Unity Tutorial 04

 Finishing off from last week’s task, we now added colliders so we can feed all of the animals and when the animals then pass on from the screen the we get the "game over" sign across the screen.

From these tasks I’ve learned a lot more with code as the video teaches us how to make our very own, so now we can make any type code for whatever we want to do. We also then added colliders to the animals to destroy any object once they collide.

In the second video, it basically tests us on everything we've learned so far and over the past few weeks using the unity tutorials. I kept having a problem with trying to make the ball disappear when the dog came in contact, so I went back to the hints to help, I was flying away after that. Genuinely so lucky that Unity have tutorials on everything and hints because without them I would be so lost🤣

The challenge wasn’t too difficult as expected but I’m happy with my progress and hopefully keep progressing for the future in order to help me out with my final Unity Game!

Game Vision Statement

 Introduction:

The Eerie Chase consists of 1 player, 1 killer, different paths, and a map, the player must try to breakout before the assassin finds him, as he is on the hunt in the same maze.

Background:

The young boy went to a horror theme park with his friends during Halloween. They had spoken before hand how they wanted to do the maze next because they heard it was the best part!

 Sam (main player)  stopped to go to the toilet and his friends kept walking but then as he came out, they disappeared, people were running around screaming but he didn't take notice because it was a horror theme park after all. He then presumed they went to the maze entrance, so that's where he went...

As there was no que to get in, he then was beginning to get a bit curious and thought that his friends were joking with him and hiding to try and scare him. He went inside to see one of his friends lifeless on the floor covered in his own blood and that's when he knew he was in danger and his first instinct was RUN!

Genre:

The genre of this game is going to be a a horror as its set during Halloween and in a horror themed park.

Game Play:

When entering the home page of the game, it will play the background video,, so the audience understand the storyline of the game. 

1.The player is going to run and will have obstacles in their way which they will have to jump over, if they miss a jump along the way, it could give them a wipe out and they will have to start the game again. Back to square 1!

2. There will be coins that the player will need to collect so they can unlock different things, eg speeds, clothes, different avatars etc. 

3. There will be a timer of 60 seconds on the clock that the player will have in order to exit the maze

4. There will be a map on the side of the screen for the player to have a bit of help to try and find their way

5. All the paths will look the same, no colour cording as it will make it more difficult for the player to know if they have already chosen this path.

6. There will be daunting music playing as the player tries to complete the mission.

option 1 option 2  option 3

7. There will be a shadow type figure of the assassin in which will give the players a rush of adrenalin while trying to complete the maze.

 Market Analysis:

Target Audience: The target audience for this game would definitely have to be unisex 16+ as it is a horror themed game with animations of dead bodies, so it would only be suitable for that age range.

Top Performers:  

1. The first website which I looked at was on "Ranker" which displays the best maze games of all time Click here to see the article!

Platforms:

The platforms in which I would want this game to be available on are  PC's and both Android and IOS devices.

From doing my own primary research by interviewing  friends and family about the game , the outcomes were that people who play the  PlayStation or Xbox wouldn't be interested in playing on a big screen with a controller, they would prefer a PC or on their phone/iPad

     

  

  This here is a link to a horror game I found on Youtube which was fan made!  > Fan Made horror game 

Here is also a maze game someone made on Unity! Unity video

Unity Tutorial 03

 

This week’s unity tutorial, in the first chapter of the videos, our main focus was action and positioning.

So, for the first task we learned how to move the animals in our game by moving them into the hierarchy, our aim was then to feed the animals.

We made our player move back and forth by moving them into the hierarchy as well and learned how to rescale objects like the food and animals by using the if statement which is the new programme concept that creates the logic for our game.

In the second chapter of the videos we were introduced to “Food Flight”, in this we learned the boundaries of the avatars and the objects as we created different prefabs from them.

We learned how to detect key presses, destroy game object and the else -if statement.

Finally, in the third chapter of this week’s tutorials, we learned the about how to spawn all animals in different locations by using the spawn manager script and we also discovered the difference between perspective and isometric projection

Perspective: The appearance of an object in regards to how a person views it, from the distance or angle.

Isometric Projection: Representing a three-dimensional image to a in two dimensions

Games MDA

 

From reading the first article MDA - A formal approach to Game Design and Research, I now understands that MDA is an approach/ the bridge  to understanding different game elements like design, developments, criticism and research .

(Mechanic , Dynamic Aesthetics) 

The second article is Design Dynamic Experience (DDE)

• Design - everything that is done by the designers ( replacing Mechanics)
• Dynamic- is how everything comes altogether (D)
• Experience- includes the player subject/persona (replacing Aesthetics)

For the final piece I watched Explaining the MDA design Framework, In the video it discusses the Mechanic, Dynamic and Aesthetic of the games and what it really is. 

