Beta

Dillon Eagers Beta Stage

Beta

I feel That for someone who has been struggling with Unity throughout this course I have actually got a good bit done the last few weeks. I unfortunately do not have a playable character or a collectible/ pickup made however over the last two weeks I did manage to get the following things into my finished unity project.

• Adding a rigid body, the plain to prevent items such as houses from falling through the map.
• Adding terrain to the layout of the map
•           Kinematic to prevent players from pushing the invisible wall I made to prevent players from getting through it and falling off the map.
•           I added a skybox around my map in order to stop the players from accessing areas outside of the map when using the player/ or exploring the map.
•       Using and manipulating boxes in order to form the shape of a house.
•        Using the materials given in my assets folder to develop textures for the map such as brown for the mountain, green for the grass and cobblestone gray for the village roads.
•       Adding multiple houses to the map with the manipulated boxes texture to make buildings for village aesthetic.
•       Added a wall to separate the mountain side from the villages aesthetic/to make park section for the map.

(Note: I did wish to get a tree texture to add to the map for more aesthetic for the wilderness and was also hoping t add a lake and castle design to the park.)

What I am Finding Difficult

I was having an Issue with trying to build a lake in the park area of my map (I did try using the jimmy Vegas tutorials available however they were unfortunately a bit updated with the layout I was using for my game. I also had an issue with finding a reliable video for how to make a character for my game with animations and a video on how to make collectibles to pickup around the map (which were going to be the powerups for my game.

How I am meeting my targets Set in my plan

When making target plans I did the following things in order to meet them

1. The first thing that I did was mark out goals per week through my blogs in order to look back through them and work from them
2. The second thing I did was write the goals out for what I wanted to focus on in my game throughout the week (set weekly goals such as , acquiring textures and making a plain layout fr my map.
3. The third thing I did was I did out sketches to help visualize how I wanted things to be made in my Unity game such as the map layout that can be seen below , or general Items I wished to make for the map like hoses made out of generic shapes( although they were edited in my final one from a pyramid roof to a re positioned square for the houses roof.
4. The final piece to these methods were adding the following ideas int unity which proved pretty good overall.

I did however have an issue with time in the end and feel that I should have gotten a playable character for the player , as well as a pickup item for the characters power up in the game. I feel that when it came to planning out my game in my blogs there was issue, however when bringing it to screen through the Unity program that was were I began to struggle as I had to learn how to change certain aspects of my game in order to make the game from a technical standpoint. It did prove more challenging , as I could not download the unity program on my laptop as it was too big, so I had to stick with working with  it on the college macs which were a challenge in of itself to me as I only started using them for the first time last year.

I also would like to mention that by re watching the following Jimmy Vegas videos I :managed to get a lot done on my map in the end.

Video 1:  How to make a game for free 001- introduction- Unity Tutorial by Jimmy Vegas link here

Video 2: How to make a game for free 002-textures/materials- Unity Tutorial by Jimmy Vega link here

Video 3: How to make a game for free 003-C coding- Unity Tutorial by Jimmy Vegas link here

Video 4: How to make a game for free 004- Improved Graphics - Unity Tutorial by Jimmy Vegas link here

Images

Unity Free Tutorials

Week 11 Unity

Link to image here

For this weeks Unity write up I focused on two particular videos that I feel helped progress my unity game overall. I made some progress in actually making things in unity over the last week such as the terrain , the road for the village on the map, the mountain and adding textures to my project. That is why I felt it was important to focus on the following things.

• Creating a character to play in the game with animations
• Adding items to collect in the finished project.

ANIMATING CHARACTERS in Unity 2018 Beginners Guide By Sykoo

Video one Here: The first video I watched was on how to make a character in unity for the player to play as. I found it helpful as it was a beginners guide and shows how using code can manipulate your character to make certain movements.

Mini Unity Tutorial- How to make A Collectible And Scoring System In C 

Video two here: For the second video it focused on  how to make a collectible/scoring system in Unity. Surprisingly this video was made by Jimmy Vegas the persons tutorials I used when making my game and hopefully will work out well for the assignment overall.

Overall I found that both of these videos had a lot to take in and would be beneficial in showing me what to expect when applying them to my project hopefully it will work out tomorrow when I try to implement them.

Games testing

Games testing

Link to image here

This weeks reading is on Game Testing. In particular Play-testing, which is a method of quality control that takes place at many points during the video game design process. 

Link 1:

The first link I posted was to a site called spritecloud (link to site here)which focused on the question "why games testing is important" in this write up  which focused on how to test games as well as the following types of testing for games

• Installation testing:Verifying that the game will load, install and runn on different platforms ( examples are Xbox or phones)
• Feature testing: test matrix's for different features for different players statuses 
• User Interface (UI) Testing:  Focuses on graphical elements and types of content
• Performance testing : Also called "Extreme testing", this involves running the game for a continuous 24 hour period , while increasing/ adding more players for testing the multiplayer aspect.

