The Art Of Gaming

What is the GDD for? A Game Design Document (GDD) is a blueprint for the design and development of a game. The GDD is a way of being creative and documenting the approach to the development of the game. Gonzale (1999) states that “ the important thing is to have something that describes your game project (or any other project for that matter) before jumping into production.( Gamasutra ) It should help to plan out your game. Though it is recommended that the GDD should be short it needs to be detailed enough so as game developers and artists can coordinate the development of the game independently whilst still keeping to the design.  The GDD is a blueprint for how the game is going to be designed and built, similar to a mind map. In conclusion, the game design document is vital to making a game and it is important to have in order to describe your game project. How do we make one? There are a variety of tools that could be used to create a GDD. These include word processing tools, visua

  Lesson 2.4 During this lesson the instructor taught me how to spawn animals without spam clicking the S button. I found this tutorial extremely simple and I wasn't inundated with information. I also learned how to feed the animals (Basically deleting them whenever the object hit one) using scripts which are call colliders. I was looking forward to seeing how I could implement the "game over" part of the game, he gave a pretty straightforward example by using debug. It wasn't anything crazy like having "Game Over" on the screen it was just in the bottom right corner. Overall I didn't find the code too difficult although I will probably come back to it when doing my own project. It was a really quick lesson and I'm looking forward to the next set of lessons and see how difficult they become.  Challenge 2  This was a really difficult challenge, I understood some bits and pieces but it didn't really involve code. It was just dragging and dropping t

 Lesson 2.1  After doing my blog on the different game ideas I kept thinking how I could implement some aspects of these tutorials into my games. During this tutorial I learned how to make the player move only back and forth using scripts as well as making invisible walls so the player doesn't go past the camera view. This could definitely work for my bobblehead goalkeeper! We also examined the scale tool as I had to resize an object so the player could see it more clearly. The instructor also examined an "if" statement which I will have to research more about as it's kind of confusing. We used the "if" statement to make the invisible wall so if we go past a certain coordinate, we aren't able to break through it.  my own image  Lesson 2.2 This was a really frustrating lesson as I kept putting the code in the wrong spots. We made the pizza launch by using the spacebar and we also made it so the animals and pizza didn't go past the boundary as well, th

Steer Clear is a 3D platform game allowing the player to control a Sphere through a meandering pathway filled with challenging obstacles as each level progresses.  You get dropped into a vibrant location with towering mountains in the background. A peaceful song plays in the background. The pathway in front of you meanders through chaos and the only way is forward. As you proceed to roll forward, you encounter a puddle of mud that does not seem initially threatening but as soon as you move towards it, it begins swallowing you like quick sand. Once fully submerged by the puddle you fall through the map. GAME OVER you'll have to start again! Now you're fully prepared on what's about to happen. beautiful scenic view of tall mountains and hills   This time you jump over the puddle successfully and immediately meet three moving obstacles that sway from left to right  in random formations. You have to get your movements perfectly timed in order to see what's on the other sid

During my research of potential game ideas, I felt like I got more information out of the 3D Sphere. My project doesn't need to be incredibly complicated and getting online help whether it's on Youtube or GitHub will increase my chances of making a successful game! I came across so many Sphere games that have been made with Unity3D such as " Crazy Roll 3D " and there's a tutorial on Unity itself called " roll a ball " which uses simple camera and player movements as well as creating collectables. Here is an extremely useful article on how Thomas Himblot made his own sphere game in unity and his overall process. He examines what he did right in terms of the game and all of the regrets he has. I'm probably going to come back to this article again and again as he describes what tutorials he found useful during his "learning path". He released the game " Being a ball " which you can download for free or you could donate which I'm

What are the Qualities of Games?  The following consists of key excerpts taken from an article by Ian Schreiber. It aims to discuss the qualities of a game.  The various definitions of what a game is appear to have similar themes : rules, goals, decision-making and an uncertain outcome (Schreiber, 2009).  The author defines individual gaming elements as "formal elements" because they can be broken down and examined in a straightforward manner. Furthermore, Schreiber outlines several factors in relation to certain aspects of games that designers must consider. Examples include Players, Objectives, Rules etc.  Schreiber discusses Critical Analysis as a key feature of how game designers formulate a better understanding of their product through their consumers. They often need a detailed analysis instead of a simple comment for example "I like this game because it's fun". They strive to dig deeper into the understanding of why it entertains the player. When analysin

