Alpha.

Since last week, I have continued on with the development of my game, by altering the sky to give it a more nostalgic feel and giving it an endpoint (congrats, you win, here are other ways you can help save the planet!)

You win!

By adding this skybox, the lighting completely changed the feel of the game and the map. The grass and trees look more alive, and in the distance, there are buildings and a sea. As part of the endpoint, I have added this image to raise awareness on global warming;

How to help the earth.

If everyone started doing these simple tasks, the world would be a better place. I do however think my map is slightly too big and I need less trees and include a barn or a house someplace to include a hidden item of plastic.. or two. As of now, the size of the map is 600x600 (a simple square), but I should be cutting it by half, surrounding the area with mountains and playing around with more than one tree-type. I'm quite happy with how my game looks so far and I cannot wait to finish it!

Review Week Comments & Feedback.

Overall, I think I benefitted a lot from the comments and feedback I was receiving from other students in my class, as I can take constructive criticism very well and I can, in turn, use this to improve my blog posts and game. I find comments who express their own opinion towards my game or about me more beneficial as I feel like I can learn and grow from it, and I find its a great way for to help me reach my goals. I find looking at other classmate's game ideas and presentations beneficial, as they inspire me to add on and push myself to create a much better game. I try my best to be as honest and sincere as I can be when I write up feedback towards my college mates, and I hope it gives them an opportunity to see their actions from my perspective. I've also looked at videos they've recommended as tutorials for their game, and took some aspects to put into my game (https://wakelet.com/i/invite?code=cb8edba), such as the forestry terrain tutorials, creating a start and end pop-up sign, and even messing around with the sky block. A good feedback strategy I've discovered is being as honest as possible, as other's can really benefit from this to improve their game and also pull their weight a bit more if they've realised their slacking is getting noticed by us. After reading everybody's comments on some of my blog posts, it gives me a better insight on how I should phrase my own feedback towards others, being its more professional or more friendly, each person to their own preference, and that's totally fine. Reading others people's blogs and commenting and replying to each others introductions, I've learned a lot about my classmates, like their tv show preferences, career goals, pets, etc. really makes me feel like I am a much closer friend to them than I thought. I'm also delighted with how many responses I've gotten on my own introduction post and how people didn't know I was Eastern European (thought my name would give it away but anyway). I'm also amazed at how these feedback comments and introductions got me to be able to talk to my peers, as I feel my year is very secluded and clique-y. I do feel the word count is unnecessary when writing feedback comments for others or when others are required to do so on mine, as I sometimes struggle trying to find critiques towards a blog post/game idea that I feel doesn't need my opinion on. I'm quite happy with my blogs layout and the content provided, as (in my opinion) is very neat, with the labels on the side for easier navigation, and a very Tumblr-esque/aesthetic background of the view from an airplane window (if you didn't know, I appreciate aestheticism). I also try my best to find more aesthetically-pleasing non-copyrighted imagery to publish, display and link to, but struggle when I consistently get recommended to adobe stock and pay a fortune for some images that I can potentially recreate or find for free on websites that display a lot more than they do.

An aesthetically pleasing image.

Week 9 Reading & Writing.

Overall, I think the reading and writing assignments were working quite well for me. I've learned a lot about the different aspects of game design and there is much more behind it, ranging from GDD's, MDA's, MUD's and so on and so forth. I now know there is a lot more work put into game design. My favourite reading thus far would possibly be based on game elements, where I done further research on gamasutra.com, thegamesjournal.com and even on reddit.com, as I got to question myself on what really makes a game fun, what qualities it must have, and what unique elements a game must contain in order to be classified as "fun". Reddit has also taught me all the errors in a bad game and how to overcome them, from unclear and bad gaming controls, to unnecessary features such as ugly user interfaces. Some games even feature extremely long and unneeded tutorials, and if a player can't play the game fast enough, they usually lose interest. I'm definitely going to try to avoid this, as I'd like my game to be "fun" and fresh. The reading notes do help me in creating my game, as I've put more thought into coming up with my own unique concepts to include into my game, so it would then be more entertaining for  game players. Also learning about the design, development, technicalities and criticism of a game put me into a much more critical mindset so I could push myself to create a much better game. I've discovered doing further research into other articles aswell as reading the ones given to us, help me understand the topics a lot more and already answer my questions. I'm very happy with my game project idea, I think it's a unique concept and I haven't seen something done before (there have been similar concepts but I don't think there are any about raising awareness on global warming and becoming more sustainable). My biggest accomplishments for the class, would be creating the actual game. At the start of the semester I had no idea what unity was, how to use it, the complications of game design, all of it. I now have a much greater understanding on each and every one of these topics, and am quite proud of myself that I am nearly finished with a fully functional game on a topic that's relevant to me.

Reading, Week 6 image.

I chose this image as one of my favourite images from my previous reading notes, as it is very clean, and sticks to minimalistic colours. This image also represents how me and my friend, Ellie, usually work on assignments together (but instead of coffee and overpriced snacks, its a Caesar salad wrap and a Diet Coke for me, and good old Navan roll for her). I also love the artsy aspect to it, and the decorations are placed in a way the scene still seems neat (oddly enough?).  I'm very excited to do further readings and research that benefit my game, and I am as excited to complete it!