I overall found this reading quite helpful as it have me more insight into some of the different types of games testing in this design industry,as well as marked out specific things that make each of these types of testing unique and original for producing a finished game.

Link 2:

The Second link that I read was by The Closet Entrepreneur which was titled " Giving Criticism- the good, the bad and the Ugly"(link to site here) . This reading focused on the showing the positives of readings such as for example it can lend much needed assistance towards an individual if it is Constructive Criticism. This is different to normal/ sometimes harsh criticism as it offers valid feedback both positive and negative . It is normally applied when the person giving the constructive criticism is being unbiased in your feedback as well as giving credible and well- founded..

What I liked about this post mostly was how the writer wrote out examples of both  poor ways to give constructive criticism and good ways also . What I gathered overall from this reading was that we should not take offence to all criticism as it can also be not only helpful but someone trying to give useful and helpful feedback. This piece has also given me more of an understanding of why I was encouraged to use the wow, wonder, what if strategy when starting these blogs and I feel I wiil continue to use in future blogs to come.

Link 3:

The third and final link I clicked on was titled "Game Design and Target Market" by Gamasutra ( link to site here) This reading focused mainly on the following headings for target audiences.

• The Game Industries Average Target market
• The Need for freelance game design directors and designers.
• The perspective of the intermediate player/ gamer

From reading these however i feel as though they only focused on three types of markets .

1. The Casual game market which brings in cash because of its large customer base.But unfortunately limits things like creativity and forward thinking. mainly placing profit over these principals an unfortunate ting that has became a lot more frequent in recent years.
2. The Hardcore market which focuses on both the creative and the forward thinking aspect of the market but unfortunately brings little money to meet the financial demands of the game industry due to the small customer base these types of games seem to mostly attract.
3.  The Intermediate market which focuses on targeting the main appeal of intermediate gamer's and maintaining a balance of creativity and profitability. This would make this the realistic way to look at the market as it pushed growth on the game industry.

I feel this final reading had a lot to take in but overall gave me more perspective on these three types of game markets and how to tell them apart. which was quite beneficial overall.

Free Unity Tutorial

Free Unity tutorials

Link to image :Here

For this week I decided to do a refresher and go over the following Jimmy Vegas videos on moodle so that I could make more progress on my project overall , as I have been finding the videos difficult to follow. This included the following videos that showed me the following topics.

Jimmy Vegas Video Tutorial 1 here: I found this one useful for 

• Controls
• Positioning
• Assets
• Hierarchy
• Unity's layout
• How to work unity for other platforms ( phones, Xbox, ps4)
• How to add objects
• How to scale objects
• How to add terrain

Jimmy Vegas Video Tutorial 2 Here: Was where we looked at

• Importing textures
• Importing Materials
• Creating Folders
• How to raise terrain (Build Mountains for map)
• How to change opacity
• How t change strokes

Jimmy Vegas Video Tutorial 3 here: For this video it looked at

Adding Details to terrain ( trees, grass)

• Adding a player to the game
• Where to add pre made objects to your game
• Adding code to your game
• How a colider works
• How t go to players view

Note: I do want to watch the part 4 video in the future to learn more on improving graphics.

New Video I looked at

The video I chose to focus on for this blog was "Character Controller with animations- walk and attack - UNITY 3D- Quick And Easy"here. I chose to go with this video mainly due to me needing to make a character and to get an idea of how to make their animations move in order to chase the antagonist of my game. The video was helpful in giving me an idea of how to make this possible on a newer version unlike Jimmy Vegas , as some items can be a bit dated. I have noticed tho however that when it comes to the necessities for Unity 3D his first few videos seem t be Ideal for making my Ideas possible. That is about all I have to say for this write-up for now and I do feel I am beginning to get a bit better in the unity write-up and am looking forward to showing off some of the structures I have created using the Jimmy Vegas tutorials alone in this weeks project blog.

Game Stories

Dillon Eagers Game stories Week 10

Link to image: here

For my week 10 reading I was tasked with reading through articles on the impact the stories of games have on the player and the game itself overall.

Link 1 
Into the woods: a practical guide to the hero's journey by Bob Bates link: Here

The first article I read on this was "Into the woods: a practical guide to the hero's journey by Bob Bates" . This article follows Bob bates a veteran designer who talks about  the following things.

