Presentation analysis (Post 5)

Well first of all I think it went really well. It did go a tiny bit under-time, compared to my practice runs. Which I found surprising because of all the technical difficulties with getting the game up on the second screen, which I later figured out I could have made it go full screen on "display 2". But thats not whats important, what is important is that I didn't mess up much at all. I think that is because of not writing a script but instead making notes, and speaking from my mind, emotions, and thinking about what has happened. I think it did work out, because the people who wrote scripts seemed to stutter more because they are trying to repeat word for word, and people who had a speech with them would not look at the audience and be very monotone. Now this may not work for everybody, but it most definitely worked for me... this time.
Next I would like to talk about my topic, "less is more". Honestly I needed to go more in depth with my idea of how to add in the parts you scrapped off, because it made it seem like I defied my purpose.
Also I do not know if I should have talked about the process of the game, or have left it how it is. I figured to not have the process in because they can read my blog to know what went into one of my games.  But I also think if people would know what went into it and didn't have to read it, they would respect the time it took.
So all in all, I think I did very well. Nothing to regret honestly

Already...(Post 4)

So there isn't much that I have to update on besides being prepared for my presentation, I have simply been working on my speech, powerpoint, and bug fixes on my final project. So there truly is not much to work on.
It really hasn't been all to difficult to create a presentation because since I am so passionate about this project it has been really easy to get my thoughts out, a bit to easy. With some of my variations it was 10 minutes long, and it was really hard to find parts cut out, but eventually I finally found what I needed.
Also this end of the project came so fast because I was so busy learning how to program that I never had any down time. Not to say it is a bad thing, but is quite good because it makes me realize I have learned so much, that I have even spent a 4 hour straight programming session. So I think I should really treasure my experience instead of looking down upon it thinking I haven't done enough, and it isn't all to spectacular, when it is.
To end off, I am quite angry that I didn't go on wednesday because I thought I was going on thursday. I now have to present on friday, if I get the chance, which I did. So that was great, if you would like to read more on my performance read my presentation analysis.

Vlog

Vlog from Frederik Sorg-Taylor on Vimeo.

Shoot em' up games (Post 3)

U-turn

First of all before you go any further, you must read this. I am making a small change, but it will greatly affect my final project. Originally I wanted to make a demo game, I still am, but I am not going to be focusing on the game content as much as I am now going to be focusing on the idea of the game. Creating an original idea, that could actually be marketed, because creating a game is one thing, but being original is a whole different thing. I already know I can make a game, but I want to see if I can make a good game, instead of the ever so common zombie survival games.

Mini Project

When starting you adventure of making a game in Unity, you create a new project, when creating a new project, you use the setup wizard, this will prompt you for a name, file folder and what assets you would like to use. In this I used my first asset file, a file provided by Unity on their asset store, where you can buy assets.

My second step I imported a ship, that wasn't to hard. I then modified the camera and the lighting, for the camera I used one main camera, and positioned it above the ship, and it also wouldn't move, this gave it an arcade game look, and for the lighting I used three things, one main light which is a bright white light to make it look like there is a close star shining upon it, the second was a complementary green light for it too look like the background was reflecting off of it, and the third a trim light to distinguish it from the rest of the map. I then imported a background, it took a bit of trial and error to resize it, but I finally got something I liked. This is what it turned out to be.

What it looked like in the editor

What it looked like in game

My next step was making it move, this required me to make a new script that is attached to the player's ship. The scripting language used was C#. It is quite lucky that is because of computer programming class I was easily able to understand syntaxes because it used the same ones as C++.

While doing this I also learned how to make it tilt in the direction that you are going.

What the script looked like

The next step was to create shots that the ship would fire from the ship. This was quite simple all I did was import a bolt image, then put a mesh around it so you could see the colliders, and then make it go forward. The next part of it was much more difficult, it required you to make a shot spawn entity in front of the ship, then have the laser start from the shot spawn and then fire. For this it originally used "mouse 1" or the "left mouse button" to fire, but I did some additional research and made it so it would use space bar to fire. This is what it created:

An independently moving ship with independent fires

With the last step there was one large problem. These entities never disappeared, they kept going infinitely on the z-axis. So this step was done to stop that. What it did was make a boundary that engulfed the map, so if en entity would hit the edge of it, that entity would be destroyed. I don't have a picture for this because, how am I going to show that unless you wanted to read a console.

