Unity Tutorial 04

This week I found the unity tutorials straight forward and easy to handle. It was just much more time-consuming than usual and required me to put a lot more hours in than usual. So this week for me has definitely been the longest tutorial that I’ve done for myself, maybe not for everybody.

The task that was my favourite but took me the longest was the one that required me to download a broken/faulty project and have it all working properly at the end of the tutorial.

This tutorial reminded me a lot of the plane challenge from a few weeks ago, as it required and made me use the knowledge I have already gathered from unity, and it actually showed me how far I have come in terms of when I first started compared to now. I have come a long way and I am really happy about that. As always, I look forward to gaining more knowledge and increasing my skills at unity.

Overall, this week may have taken longer, but I feel like it was the most useful week since starting Unity, as I learned a lot about my own skills and new skills during the tutorials, so I am very happy with these tutorials this week.

Image from youtube.com

Game Vision Statement

Introduction:

Image from gamelust.com

Zombie slayer is a top down view shooter action packed game for the pc ran by unreal engine and is based on current times in the year 2025 and is played during an apocalyptic time on earth that is overrun by flesh eating zombie hordes and you are one of the last survivors on earth slaying all zombies in sight with all the weapons you can find and master using in combat hoping that one day you come across survivors that you can build a community with and get rid of this treacherous nightmare of a world.

Description:

You are an average college student that goes to bed one night expecting to wake up for college but instead finds himself waking up in a apocalyptic world and to discover shockingly that you may be the last survivor out there but it’s possible there’s still people out there so using the weapons you have you find yourself picking away at the undead in the hordes that they come upgrading your weapons day by day in the hopes that you find people out there normal like you and with the hopes that you can build a community with the people in the future and bring back normality in some way so that's your end goal as a player and that's what keeps you fighting everyday hoping that by the end of it all you find other people in this world so its worth giving a damn about anything anymore, through the variety of weapons you find you can only use one at a time so you have to choose wisely for the weapons you dedicate your time to when you kill zombies you obtain brainbuck's which in turn you can use for upgrading the weapons you want to make them stronger or look better. After slaying so many enemies you also have a special ability which allows you to 360 degree spin and shoot in all directions for a certain time frame which will prove to be very useful along your journey , Be aware that along the way zombies may increase in size or speed so you have to make sure you expect the unexpected at all times because in this world you could find anything and it might not be only zombies that you find and have to kill so remember that!

Background:

ZombieSlayer is a game inspired by Grand Theft Auto Chinatown wars and Dead ops arcade in Call Of Duty below are tow links that include game-play from both of these outstanding games and is what inspired us to create our project ZombieSlayer.

Dead Ops Arcade: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vvvxumw_Jp8&ab_channel=TheMoZProject

Grand Theft Auto Chinatown Wars: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cRaZkqIRA3A&t=5s&ab_channel=GTASeriesVideos

Key features:

Shoot your way through an action packed post apocalyptic world with nonstop combat and slaying everything in sight to succeed and survive another day.

A party game that can be played with friends in the effort to see who can set the new high score or get the farthest.

Easy and user friendly controls to get the hang of but gets increasingly more difficult as the game goes on.

 A challenging but fun experience for all to enjoy and keeps you wanting more.

Advanced AI so the zombie hordes may outsmart you at times.

Arcade graphic style feeling like a game on an arcade game and has a great feel to it and brings back the old arcade vibes when playing on arcade machines years ago which is a great throwback for many players to feel and we are most certain you will appreciate that.

Brainbuck's can be used for upgrading your weapons in a certain way through your journey changing either the style of your weapon or the overall power of it.

Top down camera angle gives off satisfying combat and a good angle for slaying your enemies and seeing everything around you which is what makes our game unique and challenging along the way.

A 360 degree spin option for your player to shoot in all directions simultaneously this being a special ability earned in game by slaying zombies over a certain period of time.

Hardcore soundtrack enhancing the gaming experience and adds a satisfying atmosphere to the games combat being mostly hard rock music which can add a heroic and slaying feel to the experience during combat.

Genre:

ZombieSlayer is an action packed post apocalyptic shooter arcade retro styled game.

Platforms:

ZombieSlayer will be available on PC to begin with but will expand to future platforms in the future the first one being smartphones but will eventually become available on all platforms for everyone to enjoy.

Unity Tutorial 03

This week doing the unity tutorials was definitely more challenging than the previous weeks, which is to be expected, but I enjoyed it none the less. Learning different things like spawning items and learning how to implement prefabs was cool and had some elements that I may incorporate into my own game when I start creating it.

A difficulty I had during these tutorials was the coding. I understood everything being done, but sometimes I would have to fix my coding to see where I messed up, and most of the time it was just a small letter or I forgot to close a bracket, something simple that I would need to look out for and fix.

Other than that, I flew through the tutorials and enjoyed expanding my skills further on unity. As always, I look forward to furthering my skills even more in the future. I enjoy moving up higher in unity and learning the more difficult tasks as we go through the weeks.

I also hope to see more things that I could possibly implement into my own game because it intrigues me and motivates me to want to master the method in Unity so I am more prepared when I start creating it.

Image from unity.com

Games MDA

The first article was an interesting read for me as I have never heard of the term "MDA" before so it as interesting to be introduced to it and learn about it, I like how all link together the fact that the dynamic works to create aesthetic experiences and that mechanics can also be involved with both the aesthetics and the dynamics. It was a confusing article to read at first but when you read more it starts breaking down each step and how each works and also giving examples for you to help you understand more. "MDA" to me seems like a deeper learning and understanding of designing a game and breaking it down through different steps and methods while also focusing on the players view as well as the designers.

