Unity Tutuorial

This weeks tutorials consisted of a number of new skills in unity starting with adding text into the canvas, a display and text. We had to position the text correctly so that it wouldn't be on top on the cursor we had previously made. We also made an extra cursors and grouped them together in the hierarchy. A C# script was then made and I followed the instructions to create the action for the Gem the script that we wrote was to be able to press the e key to collect the gem and also to be able to have the cursor over the gem and for text to display. I found the c# script the hardest one yet and although I could obviously copy what he was doing it was hard to completely grasp what each exact component of the script was for.

My game screen shot 

The second tutorial we started by placing a fence into the game to add to the world, we followed the normal steps that we do dragging and dropping and adding a texture. Afterwards we added an axe for the player to have a weapon. We learnt how to create a swinging impression  of the axe. I enjoyed adding the axe and animation as it was my first time doing any sort of animation in unity. We finished off by making our first player taller to give it a more realistic look. 

In the third tutorial we learnt how to add a separate camera to different layers in the game. We rendered a camera to only pick up whats in the axes layer view. We added sound to the axe when its swinging using a C# script.

Overall I enjoyed completing these tutorials and feel like I learnt a lot but I don't think I would know how to do it all again without the tutorial so I'll need to have a look back again to try and make everything stay with me more.

Games GDD

The first article I read this week was https://learn.canvas.net/courses/3/pages/level-5-introduction-and-readings which talks about all about the beginning of designing a game and idea generation.
This article gave a structure to designing games and coming up with ideas. When tackling your initial design and your ideas you should start with thinking about the aesthetics, try thinking of your favourite game, why is it so enjoyable?What do you like about it? also thinking about what rules led to that experience. Rules or systems should be the next step you can take inspiration from everyday life looking into what daily systems could make a good game? for example service games such as cooking craze are inspired by real life service industry jobs.

You can also look at existing designs, games that you though had potential but didn't quite hit the mark. think about how this could have been improved, what didn't you like?
Narrative is also one of the most important parts of generating ideas, start with your story and then design your game rules to fit the story. Other idea generation starting points are: Market research, technologies, materials and combining some of these when beginning.

The reading also talks about how to overcome designers block. The strategies to help with designers block are playing lot's of games and thinking about what you think is good and what could be improved. Writing down all of your ideas, your narratives and mechanics even if they don't initially stand out as good ideas you can always come back and build on them. another useful strategy is thinking of something random and trying to find a way to integrate it into your game.

Creative block meme

This article also takes about how important prototyping is in the process of game design. When prototyping make it as simple and unattractive as possible completely focusing on the mechanics and rules. You can go back and constantly improve the design and touches after the gameplay is perfected! 

The second article http://www.thegamesjournal.com/articles/DesignConsiderations.shtml discusses design components and how important all the different components are to determining a players enjoyment.

Game Vision Statement

Brief description:

My game is a 3D world race car game called "The Rotunda Run" for the PC. 

My game is a time based game. where the player is driving their pregnant wife to hospital but only has a certain amount of time to do so. If the player hits people or walls their time will decrease but when they find any gems on their journey they can get extra time added onto their countdown. The game is lost if time runs out and the player hasn't managed to reach the Rotunda with their pregnant wife. As opposed to if the player reaches the destination within the time slot they win the game. I got some inspiration for this sort of game from 'The Simpsons Hit and Run' and 'Grand Theft Auto' These are both two of my favourite types of games so I would enjoy being able to create something slightly similar. 

Simpsons Hit and Run

Genre:

My game falls under the genre of Racing. It is a car racing game.

Gameplay:

The game is a single player time based racing game. It will start with a menu screen with settings and a start button. It will then go to a screen where you can select your type\colour of your car and then you will begin the game. There will be a countdown from 3 to begin the time and then it's up to the player to try and reach certain gems to gain more time and to try not to crash. the controls will be:

SPACE bar to drive

> to turn left

< to turn right 

ENTER to brake 

BACKSPACE to reverse.

The gameplay follows a narrative there is a little freedom for choice but not so much that it changes the entire game for the player.

