Reading 2

I found this image when searching 'tired but happy' - source

Welcome back to my blog,

The chapter I have selected is 'Designing and Development', my two chosen subtopics for the collaborative textbook are 'The Structure of a Game' and 'Game Design Documents'. The following questions are what I will search for when researching my subtopics:

• How is a game structured?
• What is the structure of a game?
• How to apply structure to your game.
• What is a game design document?
• How to make a game design document.

The questions that may be the most useful are 'how is a game structured?' and 'how to make a game design document'. Assuming the people using this book do not know much about game design, I do think that my questions meet the checklist and will aid me when researching my subtopics.

Here are some search strings that will be useful for my research:

• "GDD" AND make AND create
• "Design Documents" AND make AND create
• "Game Structure" AND how AND what
• "Game Layout" AND how AND what
• "Game Plan" AND how AND what
• "Videogame Structure" AND how AND what

Here are some links that will help in my research:

• http://gamedesign.wikidot.com/game-structure
• http://www.gamesprecipice.com/category/game-structures/
• https://gamedevelopment.tutsplus.com/articles/how-and-why-to-write-a-great-game-design-document--cms-23545
• https://stemchallenge.org/resources/game-design-documents/

I will continue to search for sources that I can use when writing my parts of the chapter. I will also check TU Dublin's library for relevant literature as well as Google Scholar.

Beta Meta Shmeta

My character about to fall into the void

My character jumping

My character standing

Heya Huns,

So I now have a semi-decent game that does not have any bugs (thankfully). I took the executive decision to abandon the points system as it just caused more problems than it resolved and I'm at peace with that. I have gone almost completely off topic from my game design document as I now realise it was way too ambitious for a first time user of Unity.

Since my last update my game now has a skybox, audio and a longer run of platforms. I had hoped to have more by this stage but on Friday I reopened Unity to the pleasure of it have not saving any of my previous progression so another game of catch up was done.

Overall I'm a little bit proud that I actually produced something in the realms of a functioning game.

Roll on Christmas,

James.

Unity Free Tutorial

My error when trying to play with my scoring script

Heya Huns,

So today I kicked myself up the behind and got cracking with my game. I was actually enjoying it up until a point where my script for creating a rising score did not work. I think it's something to do with contradicting script in the unity chan asset I downloaded, but in all honesty at this stage of the evening I could not be arsed figuring it out for certain.

My game is now past the point of a handful of platforms to now a whopping several! (exciting I know, but you'll have to calm yourself). I have learned to not follow unity tutorials from 7 years ago as well as avoiding anyone with an accent as it's already difficult to understand without a language barrier.

I now have rotating coins that disappear once collided with, and a beautiful set of white walls on the edges of my platforms. I need to figure out how to fix my problems with the displaying of the score as it is required for my game to actually have value.

Overall progress is being made and my game has not deleted like some other students who were further along than me have.

Feeling blessed, stressed and a tad depressed,

your love, your light,

James x.

Game Testing

me looking at these blogs - source

Heya Huns,

This week we were reading up on giving criticism. In the readings it says to be neutral when giving your criticism in order to stay constructive. This ensures that the person being criticised can benefit from your feedback and not feel as if they are being attacked for their ideas.

Your feedback needs to be unbiased and free of any outer opinions of the person (just focus on the work at hand). Your feedback should be to the point, clear and relevant to the work. If you stick to this (although it may not actually be implemented by the person) then you will become better at giving constructive criticism without causing offence.

Unity Free Tutorials

Heya Huns,

Me in Wetherspoons

To be extremely honest, I believed the free pass for the week was for the Thursday upload, which I have already done the declaration for so I went to Wetherspoons after the group project presentations and got fairly locked. For this reason I don't believe I am in any state to complete the tutorials.

I do apologise for this but I also enjoyed myself if you care, I got a chicken burger and a few pintos xxx.

GN&GB

James.

Game Stories

I looked up hero and thought this looked a bit like Hugh - source

Heya Huns,

The readings for this week were focused on the journey of the hero and what game developer need to know in order to create a story.

The first reading begins by discussing myths and how they are used as a way to give us morals. They are ingrained into our society and can be seen in our morals. It then moves on to explain the journey of a hero, from call to action all the way to the prize or end result they get from their journey.

The second reading tells us how we can apply a story for our character (filling in the journey part of the game). It is mapped out in the reading as follows:

1. We have the protagonist (our hero)
2. An inciting incident occurs that drastically changes their life or environment
3. This incident creates a gap between the hero and their normal life
4. The hero tries to go down the normal route to solve this problem, but it fails.
5. The hero must then take a risk to overcome the obstacles they face.
6. The hero then experiences or learns something new, causing a second gap.
7. The hero must then take an even bigger risk to overcome the second gap.
8. After now overcoming the second gap, something else occurs, causing a third gap to open.
9. The hero must then take the greatest possible risk to then overcome this third gap to then get what they want to achieve.

It all sounds a bit convoluted to me, but who am I to judge when it seems to be working for nearly everyone.

GN&GB

'Alpha' - Me Hoop

Sure look - At least it's playable

Heya Huns,

I'm going to share a little something to make you feel better about yourselves - I have managed forget to save any of my game progress on Unity and it then crashed, deleting my game. I hope you can find some solace in my misfortune and stupidity.

This means I've had the absolute pleasure of sitting through the same tutorials I had already done in order to play catch up. In all honesty, I'm wrecked and this just did not put me in the greatest of moods. I still cannot seem to find any assets of an enemy that I could potentially use, which of course means I will have to code my own! ;)

I'm thinking of changing my game to have 1 level that just continuously runs and is based off how long you last without dying. I'm thinking of setting the time frame to a minute or two depending on how long attention spans last.

That's the update, hopefully next week I'll have something more interesting to show you.

Now in the words of NSYNC,

Bye bye bye.