#gam111

First off, all the requirements for the game was completed. In the last week, the scene manager coding was fixed, a leader board was created, music added, atheistics buffed, all the level design was completed and everything is functional.

The scene manager was fixed because it turns out that when you load a scene, it’s starts again so putting an unload/load code within start messes with the order and sends it in a Loop. This was fixed by putting it on a trigger at the end of the previous level. The real issue I had was actually my grapple rope colliding with the player sending it off like team rocket. That was then moved.

Some other issues which arose were my player sliding off a moving platform (fixed by making the player a child of the platform upon collision), moving platforms triggering my checkpoint system, sending my player back to first checkpoint (fixed by an if statement that only player can trigger that) and getting highscores to save (fixed by watching tutorials on playerPrefs).

Some things which a put a bandaid on because I didn’t have time to redo include the grapple hook system. I creating a reset on the rope and anchor transform so that when the player respawns before one, they can still use it. I had to use an Ienumerator for this, because otherwise when the player immediately let go, their velocity forward was jolted. I then noticed that the grapple glitches when going from a moving platform. This is because the player can’t be a child of a moving platform and have its velocity at the same time as the anchor for the rope. This was just bandaided by putting in the instructions that the player needs to jump before grappling.

Some desirables which I didn’t get to implement in time, include being able to input your name next to your highscores, sound effects for respawn collisions and a pause screen to exit the game or take a quick break. Also to make the controls playable on a game pad. These would’ve been easy enough to implement but I ran out of time to do so.

The only issue I noticed about the assessment which I realised afterwards was the length of each level time wise. My second and third level are a bit too long because the moving platforms delay the player. If you find the glitch however, they’re about the same.

The last week was rather unproductive. I had issues with scene manager that I couldn’t solve which delayed me creating level two at all. I started to create it parallel to level one but that cause other problems.

This week I completed the first level platforms and respawn spots. I also created a timer but have yet to put audio in. I had trouble when I started to do a second scene for level two and everything went weird. I’m still working that one out.

I’m still having trouble with the grapple hook system. I can only have one on a level at the moment and I am also still trying to figure out why. I believe it’s to do with how the raycast is done.

This week’s report is for week 3, Simple 3D Game.

Upon rereading the brief, it has come to my understanding that the key function of the game is that the player has to have some control over a physics-based element. This scraps my previous prototype as the level design doesn’t allow for this kind of interaction.

The goal for this week was to create a working prototype that can be played by others preferably before the next class. Due to the setback of misreading the brief, I had to spend more time scripting and problem-solving than expected.

Some specific issues I had include inability to run up and down walls where gravity was orientated, changing the quaternion lerp so that it didn’t rotate the character a complete 90 degrees, creating a trampoline-like effect on platforms and creating a grappling hook/rope that can be swung on.

The inability to run up and down the gravity-orientated walls was solved using clamps, and rotating the player along the vertical axis rather than the camera. The quaternion lerp took a bit of research but was very simply fixed with an if statement restricting when the lerp could be applied. The trampoline-like effect, I thought could be solved using physics materials and making the surface bouncy. Unfortunately this didn’t work and I ended up creating the bounce effect by adding force to the colliding object. The grappling hook is somewhat complete and I am hoping to complete it before the next class or the end of the week at the latest.

This week’s progress report is for the GAM111.1 Simple 3D Game (Physics Based).

This is the first week that development began on the brief and the goal was to get a basic working level design as a prototype. I created a couple of small prototypes for the speedrunner but found that they didn’t quite fit the brief. I settled on an outer-space like environment with changing gravity.

I successfully created triggers to change the gravity upon entering different areas but the Quaternion.Lerp isn’t behaving exactly as intended and is flipping the player 180 degrees the wrong way along the y-axis when the gravity is changed to be opposite standard gravity. This has yet to be fixed. Time is a large constraint at the moment that needs to be managed more efficiently.

The retrospective on my gaming skills reflecting back are I have learned how to do a number of things, but there are still some things or aspects that we haven't looked into that I would like to learn. Such as, how to code to have a camera follow after the player in a physics game (if the player character is a rolling ball) and have the camera follow behind them if the player turns left or right. 

I would like to learn how you can code things so when the character falls into the abyss of the Unity Creator off any platform you are working on, how you can code anything so they restart back on the platform, or even simple messages telling the player they have died. Or learn how to code invisible walls etc, things like that which were not covered but could have been useful to learn. 

I’m going to list the game developers I respect off the top of my head, concentrating on the game studios, starting with Square Enix. I have mentioned them a few times, and ever since my intial days as a gamer, they are still out there as one of the big game developers still making games that I am looking forward to when they come out (Final Fantasy XV, Kingdom Hearts 3). They are also behind the Final Mix High Definition versions of the re-released Kingdom Hearts 1.5 and 2.5, which is basically 1 and 2 added with two extra Kingdom Hearts games in the series, all in the one disk and with extra unreleased content from the director's cut. That kept me very much entertained in my downtime this semester (and I am still playing the harder difficulties).

Another developer I greatly admire is Capcom, namely the Resident Evil series as of late. Me and my friends are fans of this game series and have played co-op once or twice in our available spare time, and they're highly enjoyable third-person shooters. After the semester is over in our downtime we're going to all get PS4s and play Resident Evil 6 and Resident Evil Revelations 2 co-op together, with extra content and harder difficulties, it should be a lot of fun.