It also talks about how game designers actually comes up with their ideas for games and what inspires them 

Feedback Strategies

The two articles I choose to read were Be a Mirror and What Kind of Messages Help Kids Grow

"Be a mirror" also refers back to Carol Dweck , its to do with your mindset.                                   Normally whenever I receive feedback, i normally feel as though its all criticism  more so than anything else but by looking at the quality steps in this article its actually a much nicer way to give people feedback with not making them feel like their work they've done was poor.

Qualities:

1. be specific
2. focus on what there doing, not what there missing
3. focus on their process
4. make sure the feedback transfers
5. take yourself out of the feedback

Be a mirror for the other person to see what they can achieve by this feedback/ what else they can do.

In the second article, it says to get rid of the generic praises  when praises kids like "wow!" "Great job!" "Well done!"

Carol Dwek is already influencing parents with the growth mindset and the "Yet" 

So when a child says " I cant do it" the parents are now replying with "you cant do it yet" to give the kids hope and make there mindset growth instead of fixed, to push themselves and want to challenge to achieve and not let failure define them.

Power to "Yet" Video

From constantly reading articles about the growth mindset its opened my eyes to believing the power of Yet and how it doesn't make you feel like a failure, you just haven't completed the task but your nearly there, and I do believe this theory of feedback will work.

Game Idea Research

From receiving feedback of Shaun I felt as though my strongest game, and the one I was leaning more toward was the Maze Game.

So the theme for the game is a Halloween theme, as it is coming up soon so I want to go with a spooky vibe to it. The story behind the game itself is just a young boy  who went to a scare theme park with  friends and got lost in this maze, little did he realises those "hired" scarers were real people trying to go after and hurt him (Halloween gone wrong) .So within the game its him trying to run away from them in this maze and to find the exit to find his friends and leave!

My thoughts of the elements were firstly,  that the player had to collect coins but from doing more research I came across this blog of game mechanics  called Random Mechanics. I got the inspiration from this to have unlimited paths so the user has to really try to get out and also a timer to rush them and get their adrenalin going.

 I loved the idea of how the players avatar can mark their trace by painting the walls but I don't think I'm too equipped to do that in Unity yet! but its something ill try anyways. I want to also have a map to help the users to to escape the maze.

I have the image in my head of the maze that the walls will all be the same colour so its more difficult for the user to know if they have already been there or not

So in this image you can see the 3D map at the bottom of the page which is the only help that the user can get.

This is how I would also like my layout of the game to be, the coins in the top right corner, showing the how many coins the user has collected.

Unity Tutorials 02

For today’s task I TRIED  to continue on doing the Unity tutorials by watching lesson 1.4 "Step  into the Driver’s seat"

The  step by step tutorials are genuinely  so useful  to people like me who have no clue on making a game or how to even use Unity at all, however I still seem to keep having the same problems with it, does anyone else ?😕

When I go into game mode to see if what I've done works, it just keeps freezing on me and won’t let me come  out of play mode but when I do its just frozen and it doesn’t  even let me minimise the screen  of exit out of the application altogether, I just have to keep restarting my laptop for it to work, which is really frustrating and my laptop is brand new so I know that’s not the problem. I'm continuing to watch the tutorials but its not use if the apps not working 😠

Im not really sure what to do about it, hopefully ill fix whatever the problem is when Its time to start making our own games. If anyone has been having the same problem and know how to fix it, please let me know!😇

this is how my screen looks and i cant click on anything!😤

Game Elements

Feedback Thoughts

 I've just read two articles , one called Why its so hard to hear negative feedback by Tom Herrera and  7 ways to crush self doubt in creative work by John Spencer

The first one I want to talk about is "Why its so hard to hear negative feedback"

To be so honest, I HATE negative feedback  because I feel its so degrading and I always tense up and in the article it literally describes just that so like its normal for people to feel that way and  we will literally try so hard to avoid those people who give us negative feedback.

It talks about how people delivering the feedback shouldn't  just sugar-coat it they should be honest and say how it could be improved and also because when we receive hard feedback we just don't want to agree with it and it will just piss us off but when you do receive feed back use it for self improvement and try to just think that everything being said to you is all done in good faith!

From reading the "7 ways to crush self doubt" has actually made me want to open my eyes more to a growth mindset, the steps are actually really helpful and motivating.

I always compare my work to others in this course, which I really shouldn't because everyone is different but from even just reading this article its just shown me to trust and believe in myself. As I've already read about the growth mindset (and keep reading more) that's really made me want to make challenge my new comfort zone.

