - Examples inclue chess, the aim is to eliminate the opponent's pieces so that you can win.
• Terrotorial Control - Games such as Risk tend to focus more on taking control of the board rather than destroying the opponent.
• Collection - Games like the Spiro series have the aim of collecting objects which are placed randomly around the map in order to move onto the next level.
• Solve - These games take more problem solving and thinking power to result in victory,  Cluedo is a good example as the players must remember key information in order to win the game.
• Chase/Race/Escape - A lot of games fall into this category, even playground games such as chasing. The aim is to catch or not be caught by the opponent.
• Spatial Allignment - Tetris falls into this category, the game rewards spacial awareness skills.
• Build -  This type game involves improving your character or building your resources. games like the Sims and many freemium games follow this model.
• Negotiation of another goal - These games invlove avoiding doing an act, such as Jenga, the player is trying to avoid knocking over the tower while also trying to remove a block from it. Once the tower has been destroyed that player then loses.

Another part that interested me was reading up about players. Games must have either a set amount of players or have a variable. A set amount of players means that the game could not bedone right if they were over or under the required players. The variable usually goes from 2-5 players and works perfectly dine as long as there are at least 2 opponents. Games like solitaire can be played alone, other games can set a single player up against a group (hide and seek). There are any different variations of player conflict and distribution which are unique to each game. My favourite is team competition, as it invloves working in teams against your rival opponent's in order to win, examples of this inclue capture the flag or football.

Rules are another crucial part of a game, without rules the game would be a free for all and no one would win. The rules are what makes the game interesting, as you have to avoid doing something or follow them in order to become victorious. Rules are the guideline for the game, so they extremely important and necessary for the enjoyment of the player.