Resources:

For creating this game the main resources i'll need are:

Time

Tutorials

Unity

The internet 

Links:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wMRhUK7bY7w

https://poki.com/en/car-racing

 

Unity Tutorial 03

In this weeks Unity tutorial we learnt how to make a 3D clock and programme it to display the current time. I learnt a lot in this tutorial including a new layout, parent and child game objects and a lot more depth into the C# scripts. I found the first part of the tutorial simple and easy to follow and enjoyed designing the clock, but the programming the clock was a little more challenging. I had to re-read the instructions a couple of times to fully understand why I was typing something into the C# script but I was definitely much more confident after completing it and going over the tasks again.

Screen shot of me completing tutorial

Screen shot of me completing tutorials

Overall this tutorial was a bit of a change from the 3D world tutorials we've been doing but had similar components such as in adding in the game objects and making Materials. The main difference was just the level  of depth into the scripts and the result of the tutorial. For some reason I found it more rewarding finishing the 3D world tutorials and being able to walk around after. I still really enjoyed this tutorial and I definitely picked up a lot of new skills that I will be able to put to use in my own game.

Games MDA

Week fours reading was all about MDA in gaming. MDA stands for Mechanics, Dynamics and Aesthetics. It is the formal approach to understanding games.

Mechanics are the rules of the game for example when does the game start and finish, what actions can players take, what effects do these actions have and how is resolution determined.


Dynamics describe how the game is played. What strategies emerge from the rules? How can the players interact with each other

Game Mechanics and Dynamics

Aesthetics is a players experience, what make the game fun.

There are eight types of fun that fall under aesthetic:

1. Sensation - Game as a sense of pleasure
2. Fantasy
3. Narrative
4. Challenge
5. Fellowship
6. Discovery
7. Expression
8. Submission

The article by Clint Hocking talks about intentional play. Games can be much more entertaining and diverse when the player has more options of things they can do with different game objects.

http://www.cs.northwestern.edu/~hunicke/MDA.pdf

https://vimeo.com/288331391

Feedback Strategies

The first article I read on giving Feedback was Why do so many managers avoid giving praise. I could relate to some of the information in this article for example i agreed with the fact that sometimes it feels like a manager can be "quick to criticise slow to praise" and sometimes in the work place this can make you feel very unmotivated. From this article I learned that there could be a reason behind not giving very much praise for example a manager might see them selves as being weak or soft by giving too much praise or they may actually not have time or even realise they haven't been giving positive feedback. This article also talked about the fact that a large percentage of managers felt anxious when giving feedback and how managers may only feel like they need to give feedback on things that need correcting instead of things that are up to scratch.

The second article I read was How to give feedback without sounding like a jerk by Adam Grant. This was my favourite out of the two articles and I picked it because I thought it would be useful to me. I am one of the senior staff in my job and I often have to train in new staff, I find it difficult to give feedback and almost feel a bit afraid to try especially when I am giving feedback to someone who is a lot older than me, I find it awkward and also feel like they don't take it very well when I do try so I'm definitely going to attempt and use these techniques from now on. I didn't realise how transparent it must sound to try and sugarcoat feedback and to only throw in positive feedback to make you feel better or sound nice. I liked the idea of making it obvious that "i'm not perfect, i'm trying to get better too" so that whoever your giving feedback to doesn't feel inferior and that it's obvious your trying to improve yourself and the way you give feedback. I feel like this overall makes it easier for both parties and gives the person receiving feedback to also give feedback on how they think you have feedback.

Honest Feedback Welcome

Overall I feel like i've benefited from both of these articles and I will definetely try and put all of the techniques to use. I think feedback is really important, without feedback it's hard to know where you stand or how to improve.

Learning Challenge: Happiness Jar

So I haven't been very good at this challenge so far so  I'm going to start fresh from day one again...

Today I was happy and thankful because my nanie brought me out for lunch and an old friend I used to work with came into my job to visit me.

