The unity task this week started out in quite a bad way, I accidentally update unity and when I opened it up there were a few things missing and a few things I wasn't used to. Nevertheless I pressed on and quickly got back to the version I was using for everything else I do in unity.
The process of doing this unity task went the same way any good story does, the dashing hero overcomes the problem in the end. I started out with the whole update thing but upon solving that issue I was met with yet another. I couldn't get any textures to work and even when they aren't really needed I still like to have them just to make things look better and more distinguished so I can think clearly. I eventually figured out the problem and sorted it out and went step by step through the tutorial. One or two issues here or there but I fixed them after a little deliberation.
I admit I missed a couple unity tutorials over the weeks but if you told me in october that I would be as competent with unity as I am now I would have been surprised because it was a very daunting piece of software to begin with and there is still a lot to learn but I am reasonable happy with my progress over the last few months and am excited to see where I can go from here.
Thursday, April 23, 2020
week 12 reading
I am currently most of the way through the writing process and I am glad because it's not something I specialise in and not really what I had in mind for this course but this is still a skill to have in the toolbox as academic writing is something that may be useful in the future.
The main thing I have learned in this is that the main thing to keep in mind when it comes to academic writing is that one should always read a significant amount more than they write as almost everything needs to be sourced and documented. This is not something I feel I do well with as I tend to get a bit carried away when writing and as a person who can type fast I tend to get into a rhythm with it and the words flow much simpler as I go on. However with academic writing I need to go sentence by sentence and know exactly what it is that I am talking about because it needs a source. I don't like it but it's the world I live in.
The main issue I had is as above, the sourcing of all the things I say. I tend to write in the first person a lot and use a lot of I think and I feel etc. But alas, language like that has no place in that type of writing and it leads to me not really being in the same zone I can be in when writing things that I am more used to writing. I am constantly worried about messing up the referencing section and it just doesn't allow me to be as comfortable writing as I normally am.
The main thing I have learned in this is that the main thing to keep in mind when it comes to academic writing is that one should always read a significant amount more than they write as almost everything needs to be sourced and documented. This is not something I feel I do well with as I tend to get a bit carried away when writing and as a person who can type fast I tend to get into a rhythm with it and the words flow much simpler as I go on. However with academic writing I need to go sentence by sentence and know exactly what it is that I am talking about because it needs a source. I don't like it but it's the world I live in.
The main issue I had is as above, the sourcing of all the things I say. I tend to write in the first person a lot and use a lot of I think and I feel etc. But alas, language like that has no place in that type of writing and it leads to me not really being in the same zone I can be in when writing things that I am more used to writing. I am constantly worried about messing up the referencing section and it just doesn't allow me to be as comfortable writing as I normally am.
Thursday, April 2, 2020
week 10 reading
Week 10
I used this week to get access to a couple more papers which I will be mentioning in my final project. I searched around on google scholar for a few more papers as the reading portion is more important than the writing portion. I plan to just submit everything in the last couple weeks as it suits my style of writing a lot more. I'm finding out more and more about video games use in the speech and language development department for young people.
I can't really talk about personal experience in my writing which is generally how I like to write so it is a bit of a challenge in that aspect so I'll share a bit of personal experience here because why not. I grew up playing a lot of video games and I've always been above average in speech and language, I even scored in the top 2% of spellers in the country on a standardized aptitude test. I don't really know to what extent the video game hobby really helped me out with that but upon reading all these papers maybe it's not quite as clear anymore. Perhaps video games did gift me with this natural ability to read and write or at the very least played a small role in my development.
Progress is slow but consistent in my writing and it's not really my bag so to speak but I think what I am writing is at the very least acceptable. Not crazy about it but don't really hate it.
I used this week to get access to a couple more papers which I will be mentioning in my final project. I searched around on google scholar for a few more papers as the reading portion is more important than the writing portion. I plan to just submit everything in the last couple weeks as it suits my style of writing a lot more. I'm finding out more and more about video games use in the speech and language development department for young people.
I can't really talk about personal experience in my writing which is generally how I like to write so it is a bit of a challenge in that aspect so I'll share a bit of personal experience here because why not. I grew up playing a lot of video games and I've always been above average in speech and language, I even scored in the top 2% of spellers in the country on a standardized aptitude test. I don't really know to what extent the video game hobby really helped me out with that but upon reading all these papers maybe it's not quite as clear anymore. Perhaps video games did gift me with this natural ability to read and write or at the very least played a small role in my development.
