Multimedia Development

So this weeks Unity Tutorial was split into two parts. The first part was the usual step by step tutorial where I watched then followed along. It was about things colliding in a game which I think will be quite helpful when it comes to making my game (in my game the game ends if the player collides with another object). I found this part fine, as usual I was on a roll until I forgot something as simple as a ";" at the end of coding which made me look back and waste 20 minutes!  Image Information - Screenshot from Unity - 2.4 Collision Decision  The second part I found much more difficult. Like the task a few weeks ago it was a Challenge Tutorial. In it you had to work by yourself to try and fix the coding for the game to work properly. Using the hints and looking at the final outcome video helped me somewhat, I figured out the first 4 parts by myself but the last 2 and the bonus made me very confused. I went back on previous tutorials to try figure out how to work the SpawnRa

In my Game Vision Statement I will be going into detail about my game using the following headings: Introduction Description Key Features  Genre Platform Resources Required Links to Sources Concept Art Introduction   I hadn't even thought of a name for my game but have decided to go with "Rapid River Race".  Rapid River Race is a PC/Laptop one player game and it is a combination of Vehicle Simulation/Platform and Strategy. In it you will be in control of a boat sailing along a jungles river. You must collect coins and avoid obstacles before the time is up - if you do not - GAME OVER! Description The game will be set on a river in a jungle like location where you will be in charge of navigating the boat. In the game you will be racing against the clock to collect all the coins along the river. On your way you will face different obstacles like rocks and fallen trees which you must avoid. If you don't and you crash into these objects - the game is over. I went to the Ap

For this weeks Tech Tip I learned how to make a LolCat at the  Cheezburger  website.  

 All I can say about this weeks Unity Tutorials is... FINALLY.  I think I spent about 5 hours in total this week trying to fix all the messes that I kept making throughout the tutorials. My mistakes were all down to coding issues and I found it quite similar to using CSS in Web Development 1 and 2 last year, the tiniest detail can mess the game up and stop it from playing.  I'm finding it quite difficult to grasp the coding in Visual Studio, I feel like the information I'm been giving is going in one ear and out the other. Even though I'm finding it difficult I still do enjoy watching the tutorials and feel a kind of self accomplishment when I finally get to the end of them.  I think it's cool to see each week how to add more and more elements into your game and I can see how in the long run this will go towards the game I have to make. Things like going from side to side and being able to shoot things could be very useful in making my game. Image Information - Screensh

The first thing I done as part of this weeks reading task was watched the following  video . In it, they talk about Game MDA and what exactly it is.  It stands for: Mechanics  - The mechanics are the rules of the game and any movement the player may take - this includes running, walking, jumping etc. Dynamics -   In the video a quote is used which was said by Mark LeBlanc he said; "Dynamics are the emergent behaviour that from gameplay. When the mechanics are put into use"   Aesthetics - This is the emotional response that a game has on a player. It is a tool that is used in game design that analyses games to show the connection between the 3 categories above. So basically the different mechanics combined make the games dynamics which then form the aesthetics. It is used by game designers to improve their games.  Next up was the paper  MDA: A Formal Approach to Game Design and Game Research  by Robin Hunicke, Marc LeBlanc and Robert Zubek.   They also go into detail about Gam

So last week our game idea research began and I had to brainstorm and come up with 4 possible game ideas.  They were: A Golf/Bowling Combination A Halloween themed bicycle game A Boat on a river collecting times A Supermarket Sweep inspired game After doing some research into each one, the game I decided to focus on for the rest of the semester is the one that involves a boat on a river collecting items. I have went for this particular one because after doing the Unity Tutorials over the past couple of weeks I think I have gained similar enough skills to do a decent job. I have looked on Unity and Youtube and have found multiple videos that have given me inspiration. 

 The first article that I read as part of this weeks feedback task was  How to Give Bad Feedback Without Being a Jerk ; written by Adam Grant. After reading this it made me realise I am the exact person who gives people "Feedback Sandwiches". I always feel so bad saying anything even slightly negative to people faces and I don't want to hurt their feelings so I always try to play it down somehow. Adams suggestions on how to give feedback are so simple and honest and I think any team leader would gain in reading his article.  “ I noticed a couple things and wondered if you’re interested in some feedback.” in particular is one line I think is really good to keep in the back of my mind for the next time I have to give feedback in person, like Adam said, once the person receiving it agrees to the feedback they will be less defensive about it and see it as coming from a good place.  The second article I read was  he Trouble with “Amazing”: Giving Praise that Matters ; written

This week I continued with the Unity Tutorials.  The first part "lesson 1.4 - Step into the Driver's Seat" was a continuation from last weeks tutorial. In last week tutorials we got the car moving in a straight line and this weeks aim was to make it move from left to right smoothly. I thought this part of this weeks task was pretty straight forward with the help of the videos.  The second part "Challenge 1 & Quiz Plane Programming" was a completely new task. I found this task really challenging and to try and help myself I went back on last week's Tutorial to try and get some help. I was working on it for quite a while with no luck and kept getting an Error message. I eventually went to google to get some more guidance and found a walk through of the task that helped me figure out exactly where it was that I was going wrong in my coding.  This weeks tutorials made me realise I have a lot of work to do with Unity and how it works and that I may have to re