Game Idea Research

My game idea that I would like to develop and create is a 3D car racing game. The Story of my game is the player is trying to rush his pregnant wife to hospital to give birth but is being chased by the police while doing so. My idea is that the game will start with the main player and his wife getting into their car and trying to race to the hospital through the busy traffic and crossing pedestrians  and if any red lights, drive too fast or any road rules are broken the police start pursuing you. Your wife is adamant that she will not give birth in the car so your aim is to ignore and escape the police until you arrive at the hospital. If the police catch you you've lost. Meanwhile there is a meter with your wives happiness/comfort at the top of the screen that you must also try and keep high, this meter decreases if you drive too crazy crashing into things or going over bumps or driving too slow. If you get to the hospital without being cause then you have won the game.

The Mechanics I am hoping to use for this game are: Sound effects and music, Controls and score.
For sound effects and music I want to have fast paced exciting music player in the background of the game to create an the fast paced atmosphere for the game and also have sound effects like horns from other cars and sirens for police cars in pursuit. A good example of sound effect from other cars and police is from the game Grand Theft Auto.

My idea in relation to controls are:
> is turn left
< Is turn right
SPACE bar is drive
ENTER in to brake
BACKSPACE is to reverse.

The idea behind the scoring is the have a meter at the top of the screen with the colours green yellow and red and a photo of the wife's face on top of the meter that starts of in green every time the player drives too slow or crashes the wife's face moves further down the meter to yellow and eventually to red, if her face reaches the bottom of the red on the meter then the player has lost the game. The player can also increase this meter by driving fast and not crashing. I am taking inspiration from the game Cooking Craze which is an ios game. In Cooking Craze if you don't serve the customers quickly enough their meter goes down until eventually they leave the shop.

Cooking Craze customer score

In conclusion this is an Idea I would love feedback on whether it could work or not and be able to develop more.

Learning Challenge: Happiness Jar

I have decided to try the Happiness jar challenge through my blogs where everyday this week I will take note of something that made me happy or thankful, I will then talk about how I found the challenge at the end of the week! Im hoping I will find this challenge rewarding and become more grateful for all the good things that happen on a daily basis.

Growth Mindset:Multiple Intelligence

This week I watched Multiple Intelligence  by Mark Bennett, I found the video really interesting and enjoyed watching it. I found it very useful learning about The growth Mindset in Week one so I thought it would benefit me to try and continue learning about it. I never knew that researchers had identified 8 different types of intelligence or that there where so many components that make up each of these intelligences. I like this thought process as it appreciates the fact that people are intelligent in different ways and that all the different intelligence's work best together. What I understood from this short animation was that just because your intelligent in one form doesn't mean your more or less intelligent than somebody else who strives in  other things. For example just because schools teach you that linguistic and mathematical intelligence is the most important, you really need more than just those to be successful and there are so many skills that you can work on developing and improving on!

There are Multiple Intelligences 

Tech Tip:Google Map

The Google map I'm sharing of Trà na Rossan, Donegal, is of one of my favourite places I've been to. I went  there about 3 or four years ago with my all of my cousins. One of my cousins friends owned a house near Downings in Donegal and Trà na Rossan was literally right outside the house. We stayed up there for about our days and everyday made our way down the hill and onto the beach. It was so sunny and the water was so clear it was definitely on of the nicest beaches I've ever been on. There was rocks and hill blocking where we arrived onto the beach from the other bigger side so we basically had our own private beach for the four days.

Photo I took on Trà na Rossan 

Here is the Google Map:

Unity tutorial 02

I really enjoyed the first tutorial this week and found it easy enough to follow. I liked getting to customise the different parts, just even going so far as choosing different colours or heights for the different game objects and terrain is fun and is getting me more exited to create my own game. I did find making the water sit on the terrain and look good a bit difficult and had to spend a while changing the level of the terrain and the size of the water to make it look realistic when playing. I also found it slightly difficult to get the walls to line up correctly together but using the tutorial it was easy to just pause and rewind until I understood and was able to correct it.

I found the second tutorial a bit more confusing than the first adding the curser in was simple to follow but adding in the raycast to the game took a bit longer to wrap my head around and get it completely right, the scripting was slightly confusing. It felt good when I did manage to get it working correctly but I feel like I'll probably have another recap on this tutorial before I start week 4 Unity tutorials just to make sure I fully remember how to add them as I feel like it will be very useful when designing my own game.

