Tutorial
The tutorial that took up all my time this week was the creation of a rolling ball game. The game had a couple hurdles, I had an issue with the landscape not working as intended and the ball wouldn't spawn on it but I went back and copied the tutorial instead of trying to use what I already knew and it worked out properly. Sometimes I need to be reminded that I am still learning unity and haven't mastered everything yet. Other than that I just followed along in the tutorial and everything seemed to work out, a few small hiccups along the way but they were just from not following the tutorial properly. The main issue is normally simple stuff that can take a while to change because unity can be a bit finicky sometimes. The solution is normally something I overlook and in the beginning of my unity career I spent hours wondering why several problems were happening but it was always just a small thing like a camera facing the wrong way or I wasn't clicking the right thing. This still happens but it's something I am getting better at. I think I can use these lessons to overcome problems when I am making my game and hopefully I won't waste too much time because I don't have an awful lot these days.
Thursday, November 28, 2019
Tuesday, November 26, 2019
Reading
Story in games
https://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/130770/what_every_game_developer_needs_to_.php?page=2
Story is important in games because it is something memorable and gives players a reason to keep playing with a pay off at the end of the game. If a game is fun but has no story then reaching the end will almost be disappointing because it's over but if the story is good then there could be a huge pay off at the end to reward players for finishing the game. Stories in games have the same elements as stories in film and TV. There is typically a protagonist, antagonists, an inciting incident and something for the protagonist to overcome. Not every story follows these but they are outliers.
The character also needs to have a personality, there are plenty of games where the protagonist has no personality and is just a drone the player controls in the world and these are boring, we need to know about what type of person the character is in order to identify with them and follow them along throughout the story. The conflict in the story can be either internal or external, is someone trying to kill the protagonist or are they trying to overcome a personal battle within themselves. Normally the conflict is external, there is someone the protagonist must overcome or something along those lines however internal conflict is a big theme in Hamlet as he tries to overcome his own personal demons to avenge his father. Both work and both can be great.
The artical uses Halo as the story it mentions as an example, not a game known for great story but it shows how core it is to any game. They have you fight along side marines however at one point a marine attacks you and you choose to kill him or not which makes up your character, are you merciful or not?
Games also show and don't tell quite often, Dark Souls is a game in which nothing is told to the player, they must piece together the story themselves by observing the world around them. It is very possible to complete dark souls and not know what is going on because you didn't search for a story yourself.
https://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/130742/into_the_woods_a_practical_guide_.php
Article 2
This article is about the hero's journey and how it plays into the story of a game. If a hero just stays in the same room for an entire story then it'll probably be boring. Changing scenery and setting keeps new things in the story for our hero to engage with so we can learn more about their character, the world and the story.
According to the article a hero typically possesses a couple qualities such as: courage, intelligence, a special talent, a motivation and an obstacle to overcome, to name a few. We can see that any successful story has a protagonist with at least a few of these or the story is based around them not having these, these qualities are integral to story.
The article also mentions villains. What makes a good villain? A good villain is someone that people root against, in the pro wrestling industry they're called a heel. A good hell makes people dislike them by being cocky, arrogant, a coward, deceitful, rude, wins by cheating and dishonorable tactics. This generates heat against them and makes people root against them. These can all be applied to a villain in a story. Look at white goodman from dodgeball for example, Cocky, arrogant, bought the best dodgeball team instead of earning one and mocked the average joes the whole film. A great villain and that was for a comedy, in a serious role someone like that could be more fleshed out and hated.
https://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/130770/what_every_game_developer_needs_to_.php?page=2
Story is important in games because it is something memorable and gives players a reason to keep playing with a pay off at the end of the game. If a game is fun but has no story then reaching the end will almost be disappointing because it's over but if the story is good then there could be a huge pay off at the end to reward players for finishing the game. Stories in games have the same elements as stories in film and TV. There is typically a protagonist, antagonists, an inciting incident and something for the protagonist to overcome. Not every story follows these but they are outliers.