Definitely recommend yous to give these a read!!

Project: Game Brainstorming

Idea 1:

For the first idea, I decided to just think about previous games that I’ve played and enjoyed and the first one I decided to come up with was a maze game. Now I know maze games are common but there’s never the same path! As I was brainstorming and thinking of having multiple different obstacles along the way, in my head it clicked that the theme of this game should be a horror game.

So, with talking about horror, Halloween is coming up, so I guess that’s where the idea kind of came from. I LOVE horror movies like that is my favourite genre ever! But I just never really got into those horror video games, so that’s why this idea was so out of my comfort zone but it’s a challenge and as said by Carol Dwek  “Challenge should be the new comfort zone”

                                      

  (Image reference)

So, I presume you all already know what a maze is, and if not that’s what it looks like!

I remember when I went to Farmaphobia and Tayto park during Halloween ( these places are open during Halloween with a haunted scare walk through/ haunted house ), when I go there and they tell us theres a haunted/scary maze we have to go through, my heart just drops to my stomach. Its just not knowing the unknown, who is going to pop out of where and what, the rush of adrenaline etc.

Idea 2:

My second idea was one that has already been done a few times but its still just brainstorm!

I used to play a game when I was younger  called “Parking Mania” and it was a game of cars in a cramped car park in which you had to try move over different cars in order to get out, it was genuinely as confusing as a rubix cube! I used to have to repeat the level over and over again because I couldn’t get it and I was getting so annoyed

Anyways, my idea was something like it, but maybe not using cars as its already done before but an obstacle that is gets you really frustrated that you cannot win

So, he whole idea of the game is to really try get out or a crowded/cramped place with a timer running. I think to make this game interesting there should be a story behind it to why the person/thing must leave the area asap and has a timer, it really gets you frustrated and get your adrenaline running when you have a task and you just cant complete it in that specific time.

 (Image reference)

This is just a rough idea of a parking lot game

Idea 3: 

For my third idea I was thinking of a multiplayer game. My idea was to do a racing sort of game with two players of uneven surfaces trying to pass obstacles

I got this idea because I kept trying to think of games I used to play when I was younger that I got in the app store and one game that was so popular was temple run. I used to always want that to be a multiplayer game so with that I decided to put a twist on it and make it my own.

It was so frustrating if you were running from the monkeys and you accidentally tripped and they would come closer and their sound would be highlighted which cause a rush in adrenaline as you tried to not die or mess up!

For the game I would love for it to be like a racing path with obstacles coming your way, kind of like Mario cart X temple run. Multiplayer with different obstacles like zigzags, stones, balls etc I’m just hoping I can do something like this with Unity, even though I’m not the equip with it yet and even if I can use multiplayer yet I can always just to singular , still brainstorming!

Here’s a picture of a game in which looks quite similar to what I’m going for.

 

image reference

Idea 4:

Lastly but not least, for the fourth game the idea I was thing of was like a harry potter inspired flappy bird!

I’ve literally gotten so addicted to harry potter recently it was only right to base a game on the iconic movies and this was actually my first idea I had.

So basically the idea of this game came from the likes of  Mario superbros, the running jumping and then flappy bird, the flying and dodging, so since I’ve been so so obsessed with Harry Potter I thought a cool idea might be doing a 3d game of the flying car with obstacles so it would have to like dodge, swerve from like people flying on like brooms, branches in the way birds/ owns etc

I do not know about you’s reading this, but I know that if a game like this came out on IOS or Android I wouldn’t be the only one playing it. I just hope it hasn’t been made before...

image reference

This obviously would have been a 2d version of the games, a lot of people had remade flappy bird with other avatars instead of birds, but I just thought a 3D version would be cool.

It would give you the same rush of adrenalin flappy bird would have by trying to beat your high score, messing up and getting frustrated, annoyed, impatient and being determined to beat your high score.

Unity Tutorial 01

 I was doing some beginner tutorials on Unity to get to grips with the application, I've only ever made two games  and that was when I was in my PLC  in Dunboyne and even with that I had such difficulty I just could never get anything right😂 so of course when I found out about us having to make a game I was a bit anxious 

 I just dived into it, at the start I was really enjoying it and getting to see how it all worked by using coding because I've never done it before and the tutorials were actually really helpful, everything was going grand had no problems at all UNTIL I was using the coding to do the "translate.Transform (0, 0, 1);" and then once I pressed play, my car just wouldn't move so I then pressed play again to bring it out of the mode and the whole thing just froze on me, I couldn't even close the application. So the only thing I could do was restart my computer and open it up again and of course everything was gone so I had to start again which was extremely time consuming!

