We had 2 choices this week, “COP-out” which is to do with the environment or to create what I or a fellow student has already created in a different way. I decided to choose “COP-out” because I’m interested in the subject.
I struggled for ideas to begin with but decided to create a mind map (Fig 1) again as I have learned that this helps me think of ideas. I did get a few from it but I really like the Alien coming to Earth to help save the planet. I also like the idea that they can use magic and they can use this to fight things such as greenhouse gasses. It will build up from there, I plan to include a few levels.
I setup GitHub late but the process was fairly easy. When you update the code it requires you to commit it in GitHub desktop. This will mean if I make any big mistakes I have a backup plan. I am not used to using something like this so throughout the entire 2 weeks, I only committed my code three times. I need a way to remind myself to use this regularly. Using it in all future projects will definitely help with that. Also including it in the Trello board somewhere, perhaps there could be a section for regular tasks. Cervino (2020) explains that there is a Trello card repeater you can use to create duplicate tickets throughout a project so I’ll try this next time. This would also be a great way to organise meetings in group work. Felciano, Storey and Zagalsky (2016) researched GitHub in software
engineering courses. They found it very useful for students to check each others work and also show how much work the students have done so they can be help accountable if they haven’t done what they needed to.
I couldn’t find all of the assets I wanted for the game so I had to create my own which I have no experience with. My girlfriend has some knowledge of photoshop (although we used photopea) so she helped me create the hazmat suit enemy but in future I’d like to be able to create my own so I think it would be best to do a course on how to do this. I found a course called “Pixel Art Master Course – Beginner to Professional/Freelance” (Majdandžić, 2021).
SMART Goal for Pixel Art course
- Specific: Complete the Udemy course Pixel Art Master Course – Beginner to Professional/Freelance” (Majdandžić, 2021)
- Measurable: The course shows how much percentage has been complete, the aim is for 100% to be completed
- Achievable: There is 16.5 hours of video content to go through. This can be done as a challenge activity after the last challenge has been done as there is a 3 week gap before handing the assignment in.
- Relevant: This will help me create better games which will help in the next module, Game Development
- Time-bound: I plan to finish this the week before the assignment hand-in date so the deadline for this is 30th December
This goal will help the overall look of the game. I felt that a lot of the assets didn’t match up, it was like they were taken from a few different games and merged into this one. I want my future games to look consistent.
I had a problem with enemy bullets not working on level 2 with the hazmat suits. I did some research on why it would be doing this. To fix it I went into Project Settings, Physics tab and in the Layer Collision Matrix, unticked so enemy and enemy bullet don’t collide with each other. This has helped me with my problem solving skills, knowing what to search for and have enough knowledge of Unity to be able to apply a solution. Since starting Unity I’ve come a long way with learning how it works and I feel quite comfortable using it.
I had a few more problems going through the game. The layering of the splatters when an enemy dies were sometimes under the player and sometimes over the player. I set up the layering when creating the prefab for it but the issue still occurred. I still haven’t figured this out so I’ll look into this further after the rapid ideation is over. If I can understand why it’s not working and fix it, it will help in future projects.
Another problem I found was when I copied everything from one scene and pasted it into another. The reason I did this is that the levels themselves are very similar so I thought it would save some time but when doing this, certain things didn’t work on the level. For example. when completing level 2, it didn’t automatically go into level 3. The reason for this was that not everything was linked through the inspector, it seemed to have lost this when copying over. It caused a lot of problems and took a while to figure out what was happening so it would have been better to build it separately. I will be mindful of this going forward.
What I am most pleased about is the magic firing of the player. It is very similar to Enter the Gungeon (2016) which is one of my favourite indie games. 8bitplay (2021) has a list of tips for a game jam and one of which develop a small game with one mechanic. I focused on getting the shooting to work well and built a game around it. I’d love to use this mechanic in future games.
I had some trouble around animation, particularly with Donald Trump. When adding animation to the sprite, he wouldn’t move in the game at all. He’d just stand there doing nothing. I’m not sure what is causing the issue but this is something else to go back to and figure out. This will give me more knowledge of Unity and make me a better developer.
For the video, I just recorded it whilst playing and didn’t really have a plan on what I was going to say. I have learned that I should write a script to be more concise and get over more of what I wanted to say in the minute. I will do this for my 5 minute video as part of the assignment submission.
In the webinar I got some feedback about making my game too hard. I enjoy these types of games anyway so I have a lot of practise and I didn’t take into consideration if other people would struggle with the difficulty. I asked my friend to play it and she couldn’t get passed the water level so I have learned to think about this more in future consider if my game has a message to make it easier so everyone can experience the game. Balancing can be quite a complicated thing, I think you need feedback on it to know if it works for everyone as people have different skill levels.
Fig 1
References
8bitplay, 2021. How To Game Jam Like a Boss? – Over 15 Game Jam Tips. [online] 8bitplay.com. Available at: <https://8bitplay.com/blog/how-to-game-jam-like-a-boss-over-15-game-jam-tips> [Accessed 15 November 2021].
Cervino, B., 2020. Trello Card Repeater: An Easy Way To Save Your Team’s Time Every Day. [online] Blog.trello.com. Available at: <https://blog.trello.com/trello-card-repeater> [Accessed 15 November 2021].
Enter the Gungeon. 2016. PS4 [Game]. Devolver Digital: Austin, Texas, United States
Feliciano, J., Storey, M. and Zagalsky, A., 2016. Student experiences using GitHub in software
engineering courses. Proceedings of the 38th International Conference on Software Engineering
Companion,.
Majdandžić, M., 2021. Pixel Art Master Course – Beginner to Professional/Freelance. [online] Udemy. Available at: <https://www.udemy.com/course/pixel-art-master-course/> [Accessed 15 November 2021].
Richard Charles Ellis 