• The History of archetypes
• The structure of Joseph Campbell's Hero,s Journey

At the 2005 Game developers Conference Bates describes how when making the game for several years ,he found that from what he was reading about the heroes journey from books was quite vague to him as there were all of these stages in which the character may or may not interact with or have to go through.What makes this confusing is that them being told that they may not have to interact to begin with makes it hard for the writer of the article to know what to make of it. 

what was helpful in reading from this article was that it provided the important question of " What practical use is the Hero's journey for us as storytellers and game writers". I personally believe this is a very important thing to consider when making many things in a game from the story of the game itself , to the impact in the story's characters/ side characters can make.

At the bottom of the page the writer also left the following link to similar things to this topic on the Gamasutra website. The following link to this is here.

Link 2:

What every game developer need to know about the story by John Sutherland link : Here

The second article I read was "What every game developer need to know about the story by John Sutherland ". In this article John Sutherland goes over how the story is and quote "a hot item in games, Partly this is because the quality bar is rising in this relatively young art form". The states that as games evolve more the people ( the players) want more depth . In this article the writer addressees the following things.

• Defining Gaming as a form of story and that games are indeed not movies
• Highlights two major types of misunderstandings in gaming such as Story is dialog and Story Doesn't matter.
• A starting place which Highlights how things such as conflict in a story must be planned from the beginning of the development cycle.
• How classical stories move. This highlights things such as the protagonist, A gap that opens up between a hero and orderly life, risks and challenges to overcome, a reversal which helps a character learn something they did not know, overcoming a second gap/ obstacle and finally  taking on the greatest risk in order to  get to that object of desire.
• Why Characters matter to games/ their significance
• The importance of reversals
• Story forms before games
• Types of conflict/ types of story
• Empathy and how it may relate to the flip the protagonist has
• Paces stretching , while dialog shrinks
• Looking At a game story that works
• All three acts of a game
• The games endings
• Story and the writer
• Story and the whole development team

Overall I found this the most helpful out of all the articles as I like how the writer broke down all these factors into different headings as well as used GTA vice city one of my favorite games of all time as an example for this article.

Link 3:

Link to "Why do today's video games need narrative to stand out?" here

The third and final link I chose to use for this weeks reading was an article by Johnyorkestory.com on "Why do today's video games need narrative to stand out?". The reason I chose this particular article as my third choice is because I like how not only does it mention that as game designers our primary objective is to create a entertaining experience for the player which I truly believe is true as otherwise what possible appeal does the player have to these games. I also like how the writer f the article addresses the issue that 80% of games are abandoned by the players before they even reach the end, completing the game. It also mentions how narrative based games like heavy rain and life is strange, have a completion rate of  60-70% which amazes me considering the fact that the story would be the main incentive in my opinion to play these games.

My Conclusion

I found this reading overall quite interesting mainly due to link 2 and link 2 as not only did one relate address the issues by relating it t my one of my favorite games from when I was a kid, but also how in link 3 it showed percentages of players playing these certain types of game and how the percentage of people focused on story completion seems to be becoming a more frequent issue in the business.

Alpha

Dillon Eagers Project week 9

Link to image :here

Alpha

I unfortunately do not have a alpha stage for this assignment complete yet as I have been struggling extremely with the Unity program to make my game as I have stated in previous project blogs, However I do feel with the work I have done this week to correct this error below that I will honestly have much better progress with the Unity stage in the coming weeks up to deadline.

Whats working and what I am finding difficult

While working on this assignment I feel that the following things have been working for me quite well overall these include.

• Keeping up with the weekly blogs each week both with submitting them on time and assuring they have the content required in order to complete the task.
• I have been looking at ways t simplify my unity problem through YouTube tutorials n things such as environment design and character design as well as how to things on unity like manipulate shapes and sizes.
• Having finally sketched out concepts for things to make in unity such as the prototypes I have been struggling to produce the past few weeks.
• Keeping up on the feedback from the lecturer weekly through audio messages to see were I can improve overall.
• Looking at other medias for inspiration such as films/ game franchises and peoples opinions on the game design industry

However I do also feel there is things in which I need to improve on such as

• Making the environment in unity for my game or at least prototypes
• Making the characters for my game or at least prototypes
• Making buildings for my games village
• making a swan ( antagonist for the game)
• Making objects( such as lamp posts, ice cream cones for power ups etc) for the game or at least prototypes
• Trying to do the weekly extra credit stuff to get my marks up a little
• Doing mst of my blogs at the start of the week to have more free time to work on things later in the week( although I feel I am improving a lot on this one point.)

I have started focusing more on Unity and have even drawn up sketch concepts n what I am going to make for my game these include the following items.

1. The games map: I figure the best way for me to position everything was to make a map of how the layout could look with some planning from an overhead perspective. This sketch concept can be seen below.
   
2. Character design: This was the best way fr me to make my characters (police officer one, police officer 2 and the antagonist the swans) design using shapes to form their body features. This sketch can be seen below if you are curious how it looked.
   