Overall I am really getting into Unity now when I didn't think I would and I'm enjoying the challenge of completing the tutorials so far.

Screenshot from my unity game.

Game Elements

After reading Level 3 Introduction and Reading I've learnt a lot more about the terminology that can be used when discussing games and game development. The  recurring themes that are found in almost all games and definitions of games are:" games have rules, conflict, goals, decision-making, and an uncertain outcome." The article explains that by identifying the elements that games have in common it helps us identify or begin to identify individual game elements. Overall this helps us more easily discuss and describe games.

 Atomic Elements similarly to Game design is hard to define and no definitions are perfect but if you look at all of them it's helpful when trying to see what we need to create when designing our own games for our projects. There are loads of examples in this reading for example Players is one of the atomic elements that reappear in all games so if you are creating a game you have to look at how many players are in your game, if there are more than one what is the relationship between your different players? A common player structure is having teams in a game with multiple players on each team. Some more atomic elements are: Objectives, Rules, Game strategy, Information, theme and sequencing and each one has questions to ask yourself when trying to create a game and things to talk about when talking about other games.

Lastly, In this reading I learnt about critical Analysis and how useful is it when discussing and comparing games. A critical analysis "is a thorough and unbiased look at the game".
I also learnt about the three steps to help give a game a critical analysis:

1. Describe the game’s formal elements. Do not interpret at this point, simply state what is there.
2. Describe the results of the formal elements when put in motion. How do the different elements interact? What is the play of the game like? Is it effective?
3. Try to understand why the designer chose those elements and not others. Why this particular player structure, and why that set of resources? What would have happened if the designer had chosen differently?

I found this reading really helpful in understanding how I will be able to talk and analyse other games and I will definitely use the information to help me with my own game!

Breakdown of a critical analysis

The second article I read was Formal Abstract Design Tools by Doug Church. In this article Church covers a lot starting with how we talk about games, and as game designers we should be able to go deeper then saying fun or not fun when discussing games. It is a game designers job to try and understand why a game is fun or why a certain part of the game is annoying or why something doesn't work. If we can understand why something works or doesn't work we can apply it to our own game and avoid mistakes. He makes the point that the way we understand each other as game designers  is to dissect the games into components and understand why these components work or don't work together similarly to the first reading and talks about the benefits of Formal Abstract Design Tools.

Doug Church then goes on to talking about 'Mario 64' and how to start "abstracting out some tools and defining them well enough to apply them to other games" He gives examples and discusses the intention in Mario 64, why is works in Mario 64, what intention is in general in relation to games (goals and controls) and then how we should think about intention when it comes to applying them to our own game. 

Overall I found both of these articles extremely useful and feel a lot more confident in how I can discuss and create my own game both articles point out why it's so important dissect the games into components and to constantly ask questions, why doesn't this work? Why does this work? How can I avoid similar mistakes or use similar aspects? I feel like I will be much more able to try and understand the different components and atomic elements when looking at different games after reading these.

Useful links 

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/3357/formal_abstract_design_tools.php

https://learn.canvas.net/courses/3/pages/level-3-introduction-and-readings?module_item_id=44527

https://learn.canvas.net/courses/3/pages/level-3-dot-1-1-players

Feedback thoughts

After browsing through the articles, the first article that I picked was Why rejection hurts so much by Guy Winch. I chose this article because everyone has dealt with rejection at some stage in their lives and any tips on dealing with rejection are extremely useful. In the article Winch talks about how it’s been scientifically proven that the same part of the brain that is activated during felling physical pain is also activated when feeling the hurt of rejection which is weird that your mind is programmed to feel rejection so bad. My favourite part was when he talked about how your really your own worst enemy after rejection that instead of trying to help yourself get over the hurt you are experiencing you give yourself a harder time, he says that "The greatest damage rejection causes is usually self inflicted. Just when our self esteem is hurting most, we go and damage it even further". I loved this article and will definitely use the tips Winch gives about how you can help yourself after feeling unwanted and rejected.