These past couple of weeks I have gotten a lot of feedback from my lecturers. I've written down notes on what I should improve on in terms of my work and I even went as far as writing down feedback that has been said to other groups so I could improve on it myself too. I didn't really pay much attention to how my lecturers were giving me feedback before I read that growth mindset article, I've been starting to notice how they provide me with constructive criticism yet they also compliment aspects of my work which I find extremely helpful.  I read an article on "Preschoolers and Praise: What kinds of messages Help Kids Grow?" and here are my thoughts on it. Process praise can be so beneficial to kids if you use it the correct way. I feel like a growth mindset can be established from it especially when primary and secondary school students are given harder tasks to solve. I had a constant fixed mindset in primary school as I wasn't born in Ireland so during my

Lesson 1.4  I was really looking forward to finding out how the player could actually interact and drive the car using the controls. In the first set of unity tutorials I kept asking myself "when will I be able to drive it?" so I got excited following this tutorial today! It is mostly to do with coding but unity has a really helpful axes menu that has all the movements programmed for you so you just have to put in the code for GetAxis. I'm still very confused on the coding in visual studio but I feel like if I do some challenges myself I will be able to understand it more clearly. It's all to do with practicing and leaving it up to yourself to figure it out because at the end of the day you're your own best teacher. I went back on the first tutorials just to remind myself what Time.DeltaTime was because it just disappeared from my head.  LOOK AT MY CAR ROTATE!! The first challenge : Quiz plane programming  When I first started this challenge everything I learned j

Archery 3d  Having the ability to use a bow and an arrow during an action packed video game is incredibly enjoyable. I recently finished Assassin's creed Odyssey and that was mostly the weapon I used in stealthy situations. Recently a lot of video games have added bows as one of their primary weapons: Horizon zero dawn, The last of us, Far Cry etc.. I feel like a fun archery game that is filled with targets moving around would be a perfect start. I would like to learn the mechanics of building weapons and the ability to use them in my game. I would also like the player to finish shooting as many targets as possible within a set time frame. I don't really know my limit with games like this but 5-10 levels with each one getting harder than the last would be unbelievable. The location would be a desert with dead trees and bushes and a mountain in the background because for some reason when I think of archery I think of the desert. I would also like to put in random fencing with bo

What is a Game, Anyway? The following consists of key excerpts taken from an article by Ian Schreiber. It aims to discuss one's definition of a what a game is.  Schreiber (2009) discusses that many games have similar contrasting ideas. For instance, dots and boxes present the user with a simplistic objective of whoever attains the most boxes wins the game. The same mechanics apply to Tic-tac-toe. Therefore, it is important to clarify the differences between games. A substantial amount of individuals have clashing definitions in terms of what a game is, but all have equal elements. The components of an enticing experience can incorporate conflict, a set of rules, a problem solving task as well as an out of body experience yet all require interaction. A game does not essentially call for technology for the experience to be stimulating, there can be colossal subsets to a game. A game may be as straightforward as "tossing a ball around", as Schreiber (2009) states "play

 Feedback was something I always feared, In school I would try to avoid it as much as possible because I knew in my head that I did an awful job. Exams weren't really my strong suit as I found them incredibly difficult, my focus was constantly on the time which didn't help at all. As I got older I realised that in order for me to improve at certain things, I needed feedback so I began to ask for it. Feedback doesn't have to involve school, it can be feedback on your personal relationship whether it's family or a significant other. Using your feedback wisely can help fix things in your life you didn't know needed fixing and it can also be tremendously useful!   I decided to read articles that I felt were relevant to me and "why rejection hurts so much" was one of them. Here is the link if you want to read it yourself! I have an extreme phobia of rejection, even more so when it's to do with personal matters. My thoughts elapse at an exceedingly alarming

I finally completed my first ever tutorial with Unity! It was a long process and I highly recommend taking down notes when it comes to useful keyboard shortcuts that have been mentioned and getting used to the controls whether you have a trackpad or a mouse. The coding is also very hard to understand so I recommend having some sort of notebook handy.  Lesson 1.1  The first lesson was mostly an introduction to the engine itself. The tutorial showed me how to create a new project, how to use the trackpad / mouse in terms of looking around the environment as well as using the WASD keys to make it straightforward when moving in certain directions. The tutorial also covered things such as moving obstacles using the mouse button or positioning them by applying coordinates. It was an effortless tutorial and I really enjoyed moving around and thinking of different possibilities in terms of future projects. Lesson 1.2 This lesson was more about coding so It got really confusing because the term