3. Building designs:In order to make the village look like it has more variety when it comes to its architecture I added 6 concept for building designs using common shapes I can easily find and use on unity such as squares, triangles and circles. These images can be seen below.
   
   
   
   
4. Objects/ Possible obstacles: These sketches I did up were of things I could add to the map to add variety and to give the world more character. these included lamp posts, ice cream cone designs for power ups to match the cornetto joke from the movie and parking stops for cars to add more design to the empty sidewalks of the city. These concept sketches can be seen below.
   
5. Textures for items on map:The final thing that I considered was textures I could add to my games map such as the following

• Tarmac texture for roads
• Cobblestone texture for pathways and sidewalks
• Grass textures for parks, fields and gardens
• fence textures for walls, fences
• Water textures for ponds

All of these textures can be seen in the image below this text.

Meeting My Targets

I feel with making these concept sketches for how I can make realistic things in Unity in the time I still have left, that it has given me plenty of ideas to work with for the next few weeks and although I am nervous about continuing to use the Unity program I like that I have a more solid and realistic  game plan and can start working from what I have produced from this and to hopefully add more in from my previous blogs game ideas such as sound etc. 

Conclusion

I feel I have a lot of work in the coming weeks particularly in unity , but also feel if i stay up to date with my blogs , as well as start building my items in unity that it will pay off overall in the long run.

I hope you all enjoyed reading my project post week and am looking forward to receiving some more feedback overall.

week 9 progress

Dillon Eagers Week 9 progress

link to image: here

I chose this image as in the image it is a person doing the impossible which is swimming through a concrete road which makes no sense and overall has not been done before making history. I feel it relates to me in a sense where I personally feel and  many other people have felt doing certain things  are this is impossible, so i find this image quite inspiring as it is a literal person doing the impossible/ conquering a challenge and overall feel it has motivates me to keep pushing ahead and keeps me working towards an overall end goal in the end.

Looking Back 

I am overall quite happy with my progress so far as I feel I have been doing quite well with my blog comments as I have been submitting each one every week since the beginning, except the occasional Unity blog as I have been finding its mechanics quite challenging to get use to overall. One other thing I wish I had been taking advantage of from the start were the optional extra credits , as I feel them extra few marks honestly could have gone a long way in the long run in getting the marks for my grading up. The class assignment that I have been enjoying the most are the comment blogs each week as it has allowed me to connect more with other people in my module both online and offline , as well as gave me more things in common to talk to them about and to help me understand overall that I am not the only person struggling with certain situations throughout the module which has been quite comforting to me.

Looking Forward

The changes that I wish to make for the second semester are mainly the following things 

• I wish to get more of an understanding of Unity and how it works.
• I wish to make some more concepts and prototypes for Items in unity to help with the visual elements for my game in the blog posts particularly in the project blogs.
• I wish to do some sketches as visual aid for my game such as map layout ,buildings, characters and objects such as power up items
• I wish to try t attempt more of the extra credit Items from the weekly lists to help me get my marks up for my final grading.
• To try and get my blogs uploaded more ahead of time to work on other I tems I wish to work on for this Module and others.

Other than that I feel I am making good progress and feel this has really shown me the parts I really need to start focusing on more. Thats about all I have for this blog .I Hope you all enjoyed reading it and I will see you all in the next one.

review week comments and feedback

review week comments and feedback

Feedback in

Overall I am quite enjoying reading through the comments people are leaving on my blogs the last few weeks as it has helped me mainly in two types of ways. One of which was in reaching out and making an effort for people in my class/ module in beginning to communicate with each other ,as I really feel that I am really starting to connect more with my year from what we were like in the first year. Possibly due to me finding more things in common with them as the weeks have past such as similar interests and similar experiences in our course that we have all been mentioning in our blogs. The other reason I have been enjoying the reading is because it has allowed me to gain useful feedback on my game design in my project blogs in particular, as I have been progressing the past few weeks. This has helped in things such as considering level/character design, as well as in how I could tackle certain challenges such as me getting use to the unity program ,as they have gave me some great videos to follow on YouTube for certain sections of Unity I seem to be struggling with. I would say I am overall gaining positive feedback on my blogs throughout the weeks especially in my idea as a lot of people seemed to like it. I also have found it quite relieving that I am not the only person struggling with certain things and that we are all struggling and being understanding in the process.

