Game Development Journey: Weeks 2-3

What have I learned?

Where to begin. I’m continuing to learn C#, more on that later. I’ve learned that there are plug ins for Unity, again more on that later. I’ve also learned that communicating and working with a team is hard.

Code

I was following a book, however when I found out how old it was, I decided that I would look online for tutorials. Lo and behold there are TONS of tutorials on the internet. But we already knew that, so whats different? Well on channel 9, Microsoft’s own internet video hub thing(who knew that existed) they have a series on C# hosted by Bob Tabor. Besides being a LOST fan, he’s a really easy to understand instructor. These video’s don’t go in depth and don’t go specifically into game development, however if your learning C# it seems like the best way to get started. In regards to specific game development tutorials I have a bunch that look good, but I haven’t gotten a good enough look at them to tell if their worth looking at.

I can’t remember if I mentioned that were utilizing the Unity game engine for our project. It just makes sense for us as a small group, and it would be stupid for us to try and develop our own engine. So why C# then? Most Unity tutorials are in Javascript and I realize that, however the Javascript in Unity is despite its name not Javascript, it’s similar, however learning Unity’s Javascript would mean learning something inapplicable outside of Unity. In addition C# is a more powerful and capable language.

For learning how to use Unity I found a few different sources. First off Walker Boy Studio has hours and hours of videos which include Javascript ones, there are videos for everyone though.

I also found a series of tutorials on making a 2d game with free tools. Sounds great right? It doesn’t go into design or art, or code, but focuses on how to put things together in Unity. These tutorials point to lots of great plug ins and resources for Unity. If you don’t want to look their I’ll list them here:

The Orthello 2D framework, is free and provides a pretty easy way to work with sprites and sets up the camera for 2d automatically.

itween is a C# script that assists with animation. Really helpful.

A*Pathfinding Project. I personally haven’t used it, but its supposed to work great.

Texture Packer is a easy way to make sprite sheets. It’s not connected with Unity in any way, however Orthello does support it natively which makes everything easier. It’s just a simple drag and drop application that exports an image with a xml file.

Business:

Normally I won’t have a business section(it was ommited from week 1) however occasionally I might find something on the web, like this week. Here’s a youtube video with Ben Kuchera covering how to get your indie game press.

Design:

As far as design resources go, Gamasutra is and will continue to be the best the web has to offer. So I will post my favorite articles from Gamasutra here, along with my own thoughts if they’re relevant.

But right now what’s caught my eye is an editorial series analyzing western rpg’s on joystiq. Their pretty well done, and they get me thinking about working with rpg mechanics and assumptions ect.

As an ending note, Wikipedia is your friend if your researching story elements, or really anything for your game. Don’t expect it to teach your new and amazing concepts but it is a great refrence.