Unity Free Tutorials

For this week's Unity tutorials, I have begun working on the game I am going to make. The game I am making is a 2D platformer game and I have watched some tutorials for starting my game. I found a Youtuber name Brackeys who has some tutorials for making a 2D platformer in Unity.

For the first tutorial, it was the basic starting point of getting my character to move and the camera to follow the character. I downloaded the 2D assets pack to help me make my 2D platformer. The pack came with a character design and prototypes for the ground which the character walks on when in play mode. The look of this character will not be the final look in my game. At first everything was going well but when I first tried to enter play mode, once again I encounter errors again with the script just like in other tutorials. I was frustrated at first but I got it working by editing the script of Platformer2DUserControl. 

The Platformer2DUserControl script needed fixing with these these changes below:

In the script, delete the namespace reference 'using UnityStandardAssets.CrossPlatformInput;'
Finally: under 'Update' and 'FixedUpdate' replace 'CrossPlatformInputManager' with 'Input'. They should read: m_Jump = Input.GetButtonDown("Jump"); and float h = Input.GetAxis("Horizontal");

After this, I focused on the main camera to follow and be in the same position as the character. I worked on how smooth the camera would be, meaning how focused it would be on the character. It can help for player direction to see what lies in front of them when moving forward.

For the second tutorial, it was about adding art environment. I've used some artwork from the asset store that fits the idea of the stage level I have for my game as I didn't want to use artwork from the tutorial video. The tutorial helped me learn how to use the artwork for foregrounds and backgrounds. The tutorial also showed how the add grounds that can be used for platforms but I haven't added any yet.

I feel this was a good start at making my platform game and look forward to continue working on it.

Tutorial 1
Tutorial 2

                                                       
                                                                  Work in Unity

Game Fun

For this week's reading, the articles were about fun. Two articles I've read are by Noah Falstein and Richard Bartle.

The first article by Noah Falstein is about fun and what makes a game fun. Fun is described as a source of amusement or enjoyment. A paraphrase used is "we may not be able to describe fun, but we know it when we have it". Each person has their own way of having fun. The article talked about how human evolution over the last thousands and how humans maintained their place in their families and communities.

There are different types of fun explained and why people may like these.

Physical Fun
There may be a connection between our evolutionary heritage and games and entertainment in physical form. Our primary urge of survival instinct. Anything that threatens our survival gains our attention. Anything that involves threats to survival and countering those threats will gain an audience. Hunter gathering is compared to fitness sports today as they involve body fitness and good coordination.

Social Fun
This is about meeting new people. Online multiplayer and even single-players games in group settings have helped. New technology devices like phones have helped put people in contact with new people that is also likely to further the social aspects of video games.

Mental Fun
This would involve using our intelligence to focus on mental fun. We practice and improve our mental abilities. Our ancestors would think of how they would survive, what animals would that hunt for food and how will they hunt them. They learn from their experience and use for future events and us humans today learn new things that may benefit us in our future.

The second article by Richard Bartle was about MUDs which I have never heard of. MUDs have been active since 1978. From the reading, it discusses four types of players who play MUD games. These approaches may arise from the inner-relationship of two dimensions of playing style.

Achievers 
Regard points-gathering and rising in levels as their main goal.

Explorers
Like exploring the world to discover new locations.

Socializers
Interested in meeting new people.

Killers
Prefer to kill instead of focusing on a objective.

I enjoyed reading Noah Falstein's article as I liked it discussing how people from thousands of years ago are compared to people today. Richard Bartle's article was interesting at first but my interest declined through reading.

Noah Falstein Article Link
Richard Bartle Article Link

                                                                   

                                                           
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