In the next step I finally was able to create some sort of challenge for the player. I made my first asteroid. At the first part of it all I had was the mesh and it didn't do anything besides rotate, even if you hit it, neither object did anything, though both had a hitbox, they wouldn't collide because they are both triggers (I will not go into that because not even I know what that means).

An asteroid doing nothing

In this step I fixed this by creating a script. This script allowed the two too collide, in this script I also added code to make it so they are destroyed. From there I added the core feature of waves, using for loops, while loops, and functions I was able to make a randomly generated wave of asteroids that in between waves they would have a four second delay to get the player ready for the next wave. It also Included a two second wait period before the game started so you weren't bombed with asteroid right away.

Me exploding and a barrage of random asteroids

The next step was linking each game effect to an audio file. This wasn't particularly difficult besides the shooting of the bolt, because of me having to go into to the script and adding a few more lines of code. Obviously since you can't really see sounds, here are the sound files and waves:

Musicians probably understand this, I do not

After this was just counting score, seeing if you died and making it say game over, nothing to special. To view my final product go here (It takes a bit to load the first time around): Download

Extract the zip file and read the READ ME!!

Lets get the ball rolling (Post 2)

Addiction

I cracked the code!

By playing games, I found it out. You are never done! Someone is better, something is better, and also you can restart, just so you can feel that rush again, it is like a drug. This is what I think makes up successful games.

Items

My first point of addiction is items. In TF2 (Team Fortress 2) there are so many items. Weapons, cosmetics, taunts, then the subcategories of unusual, strange, kill streak, australlium, and festive, and then more sub categories for unusual effects, kill streak types. This creates an addiction like a drug, and to make it a more potent drug they have trading, and this creates an economy, where you can literally make money off of playing a game for fun, the currency is buds, keys and real money. With this you play so much so you can get new items, trade those items for tickets, keys, buds, and more. With a ticket you can play a new gamemode and get, australliums, killstreaks, unusuals, and of course stranges. With these, even if you are bad at the game, people will bow down to you and your awesome items, you gain respect, and when you are bored of the game, you sell you backpack for hundreds to thousands of dollars, from just playing a game.

This was bought for 540 buds, that's $13,392

Gotta buy em' all

In Starbound, there are random weapons, tiers, tech, and ship upgrades. There is DPS (Damage per second), energy per shot, damage per swing/shot. Then weapons are random, and get better by each planet, you start off on a gentle star, you find a weapon with 50 damage and you think you just found the best weapon, then you find an 80 damage weapon, then on the last planets you can find a rocket launcher with a thousand damage per second and 1,500 per shot, then you think you have an amazing weapon, but you know that there is always more, and you are never done. With armor you can gain more health, armor, or energy. With tech you can gain more mobility. With a bigger ship, you can store more, decorate, add living rooms for an npc (non-player character), pet rooms, and more.

So much room, "okay, my imaginary friend's bed will be there..."

Exploration

In Starbound you five different stars, gentle, eccentric, radioactive, frost, and fiery. Each has its own type of solar system, and to get to these solar systems you must do quests. In quests they require you to explore. The first quests requires you to be able to get to the core of your planet, and collect core fragments. This takes time, lots and your mind is so centered on it that you loose track of time, and while mining you run into caves, and you feel like it is you duty to explore them, inside are chests, monsters and traps. You must fight stay focused on your surroundings, and when you find that weapon or ore, you become overjoyed, this makes you want more, like a drug, and this is its climax and it lasts long enough for you to do the same thing and it keeps happening, you never get bored. You then find the twenty core fragments, your next mission is finding a way up, but you are still on this rush, so you do go up but you look for caves you want a cave, you want that rush. five hours just pass without you even realizing it. Wen you beam up to your ship and repair its fuel tank, you find out your not done, its FTL (Faster than light) drive is broken, you can still travel within your solar system, but now you need to go to the gate. The gate brings you to an outpost. In the outpost you find many missions, you must complete all of these so you can complete the mission that provides you with the materials needed to repair it. So you go to the place it sends you, you know your mission, but while you are doing subconsciously, you want all the items, you want to kill all the enemies to get more pixels, you find a secret room you think your a genius, you find the boss room you think your a genius. You defeat the boss, you think your the best. This is a cycle, and it never ends, even when your done, you have not explored all the stars. With randomized enemies, weapons, and ores, you are never done, and by some chance you get bored, you can create a new character and do it all again.

