Alex's Updates

 Fake Social media For the fake social media generators for Twitter I created mine on    Simitator .  It was super easy to use and i wanted to  incorporate my dog in this task again.  I really enjoyed creating this. 

source: flickr While doing research and reading publications, I came to the conclusion that in order to build a unique and engaging narrative in your game, there must be a key denominator for the player to engage in. This article outlines what succeeded in previous story styles as well as what makes the new gaming tale type unique. A game isn't the same as a movie. While reading this , I noticed that there are several areas in game storylines where we've gone wrong so far. The bulk of the problems arise from common misunderstandings. 1. Dialog is the core of a story.  2.It makes absolutely no difference what the story is.  I knew including conflict in your story, whether you're creating it for any type of media is a must. From the start, conflict is a factor of the structure and embedding in the development process. I also discovered classical story structure should be examined by game creators because it is simple and effective. This tool will not spark your creativity,...

  For my project this week, I worked on position my character/player on top of the buildings. I just had to create a mess to prevent the character from falling through the buildings.  It took me a while to try and find a good tutorial and code move my player from left to right.  I looked at unity tutorial that provided code and my character can move from left to right and also jump.  I also created boundaries to my player cannot move out of the camera view and is limited.  When my character jumped from building to buildings from left to right,  the player was falling through the sides of the buildings. So, I put my buildings together to prevent this and decided i am going to create a long path of buildings instead of jumping from building to building. 

For this week for the tutorials, I watched   BlueFever Software   video step by step to create a character for my game. I quickly learned that creating a character from objects in unity was going to be very difficult, so I found this video which became very useful.  I have found out that Mixmao provides free characters to you if you have an adobe account. I searched for an appropriate character that would fit my game. I found this woman character, in a suit that looks for like a secretary.   I then imported the character and then made it a Humanoid Rig in the inspector, for this to work properly you need an avatar, which is my character I imported  When the character was imported I need to apply the materials, as the character had no texture when imported, so  in the inspector I applied the materials and textures.  Finally, I wanted to make my character move, so In the end when the player presses the space bar the character will jump....

I created this quote Here

  Source: flickr Feedback in Overall the comments I have received in my post are great and useful. I love receiving feedback on my post and people enjoy reading my blog. I love when people give me suggestions or have an input in my project. When other students also give me ideas on my project too!  These comments I find are the most useful and help me with my project if I'm stuck with something. I also love when students propose and ask questions in the comments. I love responding to others and it is a great  communication tool to get to know other students in different classes.  Feedback out Giving and providing feedback on other students projects is my favourite task in this module. It is great to see how other students are getting along each week with their project and how they progressed. When I am giving students feedback I aim to give good and strategic feedback. I always use TAG. Tell, Ask and Give. It is a great way to give feedback. I also try and provide s...

As I reminisce and reflect on the reading and writing tasks I have completed in this module I have gained a lot of knowledge about gaming and how to create a game. I never knew how much work goes into creating a game. When entering this module, I had little to no knowledge about gaming.  Now, when I play games I am analysing the game mechanics, the narrative, the level of difficulty and is the game engaging and so much more.  In the first stage of reading and writing, I was proposed with the question What is a game?.  I learned that question can be answered in several aspects. As I progress with my game, I always tend to look back on the notes I have created in Game Design. When creating my game I always consider this sentence. The components of a game: rules to action and storyline. If you want to have a captivating game, construct rules of what your player can or cannot do while playing the game.  Also during this reading, I learned about several different ways fo...

  Throughout the week I was working on my project. Firstly I applied more detail to the buildings by adding a plane on top of the buildings to give a concrete and rooftop pattern.  Secondly, I tried to create my character from scratch, creating with cubes and spheres, but this turned out to be difficult. I then watched a youtube tutorial helping create my character. I got my character from Mixamo, which is free if you have an adobe account. I looked for a character that fitted my game, so I chose a secretary. This was a perfect fit for my game. I then applied all the textures and materials to my character/player in Unity Finally, it was time to delve into the nitty gritty...coding. I first wanted to start with the basics and I put my character on the ground, instead of the buildings, as the player was falling through the building. I have yet to figure this problem. I got my players to jump and jump according to speed and gravity with the aid of the unity tutorials.  I wan...

  Picpedia.Org This week's first reading is titled "Gamification." What does having a good time have to do with it? focuses on gamification, yet the subjects they cover are also relevant to game creation. Fun is better described as "pleasurable engagement" in the context of games and gamification, as opposed to "passive" aesthetic enjoyment and entertainment. In this article I read Gamification design: what's fun got to do with it?  Marc LeBlanc's outlines 8 kinds of fun: Sensation - Game as sense pleasure  Fantasy -  Game as make believe  Narrative - Game as drama  Challenge - Game as obstacle course  Fellowship -  Game as social framework Discovery - Game as uncharted territory Expression - Game as self-discovery  Submission - Game as pastime I found LeBlanc's outlines of fun really helpful and easy to understand compared to the others in the article.  In the video A theory of fun for game design  the attractiveness of a game...

  I used my own images to create a collage of my adorable pets! I used to make collages years ago anytime it was my friends or family birthdays and post them on social media. Creating a collage was like second nature to me. I had fun with this task.  I used Canva to create my collage. I have used Canva multiple times to create all sort of things, but never a collage. It was fairly easy and straight forward creating this. 