The character also needs to have a personality, there are plenty of games where the protagonist has no personality and is just a drone the player controls in the world and these are boring, we need to know about what type of person the character is in order to identify with them and follow them along throughout the story. The conflict in the story can be either internal or external, is someone trying to kill the protagonist or are they trying to overcome a personal battle within themselves. Normally the conflict is external, there is someone the protagonist must overcome or something along those lines however internal conflict is a big theme in Hamlet as he tries to overcome his own personal demons to avenge his father. Both work and both can be great.
The artical uses Halo as the story it mentions as an example, not a game known for great story but it shows how core it is to any game. They have you fight along side marines however at one point a marine attacks you and you choose to kill him or not which makes up your character, are you merciful or not?
Games also show and don't tell quite often, Dark Souls is a game in which nothing is told to the player, they must piece together the story themselves by observing the world around them. It is very possible to complete dark souls and not know what is going on because you didn't search for a story yourself.
https://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/130742/into_the_woods_a_practical_guide_.php
Article 2
This article is about the hero's journey and how it plays into the story of a game. If a hero just stays in the same room for an entire story then it'll probably be boring. Changing scenery and setting keeps new things in the story for our hero to engage with so we can learn more about their character, the world and the story.
According to the article a hero typically possesses a couple qualities such as: courage, intelligence, a special talent, a motivation and an obstacle to overcome, to name a few. We can see that any successful story has a protagonist with at least a few of these or the story is based around them not having these, these qualities are integral to story.
The article also mentions villains. What makes a good villain? A good villain is someone that people root against, in the pro wrestling industry they're called a heel. A good hell makes people dislike them by being cocky, arrogant, a coward, deceitful, rude, wins by cheating and dishonorable tactics. This generates heat against them and makes people root against them. These can all be applied to a villain in a story. Look at white goodman from dodgeball for example, Cocky, arrogant, bought the best dodgeball team instead of earning one and mocked the average joes the whole film. A great villain and that was for a comedy, in a serious role someone like that could be more fleshed out and hated.
Thursday, November 21, 2019
Review Week Comments and Feedback
From the feedback I've gotten most people seem to think a horror game is quite a good and intriguing idea, many people have commented saying they are excited to see where it is that I will end up going with this game and I think I can count myself amongst those people as I too am interested as to where it is I will end up going with this game, new progress is being made all the time and I am just unsure of exactly where it is going to end up but I am sure that no matter where it is that it will be something I am proud of as I am going to put a little bit of love into this one.
in conclusion everyone seems excited to see where I'm going and I am too, other than that not much news to share unfortunately.
in conclusion everyone seems excited to see where I'm going and I am too, other than that not much news to share unfortunately.
Tuesday, November 19, 2019
Reading and writing week 9
Reading and writing.
I'll open this post with a little bit of honesty, I've missed a reading or 2 in my day so take all this with a grain of salt.
My experience with the readings and the writing in this semester has been mostly positive, typically you can do a blog post rather quickly if you know what you're talking about and the marks do add up. It enables self reflection which can serve as a way to drive yourself as it's very easy to turn in a project and never think about it again. This is not really possible here because you will turn something in and then you need to write about it and I imagine it would be quite difficult to turn in something you rushed and hate and then write a couple hundred words on it so it almost serves as a motivation.
The negative things about the blog posts are that looking at the moodle calendar is annoying because there is something due almost every day and it's a little demotivating but that's just me. Also the sheer volume of posts can be annoying, seeing so many posts due can be annoying even if they can be done in 5 minutes each it will still be annoying to see 6 things due in one day. It can also be slightly repetitive but I guess that's on me for not coming up with something better to say. My final criticism is the grace period in which you get an extra 12 hours on any posts you want seems pointless, why not just have the due date be 12 hours later?
overall I like the blog posts but sometimes it feels like there are just too many and the grace period system seems like it could be improved. I do like the self reflection that the blog posts force me to take part in as I feel it helps me learn more about myself and be more critical of myself when it would be quite easy to lie to myself otherwise
I'll open this post with a little bit of honesty, I've missed a reading or 2 in my day so take all this with a grain of salt.