Hopefully, this doesn't keep happening every time I'm working in the application😖

Game Design

From viewing the reading documents, its really opened my eyes to game design. 

I was so nervous to even think about it because I'm not much of a gamer myself but just by reading the document I'm more at ease.

Games are an activity that we play voluntarily. Games have rules, uncertain outcomes, conflict, goals and no physical gain.

There are so many different types of games, boards games, video games, outdoor games and even virtual games.

  Board games: Monopoly

  Virtual Games: 8 Ball Pool

   Video Games: Sims

   Outdoor Games: Stuck in the mud

When wanting to make your own the best thing to do is brainstorm what ideas may work together, find ideas through primary researching like interviews, surveys etc, group and select then eliminate and one big thing is to use the Ramsey theory which is looking closely at ideas and how you could link them all together. 

 It literally can be ANYTHING. 

So in this semester this is why were using 'Unity3D' in order to help us with our own game.

This image highlights how broad gaming is in realtion to genres, it just all depends who your target audience is.

Time Strategies

So my thoughts on how I'm going to manage my schedule for this semester is that I decided to give each module a day as on our timetable we have one module each day this semester, so putting in all that work into one day will benefit me in the long run as well as doing bits over the weekend but focus on getting it done on the weekday that I have the module so if I have any questions I know my lecturer will respond asap

The article I read was Amanda Olivers',  I like how  she uses quotes to really highlight what's important 

“…You could be the world’s greatest planner and be very careful about where you spend your time, but if you mismanage your energy it does you absolutely no good.”

A lot of stuff she talks about in her article is what I would to, procrastinate, always leave the worst things last , in which now I'm going to actually try and do the worst things first , leave the best till last, disconnect and try have a good to do list.

https://www.pinterest.ie/pin/41447259060529195/?nic_v2=1a6t1Ambe

I always tend to look at quotes aswell or listen to inspirational speeches to keep motivated 

 

technology tools & Website

I'm familiar with most of the technology tools that are going to be used for this module, I've never used Unity3D or Padlet, but I have used canvas and that one of the programmes for graphic creation which I'm really excited about.

I have to admit I do like the online environment I feel as though your working at your own pace and having a module a day is a lot better. I just do find it harder to concentrate when your sitting in the same spot for hours working, and not being able to physically communicate with your friends or lecture but hopefully we will be back for semester 2. 

There's no technical skills in particular that I want to work on but I just hope I improve  my overall skills this year.

This app here is the app we will mostly be using for our graphic creations 

More about class Assignments

From looking at the core elements, a lot of things are so new to me with this module with using different software  like Unity and having to complete task each week and having to write a blog post after each task, and I'm excited for the group projects.

I think its so fair how were given the opportunity for extra credit too.

Growth Mindset

I genuinely have never heard about Carol Dweck and the growth mindset before, but after watching   the power of believing you can improve, I literally saw myself as a "Fixed mindset", even just from her example of the children's reaction from failing I knew that would be exactly how I would react.

Definitely recommend watching this! it gives you such a different perspective, I love the idea of "not yet" and it makes you want to challenge yourself.

"I want challenge to become the new comfort zone"

I definitely would LOVE to learn more about growth mindset this semester! It just seems to interesting.

#growthmindset

picture reference

Introduction

So just decided to come on and give a quick introduction about myself!

 My names Jade Halpin I'm 20 years old, and I'm in my second year of college in TUDublin studying Creative Digital Media.

I'm going to just briefly answer a few questions to let yous know more about me.

 Q. what was the best class you took last semester and why?

A. In the second semester of first year, id say my favourite class was Digital Photography, I love photography and its just really fun!

Q. what are your goals for this module? What do you want to achieve?

A. Since this semester is all online and still not face to face, its going to be tricky but I just really want to focus and be consistent with my work, especially with this module but I'm really excited 

Q.did you do something exciting / go somewhere exciting over break?

A. So I actually went over to Florence in Italy when it was on the greenlist, for about 4 days! and I also went to Killarney Co. Kerry for 4 days! which was lovely and we got gorgeous weather for it!

Q. favourite books, movies, TV shows — the best tv show you saw recently? best book you read?

A I'm not one for reading😂but I was obsessed with the vampire diaries and there was another show related to it called "The Originals" and I binged watched that!

Q. pets?  and pictures of your pets!!

A. I actually have a dog, her names Nelly, she's turning 10 on the 25th of October and she's a gorgeous border collie! She's so playful!

Q.if you had an extra day for fun, how would you spend it?

A.I would probably get a big group of friends, maybe go down to the beach, get food and drinks and just chill and relax or if there was no covid i would definitely have a huge party😂