The second article I read was Seven ways to crush self doubt by John Spencer. I found this article very useful as I often have a lot of self doubt especially when it comes to college work for example last week in my Drama Filmmaking module had to present our ideas for or short films, I dreaded having to present mine all day because I was afraid that my idea would sound stupid compared to other people in my classes ideas which is a negative outlook to have. The first tip that John Spencer has is to not compare yourself to others he point out its natural to try and compare yourself to others because you "don't want to suck" at what your doing "and it's way too easy to find validation by comparing" but its unhealthy and can only result in arrogance or self doubt.

Spencer also talked about how trying to think of all of your work and ideas as experiments can really help with self doubt "if it didn't work it's not a failure, its a chance to figure out what does work". Not doing any work or trying at all is the biggest result and will always result in failure.

Trust yourself picture

I really enjoyed reading theses two articles and feel like there are some really good tips that will help me in my day to day life. In my opinion feedback is really important, for anyone to be able to succeed they need a lot of feedback on their work. I think It's about finding the balance you need to be getting feedback but getting productive feedback. For example when I was in school I had a teacher who would always tell you something positive about you or your work and something that needed improvement so you felt good about yourself and motivated to try harder in other in the things she critiqued. On the other hand I had other teachers who would never give any sort of motivation or positive feedback it would always be negative so I ended up feeling  horrible about the subject and not wanting to try. I think getting feedback from people who are fair, honest and understanding is a key to success in anything you try.

Game Brainstorm

1st Game idea:

 After brainstorming and researching different genre's of games my first idea is to create a car racing game. Car racing games have always been my favourite types of games especially 'Mario Kart's' as I've mentioned in a previous post. I feel like because I like these sort of games I would understand what a player would want when playing my game so it would help when developing. I found a really useful article when researching that goes into huge depth on how to create a race car game  and all the steps that need to be taken to have a good game, https://www.hindawi.com/journals/ijcgt/2015/839721/. I also found and watched some tutorials on how I could go about creating this type of game by Jimmy Vegas.

If I was to make this game I would be hoping to take inspiration from Mario Kart's and create my own cartoon like characters and backgrounds making it colourful and exiting. Overall I find race car games fun, fast paced and exiting so it would be cool to be able to make my own

Race Car Game Tutorial

2nd Game idea:

My second idea for my game is a 3D shooter game. Shooter games are one of the oldest genre's of games some good examples are: Call of Duty, Grand Theft Auto, Halo and so many more. I've never enjoyed shooter games very much and was never very good at them when my brother allowed me to play them on his Playstation. I would always be the very first player killed and was horrific at aiming. I'd like to create a first player shooter game where the first player is walking around a world with a gun and has to kill their enemy's.  I'd like to be able to make this as a PC game to see if its any easier for example I played Fornight on my brother's playstation and was atrocious but when I played it on my phone I was so much better and enjoyed playing much more.


Some useful links i found for first shooter games are:
https://www.streetdirectory.com/travel_guide/124632/gaming/game_design_tips_for_first_person_shooter_games.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0fGB2H1AGP8 - A tutorial on how to create a FPS game.

3rd Game idea:

My third idea is a 3D Adventure world game with challenges or puzzles along the way. My favourite adventure world games were all played on the Playstation 2 some examples are: Grand Theft Auto, the Bratz games and my favourite...  Dogslife. Dogslife was a 3d game where first player was a dog, players could roam around the world as they pleased and then they could also choose to complete tasks and missions along the way to progress. I liked this game as you could challenge yourself in the tasks but if you felt like just exploring the games world you could also do that. If I was to create this sort of game I would be taking inspiration from Dogslife but changing the storyline, tasks, characters and graphics.

Dogslife Packaging

Here's a tutorial that I found that could help me create this sort of game.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JFguvztl2nA

4th game idea:

My fourth idea is a 3D or 2D platform game. The type of platform game I like and would want to create is an endless runner game. These sort of games are the most popular ios and andriod games and are very addictive, I've definitely spent hours playing endless runner games trying to get a better high score either for myself or to beat my friends high scores some of the most popular were: Temple Run, Subway Surfers and Jetpack Joyride. My personal favourite that I've played is Endless Lake, I find it exiting and different from other ones I have played as your character can multiply while your playing making it harder to concentrate and survive. If I was to go with this idea I would like to take inspiration from endless lake and have something that other platform games don't.