SO MUCH TO EXPLORE!!

Multiplayer

This isn't necessary but it is good to have

Okay, I will admit I haven't played this for a while but this was my analysis of portal's co-op. AMAZING! Team work, so much team work. It drives you to insanity, but that insanity gives you and your partner the drive to finish. You are yelling at your partner, but when you finish that stage you press your taunt button and click hug because you are so happy, and all of the sudden everything is resolved, your both happy like the whole not going into your portal thing never happened. It creates such joy, and anguish. Also in co-op you get laughs out of it, being able to talk without anyone around, and not be judged, its awesome.

Nyahh... five seconds ago they were saying that their partner is stupid

Conclusion

Though there are many other factors left to making a good game , and some would take much to long to really show there importance, and there is no real formula to making a good game. I think that this is what makes a successful game, items, exploration, free movement, fitting audio to gameplay, smooth textures, and a theme.

Mini-project

Pretty straightforward first many project not much to it, it consists of lighting, cameras, collectibles, plane to roll on and of course played controlled object

Goals

-First mini-project
-Brain storm ideas
-Explore games
-Praise gaben

What is going on? (Post 1)

I love games. It is that simple. So why not learn how they work. That's why I am creating a game.

I decided my platform for creating game will be on Unity. It is an intuitive, diverse, and easy way of creating a game master piece. With it you can create, 3D and 2D games, model and animate characters, set up lighting, use physics, use audio, get sued for selling a game without Unity's permission, and more! It's a huge bundle

So everyday I am dedicating as much time as I can to these three steps, learning, programming, and playing.

In my step for learning I will use Unity's official website (http://unity3d.com/). As well I will be doing side research on different platforms, like YouTube, I will also research other people's first hand experiences with Unity, a person I most likely reference is Nelson Sexton, the creator of the game "Unturned" that has reached the steam market and has millions of hours played around the world in such a short time, and he is my inspiration because, he is also in high school, and is 17 years old programming constantly even with school. On Unity's website I will watch tutorials, read articles, etc. On YouTube, I will learn extras and get help if I am stuck.

On my second step I will be programming, lots of my programming will be on mini projects supplied by Unity (http://unity3d.com/learn/tutorials/modules). By just starting with a ball that can move from play command to creating a full model with a smooth animation. I may also create my own mini projects to help myself learn different concepts. By doing these little projects I will learn how to make my final project which will be in the background for most of the time that I am developing until I am nearing the end, I will compile different parts of my final project by compiling some aspects of my mini projects into it. I have yet to decide what theme I want, that is where my third step comes in.

On my final step I will be playing my own games and other games. By playing my games I will see what is fun, what is bugged, and what is unnecessary to have a good game. But the most important step is playing games that I enjoy,scanning out aspects of why I love them. I will play games like, Team Fortress 2, Portal, Star Bound, Garry's mod, and some classics. I will look at game aspects like multiplayer, design, music. exploration, and more. I will also have "consultants", other students who will help me find what is so much fun, why it is so good. We may play multiplayer games and see if it is communication that makes

These are my goals:

Week 1:
-First mini-project
-Brain storm ideas
-Explore games
-Praise Gaben

Week 2:
-Second mini-project
-Begin research on other peoples troubles and notate
-Watch extra tutorials

Week 3:
-Third mini-project
-Create my own mini-project
-From research create game ideas
-Start programming final project

Week 4;
-Fourth mini-project
-Figure out final idea
-Final project