Feedback out

When writing feedback for other students I feel I have been doing pretty good . Not only have I not missed a single week of uploads but I have also made sure to leave at least two points on how people can improve on their game idea in the coming weeks by using the WWW (wow, I wonder, what if) strategy and TAG (tell, ask, give) strategy I learned on the moodle notes. I found this one of the most helpful things I learned when doing blogs as it gave me so many other ways to contribute to blogs which was a giant help. I find from reading other peoples writings it has helped me in looking at certain write ups in different ways such as in the prototype write ups it has motivated me from reading others to not only work on little things in Unity to improve on such as environment layout and buildings, but to also help me in ways such as possibly making up sketch prototypes for a visual perspective.

Blog Comments

I definitely feel by commenting and reading comments from other people in my class that we are really starting to connect more as a group, especially when you see certain users frequently comment on your blogs which to me makes me more inclined to visit their pages and read and comment more on their blogs. I also feel by discussing our blogs online has made at least me and  I feel most of our class more inclined to talk to each other in person as we are growing alot closer than we were during first year.

Looking Forward

The only main issue I feel i need to focus on out of everything I the unity blogs/ comments as it has been my only main concern just keeping up with it. Besides that I have keeping up with all my other weekly blogs since the beginning and feel that the only thing I could improve on is maybe my grammar and focusing on other ways to explain stuff in my blogs in the future as the famous phrase goes "its the little things in life that matter the most".

Week 9 reading and writing

Reading and writing week 9

The Reason I chose this Image is because this was taken during a culture night we were assigned to attend at the start of the term. It was to help inspire us and at least for me it honestly did .I loved looking at the Bauhaus section, as well as the pop art section and feel it honestly inspired me in a lot of my work throughout the year and hopefully in the future years to come!!

Note: this was taken at the national gallery in town on Merrion square.

Looking Back

Overall looking back over the last 8 weeks of work from my blog comments to my Project write ups and readings. I feel I have gained a lot of useful tips from these items over the weeks such as the following things.

• From reading other peoples blogs I learned about all the different types of games Unity can make from stealth games to simple football games.
• I also learned from reading other peoples blogs and commenting/ communicating that I am not the only person struggling with things such as college workloads, balancing work between modules, and trying to get use to and adapt to new programs such as for example Unity and Illustrator.
• Connecting more with people in my class as not only because we are gonna be working together for the next  few years, but it was also nice getting to know them through their blog posts , as it showed their personalities off in a unique ways. It also made it easier connecting with them in person, as with commenting and communicating through blogger it made it much easier connecting with them in person and meeting some great people,
• I feel this module in particular has made me more organised , particularly in planning ahead on other modules as i needed to organise my time more to get other things finished.
• I feel I have been good on keeping up on the blogs overall ,but feel I could have perhaps focused more on the weekly Unity blogs , as I found it quite difficult completing some.
• One of the biggest surprises I had was learning how vast the industry of game development and that there is not a lot of definitive ways to look at things.

Looking Forward

With the weeks going by so fast I am almost at the end of my first semester of second year and I feel good about it there has definitely been some challenges in the passing weeks but I overall feel that I am getting better use to them and will continue to do so in the common weeks. I do want to focus the next few weeks on making things in unity so that I can at least make some items such as prototypes  and also keep up with the write ups and readings , as I go along the way.

Conclusion

Overall I feel I have came a long way since the beginning and looking at both what i need to improve on as well as what I have accomplished is quite satisfying and I feel that this write up was extremely helpful in helping me progress on this course and I hope that you all enjoyed reading.

prototype "first playable "

Dillon Eagers: Project week 8

So for my progress on my project in week 8 , I am focusing on rewatching videos from the first few Jimmy Vegas tutorial videos so That I can make the following things in unity in the coming weeks. These include the following.

(1) Jimmy Vegas tutorial one here will be to focus on things such as  

• To learn controls better on unity (move around, zoom etc)
• How to  use Play button  to try game .
• How to use inspector panels
• Object settings such as making shapes to build buildings in my game.
• The use of assets
• Positioning
• How to scale objets for different sizes.
• Use of box collider

(2) Jimmy Vegas tutorial two here will focus on

• How to add textures/ assets
• How to raise terrain for mountains and dips for lakes
• How to paint textures
• How to change opacity and smooth height

(3) Jimmy Vegas tutorial three here will focus on 

• Adding items to terrain such as trees and grass (will be beneficial in making countryside aspect of my map)
• How to change opacity/ shade of colour on sections and items
• Player addition
• First look at script

I have also been watching videos by this youtuber called Aaron Hibberd as he shows how to make a character from scratch using only basic shapes such as spheres and cylinders. This may prove beneficial in making not only the swan for my game but also the two cop characters. He also has videos on how to as moving mechanics to the character you design which may prove beneficial in my coming weeks.

Link to image from video here

I have also recently began looking back over other peoples videos on unity that were recently uploaded on wakelet which is linked here . 