While researching games like this I found lot's of useful links that would really help me develop this sort of game:
https://www.androidauthority.com/lets-build-a-simple-endless-runner-game-in-unity-759135/
This link isn't useful at the moment because the author has to update his own website and links but he has commented on the page saying he will fix the problems so I chose to include it because the images he has are what I would hope my game would look similar to.
https://forum.unity.com/threads/creating-an-3d-endless-runner-game-like-temple-run-in-unity-3d-using-c.469865/

Endless Lake Game

  I had started trying to make one of these sort of games during the summer and had a sort of fixed mindset about it so when it got difficult I would put it off or avoid it so it would be great to be able to look back and say I've made it.





Some other useful links:
https://www.thocp.net/software/games/reference/genres.htm

Thoughts on Unity Tutorial 01

I downloaded Unity onto my laptop to do the tutorials this week. I find tutorials really helpful and quick when trying to achieve anything and often watch them to help with all of my modules and the beginner game ones were really good. They were easy to follow and if you were struggling you could start and stop it at any point and rewind to re-watch it until you could follow.

Overall I learned a lot about starting off on unity and got to try and get used to some of the basics.

 Following unity tutorial

In the first tutorial i learned how to navigate around unity and to make a game object. I also learned how to scale and move game objects around and about the game screen. I found this tutorial really helpful with all of the shortcuts (cmd+Z = Undo) and I definitely wouldn't have been able to start with the second tutorial as this one had key basic instructions. This video ended with us creating a terrain and learning how to add bumps and dips.

In the second and third tutorial we learned how to add textures and materials to Unity and how to put them onto game objects. It was slightly difficult at the start but I messed around with it long enough that i feel like I had gotten the hang of it by the end. We learned how to add trees and grass and how to input first player camera, it was really cool creating a little world and being able to explore it. We were introduced to C sharp coding which took a bit of pausing and rewinding to get the hang of. I also took a while trying to create an even enough path through the game like mountains, it took some time to try and get the path even and walkable looking.

Overall I really enjoyed trying to design a little world and walk around in it after, it made me want to try and make something look better for when I clicked into playing mode again. I'm looking forward to learning more and improving.

Game Design

Game design is hard to define and after reading it was obvious that there is a huge number of definitions out there by different game designers

After browsing through some of the articles I realise how much time has to go into brainstorming and trying to find inspiration for a new game before it can even begin being coded. Every idea, character and storyline of the game has to be well thought through and fully developed before being coded but coming up with your new idea should only take a few minutes. Once you have your prototype of a new idea then you begin making the idea stronger. Game Design is only one part of Game Development.

Game Design Mindmap

When designing a game the most important part is making sure that the game is functional and working well, a few of the articles pointed out that a lot of game designers make the mistake of doing exceptional art and visuals for their game, trying to make it pretty instead of mainly focusing on the game functioning properly. 

In Lewis Pulsipher's article he talks about the importance of "reigning in your ambition" for your first game and starting simple. He also says for your first few attempts of designing a game to take inspiration from other games. I really enjoyed reading his article, he was very to the point and doesn't have loads of unnecessary content. He finishes his article by saying that "the Game is never really done" as there are always improvements and new developments that can me made.

In conclusion I enjoyed reading these articles and it's made me feel more confident about starting my own game for our project now that I know how to start properly.

Useful links: 

1. https://learn.canvas.net/courses/3/pages/level-1-dot-1-critical-vocabulary?  module_item_id=44516

2. https://learn.canvas.net/courses/3/pages/level-2-introduction-and-readings?module_item_id=44521

3. http://gamasutra.com/blogs/LewisPulsipher/20110516/7453/So_Youre_Going_To_Make_A_Game_For_The_Very_First_Time.php

Tech Tip: Blogger Template

I now have a new design for my blog, I just personalised it to what I liked I used a background image of a photo I took at a festival, this changed the whole colour scheme of my blog. I experimented a lot with different fonts and layouts and I'm pretty happy with how it looks now