The life of Niamh

For the Game Design Document we used a website called "Dundoc". It was a very handy website to use as it defined each section and separated them into categories which made it a bit easier to do. The Game Design Document is a highly descriptive document of the design for the video game. Even though the dundoc gave us the template, it was still quite hard to know what to write. most of it was written then and there and many will have to be added and removed throughout the process. I wasn't sure on a good few of them and i hope that will change throughout the process. "My Dundoc page" https://www.dundoc.com/project/4780

Unity Logo https://www.geekshangout.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/unity_feature-950x640.jpg This week we looked at three unity tutorials, "design hud" , "weapons" and how to create layers and clippings. The first tutorial was on how to create a hud. In this tutorial Jimmy vegas shows us how the raycast can help integrate and use a UI to see actions within the game. He teaches us how to write the script that will help us take an object and make it disappear when a button is pressed. I liked this tutorial as i think it will help many people in their game if they are creating a maze or daily life game. The second tutorial i watched was on weapons within a game. In this tutorial, we are shown how to contain a weapon in a cube and then animate it. Its contained in a cube, in order to rotate it properly and make it look real. It also showed us how to use the animation tab in unity. It wasn't too bad to follow but i did need to rewind at some parts just to tr

"Index cards on all four corners" http://www.thegamesjournal.com/articles/DesignConsiderations.shtml The first article i read was called " "Design Considerations" " written by Greg Aleknevicus.  In this article Greg teaches us about the importance of doing something right instead of wrong. They both cost the same. The first thing we are told is that its best to use contrasting and striking colours when creating games but also to bare in mind that many people suffer from colour blindness so its not easy to tell which will suit best. Ive learned not to use orange and red as player colours as they are very similar and hard to distinguish even for people without colour blindness. Greg also talks about the FAQs page online. Its very important to have this in your webpage for your game and it will allow your company to interact with the customers and will keep customers happy, knowing that you are willing to answer their questions. In this article Greg also

The name of my game is "Past the Limit". It's a first person driving game where the aim is to beat all competitors in races, in order to win prizes such as new cars and money and become the best in the world. The background for my game comes from the desire to drive fast and show others how powerful the cars the driver owns are. It comes from the perspective of a car mad person who wants to compete in the best competitions in the world and have the title of 'world champion'. In this game, you are the driver. You are the racer. Each race will have one or two laps. The first player to pass over the finish the line will be crowned winner of the race. The more races you win the more money, cars and power you gain. Over time you will build up your reputation and have players want to challenge you for your goods. If the other competitors cross the finish line before you, the game will immediately finish and you will not finish the race and will not gain any prizes.

For this Unity Tutorial, it should me how to create a clock that shows us the real time by spinning around like a normal clock. The tutorial showed me at first the basics, how to create a clock face by first creating a cylinder and the flattening it.  It went on to show us how to create a number/block for every hour and to space them properly. I really liked this tutorial, it was different from the others that we've done these past few weeks. It was great to learn something different then just the normal terrain. I found the script part to be quite difficult as it is something new and will have to get used to it and study it for when it comes to creating my game. The script was quite difficult in some parts. Although i followed all the steps, i still managed to not get it working correctly, i tried to redo some steps but i could not find the problem in the script. I will continue to try improve my unity skills by following more tutorials and script writing videos. Im looking

This weeks reading was quite difficult to get through at points, i wont lie to you. The whole idea of mechanics, dynamics and aesthetics in gaming is completely new to me and would never have considered them when it came to gaming really.  Ive never thought to much into detail about games till this module. The MDA Framework by LeBlanc, Hunicke and Zabek was very confusing at points, in my opinion. I found it very difficult to keep up with what was being told to us and hard to fully understand it. There was points that i had to read a few times in order to try grasp it. Im still not fully sure on what MDA is and how it works and maybe it'll take me a while to fully comprehend it but ill keep reading up on it as i know its important for creating fully developed and functional games. For the second reading, i wasn't able to open the videos on my laptop for some reason, so i wasn't able to get the full experience of the powerpoint. Which was not ideal and caused a good b

My main idea that i've decided on for my game is a Car racing game/competition. Ive decided to do this game as i'm intrigued in how one would come about making this game. In my last post about game ideas, i stated that i watched a tutorial on it and id like to create one. Ive continued to watch piece of the tutorial series and have come to the conclusion that its something i really want to try my hand at. I would hope to create a game that has people entertained for a while and that will allow two people to play but maybe thats pushing it as it is only my first game. I want to create a car racing game that will not only look good but will also function very well as thats the most important aspect of the assignment. To understand and create a working game. I've searched for this different videos on people talking about how to build a car racing game but the best ones i've found are from Jimmy Vegas . He keeps his language simple and is easy to follow. Most of the other