I feel that the list of actions below is my best approach for the coming weeks in trying to progress on unity and I feel that I need to start working on this as soon as possible. i am hoping t have the following items at least started next monday and hopefully work from there on progressing it in the coming weeks.

1. Making the map layout for the game
2. Making items to create the village such as shapes to look like buildings such as squares and rectangles.
3. To add textures such as colour, lighting , trees, roads and objects to look like lamposts. 
4. I also need to look over how to add certain textures such as grass or cobblestone walk paths for example.
5. The final thing I need to start working on is the 3 characters, the two police officers and the swan.(Note: I can worry about hopefully adding random pedestrian npcs later to make the village look more detailed)

I do realise also that I will probably have to scrap certain levels maybe focus on just one or two at most at the moment as it give me a realistic project to make in the time I am given to make it in the coming weeks.

Overall as I have been discussing each week the technical making aspect on unity 3D game engine has been my biggest challenge during this game development process and I feel that I need to just focus on producing a little bit more each week from Unity to get my Game back on track overall. I feel I have been doing ok on the research aspect of the game ,as well I have been keeping up with my blog comments each week.

Unity: thoughts and progress on Unity free tutorials

Unity Lab week 8

Link to image: here

For my task this week on Unity I was tasked with finding two to four Unity tutorials to follow. I found this beneficial , as it gave me time to consider the following things I want for my game.

• How to make a countryside terrain for my game to take place.
• How to build a country Village environment,
• What will I use to create my police officers.
• How to create village buildings and structures.
• How to create swan in unity 
• How to add additional props to bring village to life (npcs, cars, streetlights etc)

The first video I decided to re-watch was how to Create terrain and environment items such as lakes, grass, trees and mountains, as well as adding objects such as shapes to make village buildings. I have linked the videos below  this video gave me a better understanding of how i will acquire the countryside village texture I will need for my game. I have linked the videos below

 Link to "How to make a game for free 002- textures,materials - unity tutorial by Jimmy Vegas" link to video : here  Textures, grass etc

Link to" How to make a game for free 003- Coding unity tutorial by Jimmy Vegas" link to video : here "features in out terrain such as grass and trees etc

Although Jimmy Vegas had some handy tips for my game I personally found his tutorials to be a little outdated as it is with one of the old editions of Unity. I did however also find other videos to help me with other things I wished to research on how to improve and start creating my game in the Unity engine. These links include the following

I also found this video describing how to make roads using a downloadable asset pack on unity  the video was titled "creating a road in Unity 3D for beginners : Unity Tutorial" by Game Dev Plus : Link here

The final group of videos I found which I found interesting was a video on how to make a unity character from scratch. I found this beneficial as it allowed me to find a way to possibly make the two police officers and the swan in which they need to catch. 

The first of  Aaron Hibberd's videos is called "Unity character from scratch part 1". This video shows the youtuber making the character from shapes. He has a total of seven videos, but i chose to focus on watching the first five each is linked below with a description of what the video focused on for the characters design and mechanics.

Part 1: making unity character using basic spheres and cubes. here

Part 2: Adding materials, lighting and background color here

Part 3: Adding basic walking and idle animation here

Part 4: triggering the walk animation with code and some minor physics here

part 5: Adding jump and moving left and right here

I feel I found some realistic aspects to add when making my game but do want to make some stuff following these tutorials to get more experience in using the unity 3D program. Overall I did find watching these videos helpful and felt good exploring other channels showing how to make things on unity that i can actually implement into my game, instead of just focusing on watch mainly Jimmy Vegas tutorials ,which are helpful at times but can be a bit much at times.I am looking forward to getting the development going hopefully in the coming weeks.

"Game fun"

Reading Week 8 

Link to image: here

For week 8 I started reading about  3 things , "Natural Funativity", "Clubs,Diamonds, Hearts, Spades: Players who suit MUDs" and a useful review on "MDA Framework"

Natural Funativity By Noah Falstein: For this reading it focused on the key phrase what makes a game fun?  and goes into brief detail on underlining the reasons for human preferences and behavior.By mentioning how we as humans have a basic drive for survival in our instinct through years of evolutionary history. The writer then goes on to say how games are a specialized form of play and that goes deep into our history as and that the overall drive to play is fundamental to humanity as it is overall all about learning about survival, reproduction and the necessary rules of behavior. I found this reading to be quite interesting as I have never looked at games from this point of view and how overall drives us as a species not only as entertainment , but also in our rles and behaviors as a species.

MDA Framework by Robin Hunicke, Marc LeBlanc, Robert Zubek: For this reading I mainly focused on the following which was under the heading Aesthetics which Talked about the 8 kinds of fun.

