The Plan - Making "My Own Game"

I'm "going" to make a game that is a top-down shooter in which the player must survive waves of zombies with increasing difficulty with each wave. If the player collides with zombies they will be punished by losing one of their three lives. I "plan" on using physics for this game to help with the top-down aspect and in order for me to "make" player and zombie movement smoother.

There is an order I "plan" on doing everything. Starting with more basic things at the top and working my way down to harder things or last minute things I think of to improve the game

- Make sprites
- Make the game environment
- Player Movement
- Score System
- Lives
- Enemies
- Enemy A.I.
- Enemy Movement
- Wave System

Unity 2D UFO Mods

1. Which step in the list above was the most challenging for you?

- The most challenging step for me was getting the player to collide with the new pickups and then making those disappear and then add score. At first they both had separate codes, so I had two lines for "void OnTriggerEnter2D(Collider2D other)", one for each pickup. I was able to fix this problem after a lot of trial and error by removing the second one and adding it to my first with an "else if" line of code to go after the "if" code. I learned that you don't always need to give something it's own set of code, and can use "else if" on similar things.

2. Link to Download

Unity Check-In

• What stage you're at in your Unity adventure (which tutorial video are you on, or if you're on the second assignment, which step are you working on?).

- I've recently completed the second assignment.

• What challenges have you encountered so far?

- I encountered an issue where I couldn't get the new pickups to disappear and the player would just move over them, I fixed it by replacing a separate piece of code with a "else if" line.

- I also had some difficulties setting up the pop-up for a tie, or making sure the game would only check the score after all pickups were collected.

• What's the most interesting thing you've learned so far?

- I've learned that if there's a problem, with enough googling and trying things you can eventually fix it.

EDIT: I can't seem to make the text in this post any larger for some reason, sorry about that.

Unity 2D UFO Tutorial

1. Have you done any scripting or coding before? When / why / for what?
   
   I've done a little bit of coding before while working on re-creating the game "Asteroids" in game maker as an assignment for Game Design last year.
   
2. What did you think of all of the detailed explanation as the narrator looked at the code documentation, explained how he was choosing each piece of code, etc? 
   
   I found the explanations pretty useful in understanding what code did what and why he chose the code.
   
3. On a scale of 1 (super clear) to 10 (super confusing), rate how well you understand what the code in the scripts does. Were some sections easier to understand than others (controlling player movement, controlling camera movement, rotating pickup objects, collecting pickup objects, counting pickup objects, displaying score, displaying win message)? Explain.
   
   I would give it a 3, I have better understanding of the code, but there is still code that doesn't entirely make sense. Understanding the rotating pickup objects, counting pickup objects, and displaying the score/win message was quite easy, while the movement was a little more tricky.
   
4. What part of this 2D UFO game-building process did you find most rewarding or enjoyable? Explain.
   
   Learning code was fun, but the most rewarding part of the process was to see the final product at the end and have it work with no bugs or glitches that mess it up.
   
5. Between about 10:00-12:00 in the collectibles pickup video (7 of 9), you set the tag of the pickup items so that the script knows when it runs into a treasure. What could you do if you wanted to have two different kinds of treasure that were worth different points?
   
   I could give the treasures different IDs, so that in the code there will be separate code for each type of treasure. With the other treasure having a separate name I include an "else if" line of code for when the treasure isn't the first one. For example:
   if apple do +5 points
   else if orange do +10 points
   Something like that.
   
6. Describe one way that you could add complexity to this game.
   
   I could add obstacles that would make it more difficult for the player to obtain all the pickups, or make the pickups move around randomly so they're not just sitting still.
   
7. Include a link to your build folder so I can try your game. This involves a few steps:
   
   Link to game download

Game Designer Skills

After going through the list I feel as if these three skills are ones that I feel confident in.


Brainstorming
- I feel confident in brainstorming ideas for games, worlds, settings, plots, architecture, and more. Although I can't think of a lot of things on the fly, I eventually come up with ideas for things. I have some experience brainstorming through coming up with ideas for characters, buildings, or figuring out possible solutions for puzzles or challenges.

Games
- I've played many different games along with many different genres of games; including board games. Through all these years of playing games, I can use the knowledge I've gained from playing them and apply them to creating games. Through 13 years of playing video games, I believe I've developed a familiarity with them and their various genres which will help me in creating games of those genres and developing worlds for those games to exist in.

Architecture
- I've always been interested in architecture and building/creating worlds, cities and even just buildings. I've played a lot of games that all have different architecture styles along with different settings and styles of worlds. In games where I can build and create, I enjoy building and designing building in-game, spending hours building and creating whatever I feel like, which gives me some experience in architecture; whether it be through actual building or just seeing different environments around me while playing games.


One skill that could prove to be particularly challenging for me would be Business, I don't have that much experience in business, so it could prove to be challenging until I were to take time to learn about it. Although this skill might be challenging now, I'm sure if I put time into any skill I could improve on it.

Another year of school.

Neato

GameMaker - Asteroids - Part 3

- What difficulties did you have? 

      During the process of making my game, the only real difficulty was creating the power-up and all the aspects of it. I had some difficulties creating the charge for the power-up and creating the effect of multiple bullets at a time.

- How did you solve them?

      I solved the charge problem with multiple sprites for a battery of some sort, making it change depending on a global value (global.charge) which would increase for each red asteroid destroyed, up to a total value of 9. As for the multiple bullets, I searched online on how to do it and found code that enabled the player to shoot 3 bullets at once during the power-up.

- What did you change in your game to make it unique? How do these changes affect gameplay?

      I made a custom model for the player along with making the asteroids more unique by adding a random rotation to them as they're created so that even if there is two of the same asteroid, the rotation will be different making them seem unique.

      A big part of the game that I made unique was making a power-up that requires you to destroy 9 small red asteroids which spawn upon destroying the large asteroids. As you destroy them, the "battery" in the top right will slowly charge up and once fully charged it grants you the ability to shoot 3 bullets for a total of ten seconds. During the power-up the player is also invincible so they won't die during the power-up.

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