Unity Tutorial 08

Image of my Unity Workspace

I found this week's Unity tutorial to be very interesting as well as, similar to last week, it really felt like we were adding polish/the final touches to an actual playable game rather than just following instructions purely for a lab project task. In this Unity tutorial we added enemy waves to the game so, which increased gradually by a factor of one upon defeating all the enemies of the previous wave. To achieve this we learned and integrated For-loops into our code. We also used For-loops to spawn a power up with each consecutive wave of enemies. This enemy wave system really made this feel like a legitimate game with challenge and replay value. 

Unity Challenge 4 workspace

I found this week's Unity challenge to be actually quite difficult, probably because many of the concepts we had learned through the process of following Unity Tutorial 4 were slightly more advanced than in passed challenges so spotting and changes even minor discrepancies proved to be quite a difficult task. Even the first problem proved difficult as it looked like a minor problem but involved such a long string of code that I did not feel confident in manipulating. Problem 3 an 5 were also difficult as I was not confident with the writing code unlike in the other problems that merely asked you to alter the code.

Week 9 Reading and Writing

Throughout the module I have tried to keep up with the reading tasks from week to week but always found them to be the least intuitive task. When it came to the informal readings (articles, videos, etc.), I thought they were relatively manageable, the language was easily comprehended and they were short enough to get through and take notes. The academic readings however, were a large task that I could never seem to complete in what I felt was a meaningful capacity. I was only ever able to get through a small portion of them in the time I had while taking notes and some of the language was too academically specific that I found myself having to interpolate my own understanding of the text into the notes to make them cohesive without complete confidence in if I was comprehending them properly or not.

My favourite reading so far has to be the reading task on Game Elements from Week 4. I found it to be the most interesting reading so far and was the only reading that's topic had me engaged and made me ponder the subject as I did the reading task. Formally reading the breakdown of a 'game' into it's fundamental elements was interesting to see, as unlike the other readings which I may have found interesting but had already learned about prior to this class, this was my first time reading this information comprehensively broken down.

Although the readings were interesting academic tasks to complete each week I felt that they were too related to the theory of games and game design that they became detached from the actual process of creating a game, especially in the short timeframe that we have in the module. The only reading I felt directly aided or impacted my process in this module was the reading on Game Design Documents which gave insight into what the goal and requirements of the Game Design Document task entailed.

I'm proudest of actually keeping up with most of the tasks in this module each week. That despite knowing that I could drop a task or two during the week that I was able to generally keep up pretty well with the class and complete most of the tasks that I could.

Image of my Unity 3D workspace

I chose this image for this blog post because it was one of the images from my first session creating the basic prototype for my game which was the first time that all the work and information that we had been accruing throughout the module finally came together. It's an image that concretely illustrates that I have been doing the work during the module, enough that I have at the very least this extremely basic product to show. It also reminds me of how difficult this whole process has been and how frustrating creating the final game actually is but also how fun and rewarding it can be, if it works.

Looking forward to the end of this module I'm honestly not entirely sur if the remaining reading tasks can/will aid in me completing my game but at the very least if they're interesting they could come in useful after this module is over.

Tech Task: Fake Social Media Generator

 

Made using Fake Twitter on Simitator

In this week's Tech Task I created a Fake Social Media Post using the Fake Twitter option on Simitator. I had not previously thought about using a premade generator for things like this before.

Unity Tutorial 07

Image of my Unity Workspace

This Unity Tutorial was easily my favourite tutorial we've done this module by far. This was the first tutorial that felt like we were making an actual, fun game instead of just a basic proof of concept showcase of a game. In this tutorial we created an isometric rolling ball sumo game. This began with creating a central point with an empty object and attaching the camera to the object so that the camera would rotate around the stage. This was used in conjunction with Local Coordinates to change the 'definition' of forward for the player to match the direction of the camera which made for a very interesting control system. One of the most interesting things that we learn in this tutorial is how to implement a sort of pseudo-AI to the enemy sphere to make it follow the player around the stage. We also learned about physics material which altered the physical properties of assets which was a very interesting concept which we used to give each sphere a 'bounce'. We also learned how to add Powerups in this tutorial which is something I thought about implementing into my own game. We learnt the whole process of incorporating the power up from collection, to ability, to activating an indicator. This was definitely the most fun and interesting tutorial for me by far.

Game Fun

 Reading Week 8 “Game Fun"

Games can be described by the 3 components Mechanics, Dynamics, and Aesthetics (MDA) or otherwise stated as rules – system – “fun”. The three reading selections this week and the synopsis below all address the term “fun” in relation to game design.

There are eight types of Fun outlined by the MDA. These eight are both a source of reference and player experience that blend together in many ways, and essentially what makes a game engaging and enjoyable.

Figure 1: Eight kinds of Fun

Both Oxford and Merrian dictionaries define Fun as an enjoyment, delight but within the context of a game it refers to a form of pleasurable entertainment. MDA papers define the '8 kinds of fun' sensation, fantasy, narrative, challenge, fellowship, discovery, expression, and submission, remain a source of reference and possibly the most popular list of player interactions combining in various forms to attract each player to a particular game.

Nicole Lazzaro presents four types of fun that are involved in defining how fun a game can be for different players.