    Unit 4.1 This week's unity tutorial was very different from any other tutorial. I was presented with a floating island with an aesthetically pleasing sky effect. (side note- which I might look into later and how to create a nice sky effect for my own game. ) The Agenda was the user will be able to rotate the camera in a full circle around the island, giving them a view of the location. A sphere will represent the player, which will be wrapped in a realistic texture of your choice. Finally more force, I applied code to allow the player  to move forward or backward in the direction of the camera.  The only new skill I found was the camera rotating around the island., but I don't see myself using that  feature for my own game.     Unit 4.2 Again, I applied my preferred texture to the enemy. The enemy bounced off the the player.  Finally, the player will be chased throughout the island by the enemy, who will spawn in random locations. I ...

  Finally, this week I got to create my game scene. When I first opened Unity I was kinda... lost. I did not know where to start and how to make my own assets. I was like a dear in headlights for a moment, but then I started by creating a plane to give me a base to work on. Then I created cubed objects so they can be the buildings and then finally I applied a wall around my scene which will be the sky.  Once I got my head around creating objects, it became very easy and also fun. I enjoyed seeing my vision come to life even though its in the early stages.  I also created my my player controller script, spawn manger script and move left script to get me started for the coding aspect. I have not applied any coding , as I focused on creating and setting my scene.  After I created my objects it was time to bring them to life, so I added textures. I got my textures from copy right free sources so I could apply it to my game. I watched a very useful Youtube video, which wa...

Source: flickr Here is the link to my game design document   I have researched several aspects for my project. I created my GDD with Dundoc, which also helped me arrange my document. The game design document is a work in progress, I love the how each document is different and there is no specific layout. I'll keep track of the game's details and decisions, such as characters, levels, and systems.  A GDD is a document that documents the aspects and mechanics of a game. I will used this as a communication tool to show my lecture all my decisions I have taken for this project.   

  Source In this weeks reading the flow theory in games is the theme for this week. Flow is critical for creating an interesting game for the audience providing pleasure for the player.  Flow is a psychological principle that we can apply to our game to create challenges that are both entertaining and appropriate for the player's skill level, allowing them to remain engaged in the game. We can utilise flow as a tool to assist improve our game in many ways by understanding things like this tiny diagram, and we can also have a framework for gameplay that is based on human psychology rather than winging it. We'll be working our way through Flow's straightforward progression. We aim to put a challenge in front of the player. The player will be pushed into a flow state by the challenge, and we want to keep them there. Flow state is also described a being "in the zone". A flow graph is a graph that shows how player skill is mapped to challenge on the y-axis. When player...

Source: flickr  

  In this week's unity lessons, I found it super intriguing. The last two tutorials I have been working on creating an endless running game. This week I added the bells and whistles to add the final touches to the game.   Firstly, I learned about a new feature applying animations to my player. I made my player run in the spot and increased his speed, so it matches the background speed. I will apply this to my final game, which was super useful.  Secondly, I added dirty and explosion animations. While the player is runner, the runner has dirty coming from his feet, and then I added an explosion animation when the player collides with the obstacles. While I was applying these animations I also added a fall animation when the player dies.  Finally, for this tutorial I added sounds and music, when the player jumps there is a sound and when the player dies there is a sound too. There is also background music. All these features add the finishing touches to the game....

   Source: flickr The final name for my game is "Secretary Sprint". It is an endless 3D running game,  designed for a desktop. The secretary is on the run, as he  stole money from his boss. The secretary is being chased by his angry and aggressive boss, and takes place on the rooftop of buildings, hoping the player will flee from the boss.  I was inspired by Subway Surfers and Temple Run, these games have always been my favourite since I was a child. Ever since I got my first Ipad at 9 years old, I would spend hours upon hours playing endless 3D running games. I find these games are easy, addictive and appeal to all ages across the board. This game is not aimed at one particular age category. So when it came to creating my own game, I decided to create my own endless running game.  This game will be packed with obstacles for the player to avoid. The player will be in control of the secretary on the run from his boss. Obstacles will add more difficulty to th...

  Source: flickr This week, in reading week I read about Game Design Document (GDD ), which all game designers should have, containing all their ideas for the game. A GDD is a great structure to put all your information and ideas about the game.A game's mechanics are defined in detail by a number of key design considerations.  Designers use design documents to keep track of their design decisions. You won't have to solve the same design challenge twice this way. It also used for yourself to help everyone understand the game ideas and what direction the game going in. It learned that a GDD is very fluid, and there is no actual format to follow.  If you do not create a document or any prier planning, you may find yourself backing into a corner leaving you with no more ideas. Distinct game development teams have different documentation requirements. This will vary depending on the size of your team and the complexity of your project, but in general, it separates design...

  This lesson is by far one of the most enjoyable and definitely the most interesting, as I stated in my last post the coding and mechanics for my final game will definitely be similar. The agenda for this lesson is the background moves in perfect sync with the obstacles, and the obstacles disappear as they leave the game borders. When the player collides with an obstacle, the background and spawn manager will come to a halt thanks to script communication. When you collide with an obstacle, you'll get a game over notice in the console log, and the background and spawn manager will stop working. The one thing I find confusing is the script communication.  I needed to communicate to the Spawn Manager script and tell it to stop when the game is ended.I could not wrap my head around the code.I found myself not having a complete understanding of it, but hopefully moving forward I will start to understand it. Everything else in this lesson. went smoothly, and there was repeating cod...