Progress is slow but consistent in my writing and it's not really my bag so to speak but I think what I am writing is at the very least acceptable. Not crazy about it but don't really hate it.
Thursday, March 5, 2020
reading 6
In the reading I have done this week I got together a couple of interesting papers on video games impact on speech and language development. Obviously papers like these focus mainly on people who have difficulty with speech and language development. I learned in my reading that dyslexia has some impact on somewhere around 10% of the population.
Dyslexia is a severely invalidating learning disability that affects literacy acquisition despite normal intelligence and adequate instruction.
Dyslexia is the main ailment that is focused on in quite a few of the papers I've looked at, both the ones I'll be using and the ones I won't be using. This is because dyslexia is a very common condition with a strong impact on the topic of my paper.
The main paper which caught my attention is one about video games aiding children with dyslexia in learning to read better. The paper puts forth that 12 hours of action video games had a positive effect on the reading comprehension skills and the reading speed which was measured in syllables per second. It also posits that this is because the high pace and reactions needed to play action video games translated into an attention span improvement which impacted reading abilities. More reading in the future will hopefully yield more interesting things like this.
I was initially intimidated by the scope of this project but as I read more and more I feel that it will be easier than I initially thought. The more I read the more confident I become about this project, I have fallen behind slightly but I will be back on the horse soon.
Dyslexia is a severely invalidating learning disability that affects literacy acquisition despite normal intelligence and adequate instruction.
Dyslexia is the main ailment that is focused on in quite a few of the papers I've looked at, both the ones I'll be using and the ones I won't be using. This is because dyslexia is a very common condition with a strong impact on the topic of my paper.
The main paper which caught my attention is one about video games aiding children with dyslexia in learning to read better. The paper puts forth that 12 hours of action video games had a positive effect on the reading comprehension skills and the reading speed which was measured in syllables per second. It also posits that this is because the high pace and reactions needed to play action video games translated into an attention span improvement which impacted reading abilities. More reading in the future will hopefully yield more interesting things like this.
I was initially intimidated by the scope of this project but as I read more and more I feel that it will be easier than I initially thought. The more I read the more confident I become about this project, I have fallen behind slightly but I will be back on the horse soon.
Thursday, February 20, 2020
reading 4
Reading 4, Week 4
The reading this week was about how to write properly in an academic setting. The aim is to have a hypothesis and a conclusion based on evidence pulled from reliable sources. Nobody is reading to hear an opinion, they want facts backed up by evidence. The way we achieve this is by citing sources whenever relevant info such as a statistic is mentioned.
The first step in a piece of academic writing is to state a conclusion in the opening paragraph so people know what the piece is about. next we support our argument with a variety of evidence that has been gathered.avoid quoting word for word as that doesn't show you've understood what you're citing and there's no point reading my paper if all I do is talk about other papers.
Next you must provide detail, you want there to be a very clear conclusion reached in the paper. Achieve this by quoting other papers and paraphrasing what others have said on the topic at hand. Summarizing things in a short sentence or two is helpful with this.
Don't be repetitive. No matter how interesting the topic at hand is, it will be boring if every sentence is 10 words or if you only quote people or only quote the same people etc. Avoid repeating yourself.
A good way to strengthen an argument is to summarize other papers/paragraphs from papers in a couple sentences. This shows why you have reached your conclusion and citing your sources is a very valuable tool in writing a good academic piece of writing.
The reading this week was about how to write properly in an academic setting. The aim is to have a hypothesis and a conclusion based on evidence pulled from reliable sources. Nobody is reading to hear an opinion, they want facts backed up by evidence. The way we achieve this is by citing sources whenever relevant info such as a statistic is mentioned.
The first step in a piece of academic writing is to state a conclusion in the opening paragraph so people know what the piece is about. next we support our argument with a variety of evidence that has been gathered.avoid quoting word for word as that doesn't show you've understood what you're citing and there's no point reading my paper if all I do is talk about other papers.
Next you must provide detail, you want there to be a very clear conclusion reached in the paper. Achieve this by quoting other papers and paraphrasing what others have said on the topic at hand. Summarizing things in a short sentence or two is helpful with this.
