Unity Free Tutorials

So, I finally get to talk about all of the Unity Tutorials. Well I know one thing for sure, and that's that I will be hearing "Hello there, I'm Jimmy Vegas" in my sleep.

I enjoyed the videos, they were helpful in almost every aspect, and I seem to do better when I have a set of instructions to follow. And also the huge amount of videos and other tutorials on Unity gives me hope that I will be able to actually complete this game.

I followed his tutorial on how to make a SuperMario Clone while editing and changing it to suit my needs and my game. It is a very good tutorial, in fact, most tutorials for Unity that can be found on Youtube are excellent.

However, one issue I have is that most of them are for Windows Unity, and also they have earlier versions of Unity, which can make it difficult to follow as we have only used the Mac versions and we have a different version to them.

Hello there, I'm Jimmy Vegas

Games Stories

Not going to lie, when I saw the word 'stories' my eyes lit up.

I am very fond of Wikipedia's definition of art being 'the process of deliberately arranging elements in a way that appeals to senses or emotions' because it means that whenever I write a story it becomes art.

Purpose, form, idiom,structure, craft, surface. All these are things I have to take into consideration while writing, as they all have a part to play in the creation of a story.

The small bit about 'What was your first great game idea' and the response being 'It'll be just like Pacman meets Space Invaders. Only better!' is quite literally the driving idea behind what most people like to call 'Fanfiction'.

Which is a perfectly acceptable form of art and if you disagree I shall gladly argue my point.

Tragedy meaning a serious and lifelike story hits a bit too close, as nowadays people try to make the worst things possible happen to characters who don't deserve it simply for 'wangst'. And I agree that there is still a lot of bad writing out there, but there is a greater amount of good writing!

Plot: An important thing that we figure out later.

Theme: Something we don't think about or realise until after the story is complete.

Character: One of the two things that probably created the story, thinking of a character, or of powers and wanting a character to use them.

Diction: Ary The other thing that might create a story, simply thinking of a line of dialogue that sounds amazing and you are so amazed you thought of it you need to make an entire world just so you can say that one line of dialogue and then after you've finished writing it you realise you forgot to say it.

Rhythm: Ha. What rhythm?

Spectacle: The 'eye candy' of the story. What makes your story unique. What makes it different to every other story about magic or about a dystopia. What makes your story?

All stories include crossing gaps of some kind? All stories are about change? Ok yeah that I can accept. Change can come in many different forms, and usually that change is a victory. Changing a goverment, changing the world, changing your clothes. Hey, not all victories are about the big things.

Ah, found something I disagree with.

"Having the player make moral choices for the main character is hard, because the choices often don’t involve real consequences."

\

It has consequences for the player character, and for the person playing it. Plus, consequences on the players emotional state. 

A scene from TellTales 'The Walking Dead'

Frankly, if you don't have a heavy moral decision without consequences in your story-driven game, you haven't written a good story.

First Playable Level

Hopefully this works.

This is a short video showing my prototype and the basics of my first playable level. I would like to point out the character is able to jump I just didn't hit the button in time. 

Week 8 Progress

My progress in class has greatly improved in recent times! I guess it's because I actually sat down and did the work. In one day I managed to build a level, import a character, and have the camera follow him as he runs and jumps.

I didn't really have a good weekly routine, just doing most things last minute and hoping they were good enough to merit counting towards the points. I used some of the extra credit options earlier in the year but have since stopped doing them simply because I didn't have the time or because I didn't see the need. I was also very confused about what exactly what the Wiki Trails were.

I still need to fix it up a bit but for now it's working very well.

Week 8 Comments and Feedback

Looking back on the blog comments I've left I think that I could have wrote more and for more people. I only left comments on a few blogs because I was interested to see what they got up to with their game.

I was trying to be as kind as possible with my comments and leaving what I hoped were good suggestions and references to other games that I thought would help them with their game.

For the other comments I was very confused and didn't really know what to write so I just kind of left whatever I could and tried to make it over sixty words. I think I did it right, or at the very least no one has come to me and said my comments were rude.

Typing Reviews

Week 8 Reading And Writing

Looking back on my previous works I realised how different my game was going to be before I started the Game Design Document. Originally it was going to be a 'Temple Run' style game with Yoink running away from the screen and from the player.

I realised I was being very impersonal when it came to the readings, giving my honest opinions and make little jokes to try and get people more interested in my blog because they would find it funny. I think this worked well but I haven't really hear anyone say anything about my blog being noticeably funny or more interesting than others.

Looking at the Customisation Screen I figure I could still use the same design for it, and just change the dimensions to fit the game window.

In my most recent blog post on my project I showed a small drawing on what my level design would look like, very different to my original design and I am actually quite happy with that.

Original Level Design

Final Level Design

I never really realised how much I read until I had to go over it and talk about it. And that so many of the subjects I read related to the many games I played, such as Stardew Valley, Civilisation and Undertale.

I disliked the idea of there being types of fun, because I don't think fun is something you can accurately define. I was fine with the idea of comfort and coziness, but risk and reward is something that really makes a game.

