Game Dev Journey: Weeks 6-7
This is coming in a little late, but whatever. I’ve been reading the book Getting Things Done , so I’m feeling somewhat professional, don’t worry it will pass. After I’ve given an overview of what the last two weeks have brought to me personally, I’ll get into tools we can use to manage projects, especially across the web.
Ya, you jump pickle man. You jump for the rest of us!
Game Dev Journey: Weeks 4-5
These past weeks have been full of feverish learning, but little progress otherwise. I finished up my basic C# training, although I understand its a constant learning experience. I’ve picked up a book on basic Object Oriented Programming(OOP), as the video’s mentioned last week really didn’t go into it. More on that later if it turns out to be helpful.
Here's a tile that won't be making it into the game.
The team has created some assets, but its very sparse so far. Luckily we have spring break up ahead that will let us catch up on some stuff so we can hit our goals for the month.
I’ve found a couple of new resources to help guide us learners. First off the wiki for Game Programming, is pretty good but not that welcoming to new learners. You have to be pretty savy to understand a lot of it. But contrary to its name its not only for programmers, they have sections on game design and project managment as well as forums.
In the area of game programming/scripting the Buzz 3d unity tutorial has been really great, although in the video’s they promise a more indepth series that has yet to happen. They cover how to make a basic 2d shooter, kinda like space invaders, but some how on a smaller scale because there’s only one enemy at a time. Despite it being a stupid game its good to know the basics of how to script in unity. Oh and it uses C# as its language which is important.
The pickle in question
Me and Tim have started a side project that we hopefully can finish pretty fast. It’s name as of now is The Preposterous Pickle. After spending an hour or 2 on it I was able to get him to get off the ground at the tap of a button, however he wouldn’t come back down, which as you can imagine is a problem. I’m thinking we’ll release that here, or somewhere else on the web for people to play when its done.
This is what the game looks like so far...so this is what games look like before they have all those fancy graphics huh?
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.
A Game Developers Journey: Where to begin
I don’t know anyone who knows what its like to make a game. I don’t know how to make a game anymore than the next guy trust me, but that’s not going to stop me from trying.
This journal is going to follow the process, and what it takes to get their, or fail as the case may be. Hopefully I can keep this as a weekly column covering my discoveries, hardships failures… yet if there’s nothing to talk about that week I won’t bore you or myself by writing.
The idea behind these posts is to give some insight on what it takes to make a game, and force me to look at my current process’s with an analytical eye. Keep in mind that this is NOT a guide on how to make a game, there are books that claim to do that. However if your a small developer or someone hoping to make games for fun than maybe these articles will amuse, entertain, and there’s a slight chance that they could inform. We’ll see.
First of all let’s talk about the things I’ll be discussing in these articles. In other words what are the fundamental parts of a game, and what do they mean.
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