• Sensation: Which Described the game as sense Pleasure
• Fantasy: Which described the game as Make believe as fantasy is described as "the faculty or activity of imagining impossible or improbable thing"s according to google dictionary.
• Narrative: Game as drama which word be more story driven (ex telltale games)
• Challenge: Which would be obstacle based such as for example a time trial based game .
• Fellowship: Which is all about framework which is described as an essential structure of a building , vehicle or object.
• Discovery: Which is described as a game in uncharted territory
• Expression: Which are described a game as self discovery
• Submission: Which is described a  game as a pastime for example possibly a sports game the player may be fond of 

I found this reading the most helpful out of them as it allowed me to read about eight different types of games and to be able to have brief descriptions on how to describe each of them . I also love how the writers use games such as charades, sims and Quake as a way of describing them in more detail as I do find at times when writers use things as descriptions to be quite hard to understand, however since I am familiar and have played a lot of these it made it much easier to understand this reading.

"Clubs, Diamonds, Hearts, Spades Players who suit MUDs by Richard Bartle": Overall I found this one Perhaps as I am not familiar with the word MUD. I did however good what it was and foud the following here which described it as a virtual world multiplayer game taking place during real time. Similar to league of legend or World of Warcraft for example. It shows off a few intersting things one of which is the Interest Graph as it shows the following players in great deatil on each of the following

1. Acting
2. Killers
3. Players
4. Socialisers
5. Interacting
6. Explorers
7. World 
8. Achievers

 I also found it helpful how it went into detail on the following things  in headings under acting

• Ways to emphasise players over World
• Ways to emphasise world over Players
• Ways to emphasise interacting over Acting
• Ways to emphasise acting over interacting

This was quite helpful as it shows changes to the programming that the administrator may consider when considering how to shape their MUD.

My Overall Thoughts

Overall I found these readings quite helpful in a few ways from seeing how game fun links to human preferences, to how administrators can consider multiple things when shaping and creating their MMO's .

"Prototype"

Prototype

Link to image: here

Progress and Difficulties

One thing I have been feeling I have been successful in doing fro the progression of my assignment is keeping up to date on my blogs each week ,as well as keeping up to date on my blog comments on fellow game developers/creators who also seem to be struggling with unity as much as I am. I feel this has been quite beneficial as not only have I seen that I am not the only person struggling with these issues but I am also getting good advice on things I can improve in my game in the future such as possibly adding abilities and  or powers for the players to unlock and  also the possibility of playing as both the protagonists( the cops) and the antagonist (the swan adding) a whole new factor to the game of being either good or bad and overall affecting the players choices in the game.

Below are other things I have started considering on my game which to me shows how much I am progressing overall

• Game decisions Choices 
• Story
• Characters
• Levels
• Art style/design
• Controls/User interface
• Sound/audio
• Gameplay
• Game genre I wish to pursue

However in exploring these topics there have also been challenges/difficulties I have found along the way. One of which is trying to figure out how to use unity for making things for my game such as hills ,objects , textures,etc. I am finding this to be the most difficult , as i need this in order to make my game overall and it is the key reason I am struggling to not only upload weekly blogs on my unity tutorials by Jimmy Vegas but also in adding images of my prototype of this game I wish to make.

How I am setting the targets set in my plan

Overall I feel when I came to planning and designing my game I made some good progress, however I do feel I need a lot more work on things such as making the game itself in the unity program ,as well as prepping ahead and doing my stuff on the Monday so that I not only am sure I have everything submitted ahead of time incase i need to make changes ,but will also have time to work on other assignments for other modules as at the moment I feel everything is a bit overwhelming. I do feel in the end if I can get a handle on these two issues i should have no problem in the future aspect of this assignment and hopefully be able to make an enjoyable game for the user in the long run.

Game Decisions

Game decisions

Link to image here: https://images.app.goo.gl/95RRQBVLQgqBiBvX6

For week 7, I was tasked with learning about game decisions in the reading and came up with the following from the link I went through

I have been considering this for my game for a long time ,due to my favourite game series at the moment being from the company telltales ,which is known for its decision making and choices. This is due to your decisions and choices affecting the story and characters around you making each play through of the game a more unique experience. Below are some of the titles telltales have made that have these decision making mechanics in them.

• Tales from the borderlands: here
• The walking dead by telltale games: here
• Batman by telltale games: here

Link to image: here

Another Company I have always admired for their film making is Bethesda that created such games as Skyrim and Fallout New Vegas. I admire this franchise as it allows the player to make decisions on how they want to go on through speech/dialogue options as can be seen below.

Link to image: here

Overall from the feedback I got from others on my game progress and my overall ideas I got a few clever concepts to consider to add decisions  such as adding the possibility of playing as the swan as well as the human, Or adding elements to the police trying to catch the swan such as choosing from a quiet stealthy approach to a more comical going loud ,gun blazing approach. I feel this is a very good way to add not only more personality to the characters but also allow the player more  options / decisions to make the game more enjoyable to them and hopefully have them coming back for more.