Then there was the thing with Meaningless Decisions that I don't agree with because every decision has an effect on either the player or the game. Like changing an outfit or deciding not to go down a particular path.

I think when it comes to what I could improve on or what I would change is just, detail. I need more detail in my Readings but on the other hand it's just meant to be a quick summary based on what I read.

Maybe try and making things less casual and being more professional about how I write down the information I've gained from reading the various pieces of work on the hundreds of different needs Games require.

PrototypeA

Leg It

Level Design

A Small Hand Drawn prototype of my level

My levels for Leg It will mostly follow a similar pattern, the player character (Green)  running across the cities rooftops, the Thieves Highway (huh another idea for a game with a good name), in order to get away from the Heroes he's running from.

Hazards are coloured in red, so the two lines at the bottom are drops between the buildings that if the player character falls down they will lose a life and have to start the level over again, or if I decide to add in a checkpoint system start from there.

The red character in the middle of the page is an enemy, who moves from left to right normally, but if they spot you they will run straight to you. Similar to the pitfall, if the enemy hits the player they will return to the start.

The Blue is an interactive object within the level, much like Mario's pipes, you can jump on it and proceed to go down it, where you will enter a new level or a sub-level where the enemies are lightly different and the level will be different because you will be inside a building or on the street below.

The items in circles are power-ups. The one above the enemy is the Stop Sign Weapon which the player can use to deal damage and to reflect projectiles. The power-up on the far right is the Freeze Breath power. The player can use it to slow down enemies and projectiles.

The end of a level will have a small building with a red door on it that the character runs into to avoid the Heroes.

Unity Free Tutorials

For this week's free Unity Tutorial I decided to watch the Jimmy Vegas tutorial on How To Make A Super Mario Clone.

I watched these videos because it is the closest I could find to my own game, 'Leg It', which has a similar style but completely different concept. I followed the first video to learn how to put the blocks in, but used a completely different design for them, as Yoink is going to be running along the roofs of buildings, not bricks.

Screenshot Of Unity

This video helped me make the layout I needed for my game, and it also showed me how to bring in assets already in Unity, such as player characters that I won't be copyrighted for. I used a default player character that already had all of the movement programmed into him.

He vaguely resembles a knight which I found mildly amusing given the name of my blog.

Game Fun

Ah, so we're back to the 8 different types of fun. The thing I do not agree with whatsoever. Although reading through this it labels Monopoly as a Social game. Monopoly is not a social game, if anything it will ruin your social life because of the arguments it causes.

It does make a good point however about why making a game with all eight of these kinds of fun, would not be as fun as one thinks. Not everyone likes the same type of fun, some people prefer one kind over the other.

I didn't think reading the words 'sans Pokemon' would make me as upset as it did but here we are. If a Caveman found it useful you'll find it fun? I feel like there are somethings a caveman did that we would not find fun and instead find deeply disturbing.

Griefing as a form of fun is something I disagree with intensely. You should not feel better because you destroyed someones mansion they spent more than five hours building in Minecraft.

Planet Minecraft
Explaining why people Grief

 

Final GDD

The Main Character,
Yoink

This is the final blog for my Game Design Document.

I have updated my Dundoc and I hope that you find it interesting. It's the bible for my game so please don't treat it like the actual bible and completely misinterpret it.

Unity Tutorial 05

The two tutorials this time were to make a skybox and wind, and to make fade screens as well as how to equip a weapon.

The skybox was fun to mess around with, making the world look like it was on a different planet or that it was constantly a bright sunny day.

Wind was something I wasn't expecting to use in my game, but I may as well have it as just something in the background. I spent so long trying to get the wind right that when I went outside and saw the trees moving I thought 'ah finally got it' before realising my mistake.

Wielding a weapon is important in almost every game. An axe is excellent for an RPG like game where you can choose what weapon to use. My game does use weapons, and for a variety of different reasons, but I would not use an axe.

A stop sign is the main
weapon of my character

The Fades are more of an aesthetic need but one I was happy to learn how to do, if only for the slim chance I might include it in my game if a character dies or if someone is starting up the game.

Game Decisions

Cozy. Coziness is considered a factor in games, where there is an absence of risk, of danger. Where there is an abundance of shelter and food, where nothing is pressing or immediate and there are a lot of comforting aesthetic signals where players have a low sense of arousa- I'm sorry did I read that right?

Ok yeah apparently a low state of arousal is part of having a cozy game. Go figure.

One game that in my opinion meets all these needs is Stardew Valley. A game where you inherit a plot of land to build a farm that you can grow and change at your own pace.

Stardew Valley
Chucklefish LTD

Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs is a big factor as part of the Coziness of a game. Which suprised me that something to do with basic human living would play such a roll within developing video games. The hierarchy of needs tends to revolve around the rewards you gain from playing.

Much like real life, you should not make meaningless decisions. They are the worst kind and have no affect on gameplay.

I respectfully disagree. A meaningless decision could be something like changing what hat your character is wearing. It might not change the game, but it'll make you feel better. And on the other hand, there really is no such thing as a meaningless decision.