• Easy Fun:  This is essentially for players who are new to a game who want to satiate their curiosity. 

• Hard Fun: It is essentially for people who love a good challenge.

• People Fun: Amusement from competition and cooperation. Meaning Co-op. 

• Serious Fun: Excitement from changing the player and their world.

Figure 2: From A Theory of Fun 10 Years On: Fun Is Just Another Word for Learning

Flow also has an influence on the feeling of “fun”. The concept of Flow is characterized as a balance between skill-challenge and the individual's enjoyment. When in flow the player is focused on the activity they are participating in. This gives a sense of reward and promotes further engagement in the activity.

Flow theory provides a good framework for analysing motivation in gaming activities, in particular enjoyment, engagement and positive affect.

Figure 3: Graph showing the flow zone, where the game is not too easy where the players abilities are very high (Boredom), but also not too hard that the player is unable to complete the challenge (anxiety).

Fun has everything to do with learning. “Fun is just the dopamine in our brains firing when we are presented with a new situation to learn from” Koster (2005) discussed about this saying that the different patterns that we take in helps our brain especially when it comes to enjoying a video game cause once you understand the many patterns that it offers you your brain has nothing to feed off making it unenjoyable to play anymore. Fun provides the brain with feedback of the game allowing it to observe and learn different patterns/sequences within. 

Games help people to become more imaginative, engaging with their creative side of the brain and creating new ideas/designs that can be implemented in games.

Being more creative when developing your game will help you see what challenges the player may face and what ones will help further improve the progression and also add to the player's determination to complete the story.

Balance is an even proportion or distribution of elements to keep them at a steady rate. When playing chess, we learn about strategy, tic tac toe teaches us about reading people’s mind about their next move and when we play games like civilisation or sim it teaches us resource management. When playing games we should be provided with a balance of fun and challenges. These are called either type 1 or type 2 games and these have their own unique way of being played. The type 1 games involve strategy and thinking to complete these games such as in Chess or Poker whereas type 2 games mainly involve quick reflexes and combo memorization in games such as “Mortal Kombat and Call of Duty”

The GameFlow model shows that the inherent structure of games is associated with the experience of flow and enjoyment during gaming, at least for strategy games.) As stated by Kaye and Byrce (2012) “a large body of research has investigated the negative effects of playing video games” yet “there has been less examination of the psychological experiences associated with the activity”

We come across different types of fun in games that fulfil our amusement. Fun in games is provided in many different ways for example through socialising with friends or exploring the game world. People experience different emotions when driven by gameplay. Gameplay creates opportunities for “Flow”, “balance” and “learning”. 

References:

Velev, A., 2016. Gamification Design: What’S Fun Got To Do With It?. [online] Megamification. Available at:<http://www.megamification.com/727-2//> [Accessed 16 November 2020].

Kaye, L. and Bryce, J., 2012. Putting The “Fun Factor” Into Gaming: The Influence Of Social Contexts On Experiences Of Playing Video Games. Available at: <https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/9632557.pdf/> [Accessed 16 November 2020].

 

The Game Overanalyser., 2020. A Theory of Fun for Game Design | Raph Koster and The Art of Designing Fun Games. Available at: <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6sZJYA06z7Y&feature=emb_logo&ab_channel=TheGameOveranalyser/> [Accessed 16 November 2020].

Project Prototype 1: The Beginning

 

Images of my Unity 3D workspace

Today I spent a few hours beginning my actual game for the this module. I will admit right off the bat that this is already proving to be a very difficult process and will continue to be with each step forward. I began the process by sourcing all the assets I needed for the project for free from the Unity Assets Store. I was lucky enough to find the assets that I require for the project quite quickly and compactly which allowed me to begin the process. It was not a completely negative process however because it was honestly quite fun to build and layout all the assets in Unity to create my first prototype level but that was about where the fun ran out. This process took quite a bit of time and involved a lot of adjusting but at least it was creative. The next step I took was to implement the moving platform which is highlighted in the second image which was a matter of adding an animation to the object manually which was a new process for me but was luckily wasn't too difficult. Once all the basic assets were laid out I began the coding for the prototype which proved to be extremely confusing and difficult but also a little rewarding at times.

Image of my C# script for my player so far

I began the coding by writing an extremely basic bare bones code to get the Car to move forward so I could test the actual stage elements themselves and adjust things like speed and placements. I then began the process of trying to further flesh out the controls. The process of writing the code for the prototype involved an immense amount of trial and error and rewriting of code as I tried to amalgamate and mix and match the basic knowledge I could remember from the Unity Tutorials while also attempting to find online sources that could possibly aid in the process. By the end of my session I had controls that somewhat resembled what I wanted but was very much not ideal and still requires an  immense amount of reworking but it serves as a working proof of concept for now. This session gave me a more realistic estimate and direction for my project moving forward.

Tech Task: Animated GIF Maker

GIF of illustration process

 I made my first animated gift for this week's Tech Task. It was a bit of a challenge finding a set of images to use for the GIF and have them all align without using copyrighted material or reposting work I've already shown but while rummaging through my files I found several images from my attempt at converting my journal sketch to a digital piece which fit all the criteria for a GIF.