Atomic Garden Interactive

1 or 2... I experimented with some Post-processing layers. I think using film grain and vignette will really add to the atmosphere of the game, other effects I think I want to wait till I have a closer to finished product to test with before making a decision. I also think I want to keep the effects subtle so as to not be obnoxious so I'm going to try to use as few as possible .

Af fine map indeed Another bug I  encountered in my previous project was when using the PSX shader on large surfaces the warping became severe which was disorientating while playing. This is because the affine mapping that the shader does to emulate the affine mapping the PS1 did, approximates the positions of vertices in screen space meaning that if the vertex in question is far off-screen the approximation becomes more inaccurate meaning that if you subdivide the meshes into smaller triangles the effect is drastically diminished.

Trippy warning. During the development of my previous project, I encountered a bug with the PSX shader seen in the video above. When using fog the shader would break even when using linear fog which was advised with the shader. After a lot of messing around with settings, I found if I increased the fog start distance it fixed the bug.

Ya gotta think outside the grey box, ya know These are the grey boxes for the first 2 Lvls of The Barbican. The first is a straight shot to the objective to familiarise the player with their goal. The second is a spiral to introduce alternate paths to the player and encourage exploration of the environment. The Initial rooms with the Npc and dialogue will be separate scenes.

*Insert Joke Title Here* While testing some of the different Unity Templates I discovered that due to a change in the way that unity handles shaders a few years ago the PSX shader doesn't work with either the universal render pipeline or the HDR pipeline. This means that I must use the built-in unity renderer if I want to use PSX. This isn't the biggest issue but does illustrate the problem of using older resources found online that they often aren't kept up to date with current standards.

Mise-en-scène Using the objects I had created I tried to create miniature scenes or vignette that utilise an amount of environmental storytelling.  For instance, see above there is a cigarette but in the foundation and only one of the people is obviously a smoker implying that they put it there. Also, there is a table set out in such a way as to imply that the three NPCs all sit together sometimes. Had I more time I would like to add the dialogue that I had planned but these vignettes will surfice.

Pro Bricklaying Using Pro Builder I created the larger shapes of the level like the building that he level takes place on and the slightly smaller but still bigger than the player objects such as the shed and the lift buildings and walls.

London Fog is back! I used the fog setting in unity to create a linear gradient that obscures the distant building and the horizon this adds a great amount of atmosphere instantly and really helps set the mood I'm going for.

London Upsidedown I imported the blender file into Maya and duplicated and flipped it to create the greater overhang of the city that the text mentions. 

Now in Orange I used the unity package Pro Builder I grey boxed out my level concept. By doing this I realised that the vertical nature of the level I had chosen would not work the way I wanted to. The sightlines from this level were severely obscured and the nature of being in buildings like this would mean I would need to create a whole bunch of objects I am not currently prepared to. So I will redraw my level.

Blender GIS BlenderGIS GitHub I found this video about Blender GIS which allows you to easily import map data from google bing and OSM into Blender. This creates not only the basic shapes of buildings and the layout of the map but also things like the elevation. With this, I hope I can create a large cityscape the player can see from the place space without the need for me to go in and individually model a bunch of building then place them. this should both save me a bunch of time but also create a far more interesting horizon than I could create using simple cubes.  The Building come in without any textures or UVs so I'm going to have to find a way you texture them that is quick and makes sense but given the distance from the player and the high chance, ill add fog or some effect that obscures the players view that should be relatively easy to accomplish.

Ninja Frog Training Here is a link to play the final version of my game The goal is to get your Ninja Frog through the trials. You'll need to platform, solve puzzles and avoid spikes to make your way through levels of increasing difficulty to get to the golden room at the end. The Controls appear on Screen but for clarity here they are again: W,A,D to Move S to Crouch SPACE to Jump CTRL to Reset to the last Checkpoint This version features: A complete set of 3 levels broken up into 9 rooms. Fully implemented movement and controls with camera chase and lookahead. Complete Checkpoint System that when the player touches a Checkpoint sets their respawn to it. Complete Hazards, with spikes that send you back to the last checkpoint and animated spike blocks that move around.  Complete artistic assets with backgrounds and midgrounds as well as all other art assets. Removed Unused assets from development and cleared up file structure.