My experience with the readings and the writing in this semester has been mostly positive, typically you can do a blog post rather quickly if you know what you're talking about and the marks do add up. It enables self reflection which can serve as a way to drive yourself as it's very easy to turn in a project and never think about it again. This is not really possible here because you will turn something in and then you need to write about it and I imagine it would be quite difficult to turn in something you rushed and hate and then write a couple hundred words on it so it almost serves as a motivation.
The negative things about the blog posts are that looking at the moodle calendar is annoying because there is something due almost every day and it's a little demotivating but that's just me. Also the sheer volume of posts can be annoying, seeing so many posts due can be annoying even if they can be done in 5 minutes each it will still be annoying to see 6 things due in one day. It can also be slightly repetitive but I guess that's on me for not coming up with something better to say. My final criticism is the grace period in which you get an extra 12 hours on any posts you want seems pointless, why not just have the due date be 12 hours later?
overall I like the blog posts but sometimes it feels like there are just too many and the grace period system seems like it could be improved. I do like the self reflection that the blog posts force me to take part in as I feel it helps me learn more about myself and be more critical of myself when it would be quite easy to lie to myself otherwise
Thursday, November 14, 2019
unity free tutorials
This week I decided to do my own thing, I already know that I'm aiming to make a horror game so I decided I'd look at some tutorials for games like that and upon opening youtube and keying it all in to that search bar, I was bequeathed with exactly what it was which I had sought out to find. I found my man Jimmy Vegas had a little series on making a horror game and I watched a couple videos. At this point unity was open in the background being untouched, I was busy soaking in all this glorious information.
After I had basked in Jimmy's aura long enough I decided to get my hands dirty, get to work in the proverbial mines and open unity for myself. As always with unity I opened it and the first thought was "unity? more like no thank you" but I soldiered on regardless. I cracked open a new project and followed the tutorials along, they were a bit out of date so I had to use a bit of ingenuity to work around this but it is a situation I know all too well.
After toiling away for a short while I ended up with a similar , yet not quite as polished version of Jimmy's game with a few adjustments of my own. I didn't follow the whole tutorial and make a full game but I got it to a playable state where the player was free to walk around and interact with a few choice objects.
Overall this proved a helpful exercise and I am glad I did it. I feel more confident every time I open unity and I think I can make quite a decent game in the future. here's hoping my game comes together when I need it to and unity doesn't pull a fast one on me like I feel it may. I like unity and unity likes me but the trust simply is not there for me yet.
After I had basked in Jimmy's aura long enough I decided to get my hands dirty, get to work in the proverbial mines and open unity for myself. As always with unity I opened it and the first thought was "unity? more like no thank you" but I soldiered on regardless. I cracked open a new project and followed the tutorials along, they were a bit out of date so I had to use a bit of ingenuity to work around this but it is a situation I know all too well.
After toiling away for a short while I ended up with a similar , yet not quite as polished version of Jimmy's game with a few adjustments of my own. I didn't follow the whole tutorial and make a full game but I got it to a playable state where the player was free to walk around and interact with a few choice objects.
Overall this proved a helpful exercise and I am glad I did it. I feel more confident every time I open unity and I think I can make quite a decent game in the future. here's hoping my game comes together when I need it to and unity doesn't pull a fast one on me like I feel it may. I like unity and unity likes me but the trust simply is not there for me yet.
Sunday, November 10, 2019
First playable game
To actually lay the groundwork of my game I decided to throw away the other things I had made and to start fresh so I could really build from the ground up and make the game exactly what I wanted.
I decided to just keep it simple in this opening stage and to just make a small area the player can walk around in and for it to work. I made a small area and made it very dark as I am making a horror style game. I made the area simple enough and it's got some pretty on point lighting. I started with just a small room which will serve as a spawn/tutorial area where players can familiarize with the controls and learn what the game is about. I'm happy with the small amount of content I have so far as it works as intended and I didn't encounter many problems.