Don't be repetitive. No matter how interesting the topic at hand is, it will be boring if every sentence is 10 words or if you only quote people or only quote the same people etc. Avoid repeating yourself.
A good way to strengthen an argument is to summarize other papers/paragraphs from papers in a couple sentences. This shows why you have reached your conclusion and citing your sources is a very valuable tool in writing a good academic piece of writing.
Sunday, December 1, 2019
Learning Challenge
Learning challenge
I low key am a bit of a geography nerd, world capitals to be exact. I know all of europe, a couple random ones, most big countries but the one that's pulled up a blank for me for a while has been the capitals of south america. So I decided to finally try learn them, I'm going to look at the list for a while then do a sporcle quiz and see how I do.
Alright I'm back, there's 12 countries in south america and I was able to learn all but 3 of them. No matter what I did I couldn't get the capital of guyana, suriname or bolivia. My brain just doesn't like those ones for some reason.
When I was 12 I did US states and I still know a couple of them, comes in good at pub quizzes and absolutely nowhere else.
so yeah.
I low key am a bit of a geography nerd, world capitals to be exact. I know all of europe, a couple random ones, most big countries but the one that's pulled up a blank for me for a while has been the capitals of south america. So I decided to finally try learn them, I'm going to look at the list for a while then do a sporcle quiz and see how I do.
Alright I'm back, there's 12 countries in south america and I was able to learn all but 3 of them. No matter what I did I couldn't get the capital of guyana, suriname or bolivia. My brain just doesn't like those ones for some reason.
When I was 12 I did US states and I still know a couple of them, comes in good at pub quizzes and absolutely nowhere else.
so yeah.
Growth Mindset
Growth Mindset
I don't know how personal I'm allowed to go in these blog posts but I've had a couple setbacks that have nothing to do with college recently, also I've been really sick the past couple days so my signature upbeat demeanor may be a little compromised here but oh well.
It's really easy to be positive when everything is going your way which it normally is to some extent but I'm sick as hell right now so it's a little difficult. The thing that triggered me thinking about growth was a reddit post "what would you have missed if you died a year ago" or something like that and I remember thinking I was doing great a year ago but I would have missed so much if I died a year ago. I didn't think the last 12 months would have an awful lot different in store for me but in the last year I feel that I have grown more than I have any other year, I'm almost like a whole new person. So no matter how good or bad you feel like you're doing just know that the next year could take a crazy turn for you. I'm more excited for the future than ever before because I feel like I'm not done growing and changing. Even as I sit here sick as heck I'm excited to feel better soon, I'm excited to get back to training and fighting, learn new things, have new thoughts. It's this attitude towards growth that drives me forward to grow and evolve as time passes by.
"This isn't even reached my final form" - some anime man, I think dragonball, yeah Mr. Dragonball.
I don't know how personal I'm allowed to go in these blog posts but I've had a couple setbacks that have nothing to do with college recently, also I've been really sick the past couple days so my signature upbeat demeanor may be a little compromised here but oh well.
It's really easy to be positive when everything is going your way which it normally is to some extent but I'm sick as hell right now so it's a little difficult. The thing that triggered me thinking about growth was a reddit post "what would you have missed if you died a year ago" or something like that and I remember thinking I was doing great a year ago but I would have missed so much if I died a year ago. I didn't think the last 12 months would have an awful lot different in store for me but in the last year I feel that I have grown more than I have any other year, I'm almost like a whole new person. So no matter how good or bad you feel like you're doing just know that the next year could take a crazy turn for you. I'm more excited for the future than ever before because I feel like I'm not done growing and changing. Even as I sit here sick as heck I'm excited to feel better soon, I'm excited to get back to training and fighting, learn new things, have new thoughts. It's this attitude towards growth that drives me forward to grow and evolve as time passes by.
"This isn't even reached my final form" - some anime man, I think dragonball, yeah Mr. Dragonball.
Prototype Beta
My Prototype
My prototype is having a couple creative issues, I've been able to get the basics of my game, I have a small area the player can walk around in and it kind of looks the part, it's dark and all that good horror stuff but therein lies the problem, I am not entirely sure where to go from here. I do not know if I should just have a horror corridor, a series of rooms or something else, the only issues are how to not make my game boring. We researched the different types of fun in the past and I just do not know where exactly it is that my horror game fits into the puzzle. I don't have an awful lot to report on to be honest other than that I will try out a couple different ideas I have and will report back in a future blog post to let you know what worked, what didn't and how it is that I will proceed in the future.