Covidy Shmovidy This project overall I feel went better than the last one. I didn't have any instances where I got stuck on a problem for more than an hour or so. I was also often pleasantly surprised that the solutions I came up with worked really well. The experience of taking a game project like this through all its stages was also very valuable as I was able to see a clear progression from test hall to prototype to final version. What went well. Using the art asset pack was a godsend. It made me focus on what was reasonably possible in the near future and gave me the tools to experiment with new ideas. All this without having to commit to more time spent making visual elements first, which would have been discarded anyway.  Using Tilemaps was also something that made my life a lot easier. I was able to rapidly sketch, prototype and then deploy levels and ideas with as little effort as using something like MS paint . I created 3 Layers each with different properties. The backgro...

SO YOU GOTTA BOAST ABOUT IT! Getting the player to learn how to play your game is one of those challenges that every game designer faces. I decided to attempt to use the subtle method of giving the player no choice but to do the action and implying through affordance and context what to do without telling them what to do. For example at the beginning of the game the player spawns on the left against a wall. It follows then that they must move right. The player then falls into a pit. They must use the jump key to escape, then into another pit, same deal as the first except now they cant directly jump out as they have a jump off of the raised block because the wall is 3 blocks high. This teaches the player their limits without simply telling them. The pits are also just too long to jump over so a player cant accidentally miss this lesson. Next, the player enters a room where the ceiling slopes down nearly to the floor heavily implying crouching and affording them a small space to move th...

A place for everything and everything in its place. I made sure to keep a clean and clear file structure and naming convention for my project. This prevented me from losing any objects in the scene and allowed me to quickly fix bugs that came up as I could see exactly what I was looking at at a glance.

A man was eaten by a verb. That's what happened. Verb ate'im. When coming up with ideas for my game I tried to think of all the actions a player could take as different verbs. I would then construct sentences using those verbs to represent the puzzles of each stage. For example: The player first Climbs  up the platform, then Pushes the box onto the spikes. The player then Falls from the platform onto the box then Jumps to the Checkpoint. This clearly shows the different actions the player will take in the puzzle and allows me to see what each puzzle idea is actually asking the player to do and how much in between checkpoints. if the sentences get too long then I know I need to break them up with a checkpoint. or if they get too repetitive I know I will need to vary up or rearrange the challenges.  List of verbs in my game Jump Run Crouch Push Reset Dodge Climb Fall To be clear each verb doesn't necessarily correspond to a specific mechanic. The feeling a player gets wh...

The Spirit level isn't as fun as it sounds The way I designed the levels was I drew out my idea using the Tilemap and one tile. Then I added in any special features such as boxes and hazards using different colour tiles as place holders. This created the basic shape of the level and allowed me to tweak it quickly as well as have the character dropped into it to test things such as can the player make this jump. All without having to worry about aesthetics yet. I got this idea from grey boxing, used mostly in 3D games it blocks out the physical features of your level or map to allow you to see more clearly the spaces that you are developing. Then once I had made any revision I would go through and paint over with the correct tiles test the level again and finally replace the place holders with the real objects such as boxes and spike blocks. Finally adding backgrounds.

They're everywhere! Run for your lives! I kept a log of bugs I found so I remembered to fix them later and to remember the solution should they crop up again. This really helped, as a couple of times I got the same issue long after I encountered and solved it the first time. it was simple to look at my notes and be able to see that the problem was I had missed setting up a component or that it was a unity issue that would be solved by simply restarting the program.

Those enlightened enough to see through their third eye often forget that it's just another place they can get poked. I am using Cinemachine Virtual Camera System for my camera as it gives an easy of having a camera controller that has features such as lookahead, dead zones and dampening camera movement without me having to write it myself in what would very likely be an inferior manner. Implementing it was super easy, I simply enabled it in the package manager and then created a virtual camera game object. Then I went through the setting (seen left) until I was satisfied with the effect and it was done.

The Source! Not just for Hip-Hop anymore! I'm using unity's built-in 'Collaborate' feature to control my source and enable me to revert to previous versions.  I have already had one instance where something I changed broke my character controller and since I was experimenting at the time rather than spent potentially alone time fixing it I reverted to a previous version and was right back to everything working in no time at all. Using the comment system gives me a sort of version notes that tells me what each version contains. I will be creating an entirely new version for the final project but this is a good interim system that helps facilitate clear developmental progress.