one post at a time

This week I actually went back to some basics, and went back to the Jimmy Vegas tutorials, and it has been going well so far. I've created terrain and a map to walk around in for my character. I experimented with some lighting changes and texture changes as you  can see here. My character is able to walk through the trees. The mountains are impassable and I don't think I want my character to climb them as they are more a boundary and used for aesthetic purposes, like to cage the character in the map to stop him leaving and flying away.  Here is my character in idle animation. My character also has an attack animation but there are no enemies yet, so it doesn't really do anything, but I'm hoping to put in an enemy or at least an NPC very soon. I definitely want to make the mountains look a little better and make them a bit bigger. So far the 3D game is going well.

Playtesting games is a very important part of the development stage of a game. The reading ( https://learn.canvas.net/courses/3/pages/level-11-dot-0-solo-testing?module_item_id=44601 )  defines playtesting as playing a game in progress with the purpose of improving it.  There are different kinds of testing: bug testing, usability testing, focus testing, balance testing, and fun testing. These testings all have different goals. For example, towards the middle of the development progress, bug testing is important as you usually cannot go ahead with the development sometimes if your whole game is just buggy. There are different kinds of people playtesting, for example, you, the devloper, other game designers and complete strangers. I think that having other people playtest your game can make you spot errors and bugs in it that you won't spot yourself because you're almost used to seeing them so they go unnoticed Blindtesting is important too - if the player does not know wha

So I have actually decided to scrap my 2D game and make it into a 3D as 2D just wasn't working for me no matter what I did. I tried to fix the errors one last time, but it just didn't work out and it was very frustrating. I will have to start everything from scratch but 3D seems to be working much better for me, for some reason. I've hardly gotten any errors and I've got my character moving and attacking and running, but for some reason this just did not work in 2D. I know I have a lot to catch up on but at least it will actually work from now on. I implemented a character and I know I will be able to easily put in a background and things like coins and gems. I will basically just put my game idea from 2D to 3D, and hopefully it works out, as it seems to be alright so far. the animations actually work!!  

This week I have read more into the "story" part of games. Up to now, the readings have been expressed from a perspective of a system of rules that when followed, would create a game that was "fun". This week I looked at what makes a good story in a video game, and how it makes us enjoy a game more. A stronger story as opposed to a weaker story works on a cause and effect, for example en event happens, and another event happens because of it. The reading talks about a 3 point story structure and it reminds me a bit of what I learn in my Digital Video Techniques as movies are so story focused. It reminds me of how you'd write a screenplay. 3 Act Story Structure Aristotle laid out six elements that makes up a stage play:    However, the article also mentions that generally you don't create a good story by following a formula or a template, but you can look at patterns of what makes a good story and apply them yourself. Then you must create ei

This week I am trying to create the first playable stage of my video game. I have found it quite difficult because I find Unity quite hard to use. So far, following the tutorials is okay but sometimes I run into a problem that I can't fix even if I follow the tutorial word for word.  The good thing is it often works if I try again and again and go back to videos I've already seen and try what didn't work before again. I am doing a bit of the game every day to meet my goal but as I said sometimes it is quite difficult to get the game to work especially the parts where I need to input C# code. I feel as though I am quite bad at this. I'm a bit further than where I was last week but it's still very difficult to get it to work for me.

So far with the progress with my game, I feel like I could be doing a lot better in terms of developing the game. A lot of the time, I am mostly running into errors and trying to fix them.  On a weekly basis I usually work on the game in evening Labs or at home. The class assignments I enjoy the most are the readings because they are very interesting and they teach me a lot about game theory in general and have taught me a lot about creating your own video game. I think for next semester I definitely want to plan out my game better so that I can find the necessary tutorials that I need to make my game.