My prototype is having a couple creative issues, I've been able to get the basics of my game, I have a small area the player can walk around in and it kind of looks the part, it's dark and all that good horror stuff but therein lies the problem, I am not entirely sure where to go from here. I do not know if I should just have a horror corridor, a series of rooms or something else, the only issues are how to not make my game boring. We researched the different types of fun in the past and I just do not know where exactly it is that my horror game fits into the puzzle. I don't have an awful lot to report on to be honest other than that I will try out a couple different ideas I have and will report back in a future blog post to let you know what worked, what didn't and how it is that I will proceed in the future.
Thursday, November 28, 2019
unity free tutorials
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.
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.
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.
Thursday, October 24, 2019
unity tutorial 6
Unity tutorial 6
If you go back in my blog posts to a previous unity tutorial you will find that I was having fun with the lighting aspect of unity, I decided to not focus on that this time as I am already adept in it but I did use it a bit this time. I was mainly focusing on trying to get a functioning area in which the player can walk around in while also adding lighting to it in order to create and atmosphere in the area the player is in.
I struggled initially with the spawning but after messing around with it for a little bit I was able to get the player to spawn on top of the platform I placed for this purpose. I didn't bother with any detailed textures so the area the player walks around in is pretty bland and there isn't anything to do quite yet. However despite this I was able to make the area a bit more interesting with the lighting so when I am adding specific textures I feel that I will be able to make a somewhat palatable environment for the entire game to take place in.
overall I feel that I will be able to use these abilities to make a solid game for a final project. I am developing strong fundamentals in unity and I think I can master simple things like this before I focus on the smaller details. I am feeling more and more comfortable with unity every time I open it.
https://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=https%3A%2F%2Funity3d.com%2Ffiles%2Fimages%2Fogimg.jpg&imgrefurl=https%3A%2F%2Funity.com%2F&tbnid=UkPk-HrkqCxlcM&vet=12ahUKEwi_1sGk6LXlAhWJJcAKHXTWADwQMygAegUIARCEAg..i&docid=NvRSXEUCHXI92M&w=1200&h=630&q=unity&ved=2ahUKEwi_1sGk6LXlAhWJJcAKHXTWADwQMygAegUIARCEAg
If you go back in my blog posts to a previous unity tutorial you will find that I was having fun with the lighting aspect of unity, I decided to not focus on that this time as I am already adept in it but I did use it a bit this time. I was mainly focusing on trying to get a functioning area in which the player can walk around in while also adding lighting to it in order to create and atmosphere in the area the player is in.
I struggled initially with the spawning but after messing around with it for a little bit I was able to get the player to spawn on top of the platform I placed for this purpose. I didn't bother with any detailed textures so the area the player walks around in is pretty bland and there isn't anything to do quite yet. However despite this I was able to make the area a bit more interesting with the lighting so when I am adding specific textures I feel that I will be able to make a somewhat palatable environment for the entire game to take place in.
overall I feel that I will be able to use these abilities to make a solid game for a final project. I am developing strong fundamentals in unity and I think I can master simple things like this before I focus on the smaller details. I am feeling more and more comfortable with unity every time I open it.
https://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=https%3A%2F%2Funity3d.com%2Ffiles%2Fimages%2Fogimg.jpg&imgrefurl=https%3A%2F%2Funity.com%2F&tbnid=UkPk-HrkqCxlcM&vet=12ahUKEwi_1sGk6LXlAhWJJcAKHXTWADwQMygAegUIARCEAg..i&docid=NvRSXEUCHXI92M&w=1200&h=630&q=unity&ved=2ahUKEwi_1sGk6LXlAhWJJcAKHXTWADwQMygAegUIARCEAg
Sunday, October 20, 2019
Prototype
I have decided to go for a horror style game in which you will wander around an area, engage in combat with enemies and try to survive. I have chosen this because I enjoyed the details that I was able to achieve with lighting while learning unity.
What is working?
As previously mentioned I have been having success with lighting in my unity experience. Changing colour, intensity, direction and the like have given me some ideas I could use in my game. Perhaps I could make a handheld light that other horror games typically use to build suspense as you don't know what is coming from far away. It gives me a lot of options I can use to build an atmosphere in my game. I have also found things like building an area to be quite easy, molding shapes to be whatever I need them to be is a simple experience for me at the moment so I could definitely make something interesting in my game.