This video gave me a much better understanding of a MDA and how it all comes together as one Mechanics are in game things that can happen if a players wants it to or sometimes a player has no control over, Dynamics happen when multiple game mechanics combine to make game dynamics happen and then lastly the game aesthetics happen when the mechanics and dynamics are created and merged together, the aesthetics are things like submission, Fear, Excitement etc it is mainly what the player feels when playing the game. The video was especially helpful as I learn better from watching and hearing someone explain it and it interests me a lot more most of the time.

I am definitely going to check out more of this persons videos as I learned a lot form watching his one about the MDA and it gave me a better understanding of it.

Learning about "DDE" was fascinating because it showed basically a better version of "MDA" through this article and how it overcomes some of the weaknesses that "MDA" has.

I like the formula "MDA" I thought it was a very interesting topic to learn about and I enjoyed learning about it and this makes me want to learn about other game designing formulas in the future.

Through learning more about game design its made me realize that the players perspective is just as important as the designers perspective in most ways.

Image from slideplayer.com

Feedback Strategies

Be a Mirror

I thought that the mirror method in this article is a great way to use and expand on growth mindset, especially when teaching students at a young age. This seems like a solid method in terms of how you approach growth mindset and explains well and thoroughly how to execute the process. This article has just made me admire the study of growth mindset even more and has made me agree and be on board with it even more. Imagine if kids growing up nowadays were thought to have a growth mindset. It would be amazing to see how far more people would come, especially those growing up with it. I hope growth mindset is spoken about a lot more in the future, if it isn't already, as I personally think it is a must for growing up and going forward with teaching. This should be talked about and acknowledged more.

How to Give Feedback Without Sounding Like a Jerk

This article about how to give feedback in a way without coming across as a jerk reminded me in a way of how I give my feedback to people. Here's the thing: feedback can either be a good thing for the person you are giving it to or a bad thing, but this article explains it well in terms of how to come across when giving feedback and how to just be honest and not try to make it look like you are doing things for the sake of it to make the other person feel better before you hit them with a bunch of negative things. This article explains it well and I would recommend that you read this article if feedback has never gone your way or if there is something you are unsure about when giving feedback.

Image from diversityincbestpractices.com

To conclude this blog for me feedback has always been about giving the other person feedback they can work from and coming across as an honest but polite person while doing so as I think that's what makes receiving feedback important because it can also be a very sensitive topic at times so learning how to give it properly is an important thing to know.

Game Idea Research

The Game Idea that I would like to go with is my first idea that I came up with as I think this is a realistic goal and something that I would enjoy making because I like the whole concept of it.

Like I mentioned in my Game Brainstorm Blog I want this game to have a camera angle that's like the camera angle in Gta Chinatown wars which is a fully rotatable camera that is pointed down at the action. My game will be like an action arcade zombie game and it will either have levels or rounds the aim of the game is do survive the hordes of zombies that are chasing you and trying to kill you so you are basically a run and gunner and each zombie that you kill will earn you a currency called Brainbucks which will give you access to a store where you can buy guns etc I also want my game to look like a cartoon and have a cartoon theme to it this is just a brief overview of how I want the game to work and of course some things may be too complex to be included and that's okay they can be altered as my game is being developed.

Game Mechanics

• For my first game mechanic I want a camera angle that is top down and always shows the players actions from above during the game for the whole environment.

• I want a currency system put into the game where each zombie you kill rewards you with 1 Brainbuck to where you can then use in an item shop to purchase valuable items that will help you through the game.

• A possible levelling system where you can level up and possibly earn something when levelling up every-time as players like having a goal or objective to grind towards and it keeps them playing.

• Bigger and bigger zombie hordes as each round or level increases, I want the zombies to increase or at least get stronger in some way.

These are just a few game mechanics and at least the main ones that I would like in my game of course some might be a bit difficult to achieve right now so I may have to change some things around and that's okay because I have my game down in my head so I just have to create it the best way that I can.

Here are a few images that represent my game in some way as I couldn't decide on just one.

Image from www.gamepro.de  

An example of the camera angle that I want and it being a top down fully rotating camera but possibly even more above then displayed on in this image.

Image from freepik.com

Just a brief image going over possible gun models that could be put into my game.

Image from 2dgameartguru.com

An overview of how the character models will be viewed and played in the game from a top angle view like this.

Resources that helped me during this writeup

• I found this video very informational on Camera angles in video games and learned a lot from it.

• This post was helpful when it came to game mechanics and the understanding of it.

Unity Tutorial 02

For the unity tutorial this week, I found it very fun to do because during the tutorial I learned how to make the car move by my own command, left, right, forward, and backward, and how to control the speed at which I wanted the car to go, which was very enjoyable to learn I also learnt how to clean up my coding section to make it neater and easier to navigate around which will prove helpful to me in the future.

In terms of difficulty, I was fine with doing the tutorial. It all went great, but when I did my first challenge, everything went well except for moving the propeller on the plane. But in the end, I got it working and it turns out I was just missing the rotate command and had a small V on vector3 but I fixed it up in the end and it felt very rewarding and I was relieved to complete it.

So overall, this week on unity was a success, and I’m looking forward to learning more about it next week because ever since i have started using unity I have really enjoyed it and learner new skills by completing these tutorials has helped me progress to where I am now as I feel like I am getting much more familiar with unity itself.

Image from roblox-airline-industry.fandom.com