Problems
The only problem I had was adding textures to objects sometimes. They work sometimes and don't other times and I'm not sure why. I have plenty of time to figure it out or find a work around but at the moment I am stumped as to why I am not able to get textures on some items but can on others. tutorials on youtube are somewhat helpful but don't solve all my problems like I wish they would but its up to me to figure it out and I'm confident I will in due time.
I decided to just keep it simple in this opening stage and to just make a small area the player can walk around in and for it to work. I made a small area and made it very dark as I am making a horror style game. I made the area simple enough and it's got some pretty on point lighting. I started with just a small room which will serve as a spawn/tutorial area where players can familiarize with the controls and learn what the game is about. I'm happy with the small amount of content I have so far as it works as intended and I didn't encounter many problems.
Problems
The only problem I had was adding textures to objects sometimes. They work sometimes and don't other times and I'm not sure why. I have plenty of time to figure it out or find a work around but at the moment I am stumped as to why I am not able to get textures on some items but can on others. tutorials on youtube are somewhat helpful but don't solve all my problems like I wish they would but its up to me to figure it out and I'm confident I will in due time.
Tech Task: expanding brain meme
I decided to try make something to do with college work and the levels of doing your work on time, surely something we all relate to.
made sure to make the final panel ridiculous for the sake of comedy haha just kidding, unless.....
Growth Mindset keeping it 100
Growth
I had to grow this week in unusual circumstances. I was out of training for a week with ring worm and had to grow and evolve without training so I switched it up and watched tape on some of my favourite fighters such as dominick cruz and israel adesanya so I can mimick there movements and achieve better results.
Stuff like this can be applied everywhere. If you can't do something yourself study others until you can and then when you come back you will have improved without doing anything yourself. It's the mindset like this that allows us to grow and achieve things all the time.
I had to grow this week in unusual circumstances. I was out of training for a week with ring worm and had to grow and evolve without training so I switched it up and watched tape on some of my favourite fighters such as dominick cruz and israel adesanya so I can mimick there movements and achieve better results.
Stuff like this can be applied everywhere. If you can't do something yourself study others until you can and then when you come back you will have improved without doing anything yourself. It's the mindset like this that allows us to grow and achieve things all the time.
Wikipedia Trail From Greece at the 2002 winter olympics to Nevada
Greece at 2002 winter olympics
Who could forget? They didn't win anything or even come close really, something a bit too relatable. looking through they did terrible, coming in 60th and stuff what a bunch of nerds. onto the next article.
Salt lake city
Capital of Utah, lot of people living there apparently. I know a lot of state capitals so learning another is always welcome, almost never comes in handy but whatever who cares.
Utah
segue from salt lake city to the great state of utah, which has the capital city of salt lake cit, who knew? I thought utah was on the east coast but no, it's near nevada apparently. I would not have guessed that at all.
Nevada
Now we go onto nevada. It's got vegas which I'm going to next summer, mostly desert which is weird considering its latitude, theres reasons for that but I don't wanna talk geography here. Fallout new vegas happened here and that game slaps, high key.
Who could forget? They didn't win anything or even come close really, something a bit too relatable. looking through they did terrible, coming in 60th and stuff what a bunch of nerds. onto the next article.
Salt lake city
Capital of Utah, lot of people living there apparently. I know a lot of state capitals so learning another is always welcome, almost never comes in handy but whatever who cares.
Utah
segue from salt lake city to the great state of utah, which has the capital city of salt lake cit, who knew? I thought utah was on the east coast but no, it's near nevada apparently. I would not have guessed that at all.
Nevada
Now we go onto nevada. It's got vegas which I'm going to next summer, mostly desert which is weird considering its latitude, theres reasons for that but I don't wanna talk geography here. Fallout new vegas happened here and that game slaps, high key.
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