What am I finding difficult?
Some things in unity can be a bit finicky for me. If you go back to my first blog post about using unity you can see that I struggled with the environment a little. Tutorials seem to all be using different versions of unity which makes following along a bit more difficult but not impossible. There really isn't anything else I'm particularly struggling with, every issue I have can normally be worked around or there is a solution online. Deciding exactly what I am going to make is not clear at the moment but I think I will figure it out in due time.
https://i.udemycdn.com/course/240x135/1210008_6859.jpg
What is working?
As previously mentioned I have been having success with lighting in my unity experience. Changing colour, intensity, direction and the like have given me some ideas I could use in my game. Perhaps I could make a handheld light that other horror games typically use to build suspense as you don't know what is coming from far away. It gives me a lot of options I can use to build an atmosphere in my game. I have also found things like building an area to be quite easy, molding shapes to be whatever I need them to be is a simple experience for me at the moment so I could definitely make something interesting in my game.
What am I finding difficult?
Some things in unity can be a bit finicky for me. If you go back to my first blog post about using unity you can see that I struggled with the environment a little. Tutorials seem to all be using different versions of unity which makes following along a bit more difficult but not impossible. There really isn't anything else I'm particularly struggling with, every issue I have can normally be worked around or there is a solution online. Deciding exactly what I am going to make is not clear at the moment but I think I will figure it out in due time.
https://i.udemycdn.com/course/240x135/1210008_6859.jpg
Thursday, October 17, 2019
Unity tutorial 5
If you go back to my first post about unity you'll find that I found it difficult to learn, however over time I am getting more and more comfortable and I think I may be able to make a game quite soon. I particularly found the lighting interesting, use of shadows and different colour lighting make me want to create an atmospheric horror game. I think this could be very possible for me to use my lighting abilities to create a good atmosphere, along with simple controls and AI for enemies this seems like a very achievable goal for me.
Making areas and lighting them appropriately could make for an interesting challenge that I am excited to undertake. Simple AI, atmospheric lighting, simple environments could all combine for a simple, fun horror game and as I learn more and more about unity I'm sure that I could add a twist and make it stand out from other games in the genre.
At the beginning of my unity career I thought a game would be difficult and perhaps tedious, however upon learning the basics of unity I discovered that it is not the difficult task I once proposed, it is a whole other type of difficulty, the challenge of making something fun with my albeit limited skills. I'm excited to make a game after playing them for years.
https://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=https%3A%2F%2Funity3d.com%2Ffiles%2Fimages%2Fogimg.jpg&imgrefurl=https%3A%2F%2Funity.com%2F&docid=NvRSXEUCHXI92M&tbnid=UkPk-HrkqCxlcM%3A&vet=10ahUKEwikuJ3WqqTlAhVqxoUKHYW1BYkQMwh3KAAwAA..i&w=1200&h=630&bih=695&biw=1366&q=unity&ved=0ahUKEwikuJ3WqqTlAhVqxoUKHYW1BYkQMwh3KAAwAA&iact=mrc&uact=8
Making areas and lighting them appropriately could make for an interesting challenge that I am excited to undertake. Simple AI, atmospheric lighting, simple environments could all combine for a simple, fun horror game and as I learn more and more about unity I'm sure that I could add a twist and make it stand out from other games in the genre.
At the beginning of my unity career I thought a game would be difficult and perhaps tedious, however upon learning the basics of unity I discovered that it is not the difficult task I once proposed, it is a whole other type of difficulty, the challenge of making something fun with my albeit limited skills. I'm excited to make a game after playing them for years.
https://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=https%3A%2F%2Funity3d.com%2Ffiles%2Fimages%2Fogimg.jpg&imgrefurl=https%3A%2F%2Funity.com%2F&docid=NvRSXEUCHXI92M&tbnid=UkPk-HrkqCxlcM%3A&vet=10ahUKEwikuJ3WqqTlAhVqxoUKHYW1BYkQMwh3KAAwAA..i&w=1200&h=630&bih=695&biw=1366&q=unity&ved=0ahUKEwikuJ3WqqTlAhVqxoUKHYW1BYkQMwh3KAAwAA&iact=mrc&uact=8
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