Last week I spoke about the definition of what a game is and discovered how broad the answer is. This week I looked at the different elements within a game, these include: -Players  -Objectives -Rules -Resources and Resource Management  -Game State -Information -Sequencing  -Player Interaction -Theme (Narrative, Backstory, Setting) -Games as Systems  The first article to be read was  "What are the Qualities of Games?"  by Ian Schreiber and it was regarding Critical Analysis and what it is. Before this reading I thought of it as a negative e valuation of something, that it points out flaws within something but after reading the article I learned it is much more than that . By looking at the different steps of critical analysis when examining a work it progress it could help you improve on certain aspects of your project. The second article to be read was  "Game Design Research"  by Annakaisa Kultima. In it they go into detail about Game Design and what differentiates

The location I decided to use for this Tech Tip was the TU Dublin Blanchardstown. I decided to use this location because it's the one thing we all have in common.  You can also find the Google Map  here . Imagine Information -  Maps Logo

For this part of this weeks tasks we had to read two articles that discussed feedback. The first one that I read was  How to Get Past Negativity Bias in Order to Hardwire Positive Experiences  by Katrina Schwartz, I didn't really relate to it that much and couldn't see myself using the methods she suggested so I decided to move on to a different article. I myself like more straight to the point articles which is why I liked  Seven Ways to Crush Self Doubt in Creative Work  by John Spencer way more. In it he briefly goes through his experiences with self doubt in his work environment before listing the 7 ways to help with getting over Self Doubt.  His 7 ways were: 1- Don't Compare Yourself to Others 2-Abandon Perfectionism  3-Be Vulnerable to a Trusted Community  4-Embrace a Growth Mindset  5-Set Goals that are within your control 6-Treat Your Work Like an Experiment  7- Trust Yourself  I think most of the above are pretty straight forward just from reading them but if you w

Game Idea 1 In one of the first blog posts that I posted I spoke about how I am not much of a gamer. I used to play them when I was younger but it would always be WWE or Grand Theft Auto. I also used to play the Nintendo Wii. When I was thinking about game ideas I had to take into consideration that at this point I don't have a lot of skills. I start thinking about the games I liked as a kid and remembered that I used to love playing golf or bowling. So instead of just playing bowling in a usual alley, why couldn't I do both? So my first idea is to have the player being able to play a game of bowling on a golf course. I will include the usual layout of a golf course - Tee, Fairway, Green, Rough and Hazards. I will also have Golf Caddies and Spectators to make it feel like a real golf tournament. For my research into this idea I went to YouTube to find videos of the gameplay of both Golf and Bowling on the Nintendo Wii. This video for the golf gameplay is 11 minutes long so don&

 In one of my previous blogs I mentioned how during this semester I wanted to update the design of my blog so this Tech Tip seemed perfect. I experimented with Blogger Design Templates and I myself prefer a dark background. I changed my theme to Contempo Dark and put the background image to an image that I took myself when I was in New York. I also originally had my Twitter widget in the top sidebar but changed it to the bottom sidebar. It only took me around 10/15 minutes and with help from the brief it made it simple! This is the image I used for my background. Photo Information - Own Image

Photo Information -  unity logo  So I just finished Lesson 1.1, 1.2 and 1.3 of the Unity Lab Tutorials and they weren't nearly as bad as I first thought they would be! They were done step by step both on video and underneath the video where it explained what had to be done.  I found it quite daunting at the start using a new software I'd never even heard of (in previous posts I've said I am not a gamer) and I wasn't sure how I would get on with it but it actually wasn't so bad in the end. The one thing that threw me off was the length of each tutorial but with the help of this tip I was given it didn't take too long at all. ------> I was surprised at how much I actually enjoyed getting to know how to use Unity. I thought it was pretty straightforward and it makes me excited knowing that the end goal of these tutorials is that I will eventually be making my own game. During one of the videos I messed up completely and lost my scene for about half an hour which

So what is a game? The first article " What is a Game Anyway? " goes into some detail about what the meaning of a game is. You could ask 100 people that question and they could all have their own unique answer and that's the great thing about games. One person could think a game is as easy as a character walking down the street picking up apples while another would shut down that idea and suggest that the character should have some sort of conflict.  Take a minute yourself and Google the meaning of game, there's plenty of different descriptions. Here I have included Oxford Dictionary's definition of  "Game" . Photo Information:  Console Controller The interviews carried out by Annakaisa Kultima for the paper " The Organic Nature of Game Ideation: Game Ideas Arise from Solitude and Mature by Bouncing " gave some fantastic insight into the mind of a game designer, even paid professionals need inspiration to spark new ideas and it showed that ever