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

Time Stratagies

I think that time management is really important in every ones day to day life and it's something I've always struggled with so any time management strategies are really useful. I'm going to really work on trying to work ahead this year as previously I've just managed to get assignments in on time. I also think that planning our own timetable and workload will be really helpful, I've never done that before so I'm hoping I'll work well using this strategy.

Start today image

the articles that I read about time management were:

1. The important habit of just starting by Jory Mackey 

2. How to beat procrastination by Caroline Webb

I found both articles really relatable and helpful. I'm really bad for putting things off and finding it hard to start things, the articles both had the idea of that the job of starting is actually much easier than the pain of procrastination and that by setting smaller goals for yourself can really help with motivation to start and finish a task. I also can really relate to always having distractions around me when i'm trying to complete a task and often will sit down to start a task and spend most of my time distracted by my phone or social media so I'm going to try and use the tip of getting rid of distractions, for example I'm going to try turning my phone off when doing assignments so that I can't see if a message pops up. I'm also going to try and sit at a desk with just a laptop and notebook to help prevent distractions instead of sitting in my bed to do them. I feel very motivated to try and put some of the strategies I've learned about into action this year and hopefully I feel better and more motivated about college and day to day tasks in general.

Thoughts on the technology tools for this class

There are a lot of new technology tools this year. I have never blogged before so I'm just starting to get used to the idea now as it was a bit hard to think of things to write about at the start, so far Im surprised because I feel a lot more focused than I normally would be about the whole module in general because I'm constantly having to really think about something and write about it so I'm finding the blog very helpful.

I've used Pinterest before and love it, it's great for ideas and inspiration but I've never used Bookmarking or Diigo before so I'll definitely have a look at both of them to see if they work well for me.

I have done a lot of image editing already by using either photoshop or just a quick edit on my Photos on my macbook which both have always worked well for me.

I'm exited to try out Cheezeburger, Canvas and Unity 3D, I found Unity quite hard last year and didn't push myself or give it a full go so I'm motivated to really try and master how to use it.

Blogging Meme

Thoughts on class assignments

What I think about my class' assignments

I really like the way that my assignments and marks are working this year I feel like it's really helpful and more motivating. I love the fact that there are opportunities to get extra credit so that you can pick and choose what you do to an extent. I also found the growth mindset very interesting so I'm delighted that we will be able to learn more about this and complete assignments in relation to the topic. I'm exited to learn about Unity and Fungus again as last year I found it difficult and didn't give it a proper go so I'm glad I get the opportunity to try again.

Unity Game Development Logo

Thoughts on The Growth Mindset

What I think on the Growth Mindset

I really enjoyed listening to Carol Dwek's videos. I haven't heard anything about this before this week and  I found it really interesting I felt like I could relate to a lot of the stuff that she was saying, for example about our generation constantly needing validation and approval from other people whether it be in school, work or social media and how bad they feel when they get bad results. She talks about how student's are always waiting for the next test results to validate themselves instead of having any goals or passions which I can really remember from secondary school, tests would be competitions between people and people who didn't do well felt inferior. If you got yourself in a spiral of not doing great it was harder to try and grow and people would avoid tests or avoid study in general. After listening to Carol taking about running from difficulty, I definitely think i've used a fixed mindset a lot of times in my life myself where I would avoid things that would have helped me grow and achieve because it takes time and it's hard and I could try and still fail. I really agreed with everything that Carol said and I'm glad I had the opportunity to listen to her.

The growth mindset