Today I looked at articles that showed me hoe to GIVE feedback compared to last week when I looked at articles that showed me how to TAKE feedback. The first article i looked at was called " "What kind of messages help kids grow?" . I was first drawn to this article due to the title as i have a six and three year old sisters and I want them to grow up as best as they can and to develop a healthy mindset. In this article the author Deborah Farmer Kris, states the importance of a parents words for kids aged between 1-3. Deborah states that these years shape the way kids will think in the future. She says to use "process praise" instead of "nice job" and to use the word "Yet" when a child says they can't do something. For me, this article was very eye opening and interesting. I never really thought that the praise i give my sisters could affect their future mindset. This article has allowed me to see how i can help my sisters develop a gr

As the weeks go by and we've started to do more work in Unity and with the tutorials, i've become more invested in the module and how it works. I've grown an interest into game development and design and how to show certain things in unity. For this weeks tutorials on how to improve graphics and how to create a Raycast and cursor, i found them very helpful and interesting. In tutorial 004 "improving Graphics" I really enjoyed making my landscape look more realistic.  I thought the whole section about adding trees and grass to be very helpful as a "building life" game was one of my ideas so its handy to know how to create them. What i did find difficult about this tutorial was creating a dip in the landscape. My laptop did not let me create one so adding the water didn't really work out as well as the tutorial showed me. But i also enjoy the benefit of being able to create an object that plays sound once the character walks through it. i think its a

"character development" -Lee Sheldon http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/197601/sponsored_respecting_and_.php The first article i read was  Postmortem: Pinball-RPG hybrid 'Rollers of the realm' . I thought this article was very useful for getting an idea on how to talk about the process of the game development and i liked the way it split it up into what went right and what went wrong throughout the project. It showed me its just as important to show what went wrong as it is to show what went right. It will allow them to reflect on it in the future and not let them make the same mistake. They also broke it down into sub-sections which allowed us, the reader to follow what they were talking about more easily.  I enjoyed the part about audience testing. They got most of their information about target audience and what people found difficult to understand about the game and they were able to change it directly instead of guessing it. The second article i read was

Feedback is information about reactions to a product, a persons performance of a task, etc which is used as a basis for improvement. I recently just read two very interesting articles on feedback and how it helps a person improve on issues but also why it can hurt us. 'Rejection' -Dawn kim https://ideas.ted.com/why-rejection-hurts-so-much-and-what-to-do-about-it/ The first article i read was called  "Why rejection hurts so much - and what to do about it"  by Guy Winch.  I really enjoyed this article because we've all experienced rejection in our lives, whether it be small or big it affects each and every one of us. In this article Guy Winch gives us three steps we should take in order to reject rejection and not let it hurt us as much as it would. It tells us not to self critique ourselves, know our worth as human beings and to boost our social connection with friends and family which will help boost our confidence. I agree with this article as we cant let n

The following are my top four ideas for my game project. 1. Obstacle course game. For this game, i was imagining a game that involves running and dodging obstacles that are being thrown towards the character or that are on the ground. The character could have to jump over the objects that are underneath them. I am interested in doing this type of game as many of the games i've played when i was younger were games like this, for example Temple run or subway surfers. these games are mostly used on apple phones or ipads etc. I feel as though id be more interested in doing a game app so to speak as its what i'm used too.  Link to tutorial 'Driving and racing tutorial' https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MQ5GJPlAGS4 2. Car racing game My second idea is for a car racing game. A competition game. Car racing/ competition games are always entertaining to play. It brings out the competitive side in everybody. Ive researched tutorials on Youtube on how to create a driving a

'Unity logo' https://www.udemy.com/unity-master-video-game-development-the-complete-course/ I was a bit apprehensive about going into this assignment, maybe because it was our first real look at what we will be doing with unity and how to create actual games and it wouldn't just be writing blogs anymore. When i first started watching the tutorials i got very confused which is understandable, i never even heard of Unity until we started this module so of course id be lost using it. The tutorial videos were very good. They explained how to use unity really well and at a good pace for us beginners. Once i got into the tutorial videos, i was able to understand the directions and how to place an object into the scene and how to move it arrow on the x,y and z axis. He showed us how to position a object dead centre on the scene and how to stop a character or another object from passing though objects by applying the box collider to the scene. I discovered some of the languag

"understanding games - Kongregate" http://www.kongregate.com/games/pixelate/understanding-games-episode-1 From all the reading material on our website, these games/readings were the best ones. I found that these mini informative games where the easiest to understand. The use of plain english and competitions to get the beginner to understand what game design is and why it's used was very clever and beneficial to both parties. 'Pulling the plug' - Lewis Pulsipher Non digital teaching and learning In this reading Lewis Pulsipher, breaks down what happens when beginners learn using non-digital vs electronic games. He states each step in bullet points and then goes into detail about why non-digital learning is better. He shows that if you start on non-digital its very easy to change a mistake where as with electronic it has to be done through coding and could take days, even weeks to change one minor fault. He tells us that people go into . game making wa