Game Design Document

Game Design Document

I decided to make my GGD using a site called Dunroc there is a link to it Here

My GGD

For my Game Design Document I have decided to focus on the following aspects of the game as can be seen below.

Story: The story is about you ,one of two cops/ police officers that is tasked with catching swans that have escaped. Throughout the game trying to catch them across different levels. 

Characters: The characters you will see in the game are the two police officers of which will be the only two playable characters, the swans they are trying to catch along with the guy from the intro who gives you the task and random villager npcs that will be there mainly for aesthetic purposes 

environmental levels: The game will consist of 4 levels the first being the intro level on castle grounds, the second being the garden level taking place around a garden/ greenhouses with items such as gardening equipment you have to avoid, for the third it will be based around the back alleys of village estate and the final level will take place around the town square. Below are some visual perspectives to help imagine said settings and all were found from the site Movie locations, as can be found here

1. Level 1: Castle Grounds
2. Level 2: Garden level
3. Level 3: Back alleys of housing estates
4. Level 4 Final level: Town Square

Note: If you finish the game once you unlock both police officers which gives new dialog to the player for incentive to replay levels again.

Gameplay

"Gameplay is the specific way in which players interact with a game" The way in which a player will interact within the game is by avoiding obstacles through levels by hopping over them or walking around them. By picking up power-ups such as ice cream cones to help the player in a way catch the swan easier, to even how the swan interacts when the player gets near it. It could also be how the players characters interact with each other, the swan or how differently the act when using a power up in the game.

Art Description

The art style of this game I feel should be a mix of colorful to match the village's warm countryside  feeling/ aesthetic, with an almost comic style to it also ,as it will match the action style of the hero the two examples I am getting inspiration from are linked below 

Inspiration 1 Untitled Goose game:The reason I chose this title again as I have mentioned it in many of my blogs is because I personally love how the creator/creators of the game gave it such a colorful almost pop are style to design as it really brings color and warmth to the setting.

Link to image here

Inspiration 2 Scott pilgrim vs the world game:  The reason I chose this title was because the art style they used which was a comic art format really helped improve the action scenes in the game aesthetically.This I feel could be very beneficial to the intense chasing scenes in my game ,as well as help show off the environments a lot more. 

Link to image 2 here

Sound/audio: For the sounds in the game I wish to keep the village soundtrack from the  actual hot fuzz movie as the main theme, But have placed a list below of considerations for other things.

• Main background soundtrack for each of the levels here ( I chose this as it has a comical beat to it ,which would help add a comical aspect to the levels as the two bumbling police officers chase after and try to catch the swan.
• The second sound I wanted to add was this more intense upbeat song here ,which would only play in the game when the character acquires a power-up 
• Other sounds I did consider having were morning village ambiance here to add a relaxing feeling before the intensity of the game soundtrack kicks in.
• One thing I have also considered was adding audio quotes from characters through out the movie with some of the npc's from the levels using them to make the environment more relatable to the film

User interface/ controls

The controls I will be using are the following as the game will be made as a mac/ pc game these are the following controls.

• Using the up don left right button to move in said direction
• Using the space button in order to jump over obstacles that may get in your was such as bins or walls
• Using the mouse to be able to look around the game environment as you move through it.
• Enter button to select between items, Characters/levels
• Pause button to pause game whenever you need it
• Mute button/ volume button to control games audio settings.

My thoughts

Overall I feel that I gained a lot more insight in the things I need to consider working on for the game as well as developing more of a structure for it using the site Dundoc. I feel more confident going forward with this game although there are still a few tweaks I need to work out also. I hope you enjoyed reading this blog as much as I enjoyed writing it .

Games GGD

Games GGD Dillon Eagers

Here is a link to where I found this image click here

For this weeks reading I am focusing on design considerations mainly in improving the UI and rules writing for board games. The piece I read was by Greg Aleknevicus and it focused on the following components.

• Make tiles smaller than the spaces they're placed upon
• Using highly contrasting/distinguishable colors for plavers pieces
• Use shape as well as color to distinguish pieces
• Use different components for different functions
• Making indices/ icons are distinct from each other
• Starting files should be back-printed in a different color
• Use legible and distinguishable font

My Items of interest

• I personally was interested in the part where aleknevicus talked about in the post such as using a white border to hide imperfections and greatly reduce the chance of the deck getting marked or damaged.
• I also like how he mentions adding extra components to a game so there is spare pieces in the event of one of the pieces being lost.
• Another one I found to be helpful was having A FAQ response page as it helps users to be able to have their questions answered as the issues arise over time.