Unity tutorial 06.

To continue on my findings of Unity tutorials and to improve on my Unity skills, I've come across various tutorials on their website, such as animation, sound, effects, the jump force, making the world whiz, and hand presence and interaction with VR. 

⇒ In terms of the animations, sounds, and effects tutorial (https://learn.unity.com/project/unit-3-sound-and-effects?courseId=5cf96c41edbc2a2ca6e8810f), I programmed  a fast-paced endless side-scrolling runner game in which the player needs to time jump over oncoming obstacles to avoid crashing. In creating this prototype, I learned how to add music and sound effects, completely transforming the experience. I also got to learn how to create dynamic endless repeating backgrounds, which are critical for any side-scrolling game. Finally, I also got to incorporate particle effects like splatters and explosions, which really made the game much more satisfying to play.

⇒ In relation to the short "jump force" tutorial (https://learn.unity.com/tutorial/lesson-3-1-jump-force?courseId=5cf96c41edbc2a2ca6e8810f&projectId=5cf9639bedbc2a2b1fe1e848), the goal of the lesson was to set up the basic gameplay, by creating a new project and importing the starter files. Next, I got to choose a beautiful background and a character for the player to control and to allow that character to jump with a tap of the spacebar. I then got to choose an obstacle for the player, and create a spawn manager that throws them in the player’s path at timed intervals and blocks the player’s path.

⇒ With "making the world whiz" (https://learn.unity.com/tutorial/lesson-3-2-make-the-world-whiz-by?courseId=5cf96c41edbc2a2ca6e8810f&projectId=5cf9639bedbc2a2b1fe1e848), I dived straight into the core mechanics of the game and gave the player the ability to tap the spacebar to jump over incoming obstacles. However, the player at first appeared to be running for the first few seconds, but then the background just disappears. In order to fix this, I had to repeat the background seamlessly to make it look like the world was rushing by. I also set the game to halt when the player collides with an obstacle, which stopped the background from repeating and stopped the obstacles from spawning. Lastly, I then destroyed any obstacles that got past the player.

⇒ Lastly, in terms of the hand presence and interaction with VR (https://learn.unity.com/tutorial/unit-5-hand-presence-and-interaction?courseId=5d955b5dedbc2a319caab9a0), I learned how to interact with my hands in a VR environment, how to add oculus-standard hands in my game, and how to change standard hands to custom hands. This tutorial gave me a better understanding of how to attach objects to hands, how to utilize basic physical interactions in a VR experience, how to recognize common hand-object interaction challenges, and how to implement two-hand interaction in a VR experience.

Overall, I found these tutorials very. helpful and will continue on in researching some more tutorials to best improve my knowledge of unity. 

This image was found on pixabay.com

Reading 6.

To continue on in my readings, I've done additional writing on the body of my paragraphs and have completed further research on my chosen topics in relation to managing complexities and avoiding dominant strategies. Some extra subtopics I've discovered are such as games using the same rules to simulate the real world, the complexity curve, why gaming strategies are important, and the differences between a dominant and a dominated strategy. Here are two further subtopics I've written on along with a couple more in a separate word document;

The complexity curve.

↱ A game’s “complexity curve” defines the amount of information and understanding that a player must have in order to make strategically practical choices during gameplay. Therefore, in a game like chess, you would need to understand the game’s objective and how the pieces can move.  At that point, there is no further information you need to play the game. The complexity curve only applies to a game’s width and not its depth.  Say you had all of the tools and knowledge you needed in the game, but you lost, the reasoning behind this is that you lacked the mastery of the game’s inner workings. In the “coalition games profiling” process, we categorize this as “accessibility vs intensity”. The more a player commit to learning a game, the higher the chance of being rewarded, especially player types that are more fundamentally motivated, but also keep in mind the consequences here, as complexity hurts approachability. This means overall satisfaction with your game could suffer no matter how technically sound it may be.

Dominant vs. Dominated strategies.

↱ A dominant strategy is better than any alternative strategies a player can pick, regardless of the moves their opponents make. This means that, in any given game, a player’s dominant strategy will lead to the greatest payoff for them. There are two kinds of dominant strategies, a strictly dominant strategy, and a weakly dominant strategy. Strategies that are strictly dominant refer to it always giving a better outcome, regardless of which moves other players make. Strategies that are weakly dominant refer to it always giving an outcome that is as good as or better than choosing an alternative strategy. 

Whereas a dominated strategy is worse than all alternative strategies a player can pick. This means that, in any given game, a player’s dominated strategy will lead to the worst payoff for them. There are two kinds of dominated strategies, a strictly dominated strategy, and a weakly dominated strategy. Strategies that are strictly dominated refer to it always giving the worst possible outcome, regardless of what moves other players make. Strategies that are weakly dominated refer to it always giving an outcome that is as good as or worse than choosing an alternative strategy.

I've discovered both these subtopics on https://effectiviology.com/strategic-dominance/ and http://coalitiongames.com/wordpress/2016/05/17/game-theory/.

This image was found on pexels.com

Unity Tutorial 05.

Recently, I've went back to continue Jimmy Vegas' Unity tutorials, and have watched episodes 6, 7 and 8 (which can be found here). This week, I've learned about scripting an item in order to collect it (with text appearing on what button to collect it), and providing the player with a weapon (in his case, he used an axe, providing it with a sound when it was being used and an animation). I found them quite useful, as he does go in-depth with the tutorials by providing a step-by-step guide, but unfortunately I don't think I'll be using weapons in my own game. However, I do like the idea of scripting an item in order to collect it, but I do find using C# sharp confusing and very complex. I did enjoy messing around with the materials, textures and "normal map" buttons in order to create a more realistic look by adding shadowing by the sun and making it look less "baron". I'll also end up taking some of the steps from creating a weapon, and incorporating it into making someone less dangerous for my game, as I don't plan on making it multiplayer or a fighter-type game. I love Jimmy's tutorials and am excited to continue his series.

Games GDD

I've recently come across several articles on the early stages of the designing process (https://learn.canvas.net/courses/3/pages/level-5-introduction-and-readings). When deciding what to include, I tend to constrain my own ideas and concerns that don’t actually need extra time (i.e perfecting it to a T). Something I really love about games is their physical presentation, I'm more likely to appreciate one that has a lot of thought put into its design principles, such as its box, its rules and its components. The design mechanisms can go a long way in shaping how much a game can really be adored (http://www.thegamesjournal.com/articles/DesignConsiderations.shtml). For the most part, the design of the box really has nothing to do with how a game is played, but there are still problems to take into account. A lot of first impressions of a game come from the box ,and so a good design will go a long way into advertising it. Keeping in mind, but writing clear and short rules to a game does seem like it should be a simple task, until one really tries it. In fact, I think it's a very tough process and one of the trickiest things to get right. No matter how great a job I do, somewhere, someone is going to misunderstand them. With this in mind, there are some overall principles that can help minimize problems. Examples of this would be to include a detailed list of components and to not intentionally write vague rules, as this can make it more difficult for gamers to understand the controls and objectives of your game (http://www.gamecareerguide.com/features/1415/the_game_design_process.php).

Designing.