Prototype: It Begins

It's finally happening. All the weeks of online reading, of Unity tutorials and of game developing have finally led to this moment. I have started to create my game and I have one thought, let me go back to Week 1 please. For this weeks project assignment I have started work on my final game for this module. When I read the assignment details for this week I wont lie, I did not know where to begin or what to do. I am still a little bit like that but at least I made a start and it is just about building on that now.

First thing I did this week was open Unity and create a new prototype for my final game. From that I didn't know what was next, but when I started to think about it I realised this is the part I normally upload or import the assets for the Unity challenge which gives me my scene, player and obstacles. However as this was for my own game, it was now up to me to get these assets. I started looking up how to do this and what was the best way to create and import the assets I wanted to Unity. I came across free unity assets to download however all the ones I actually wanted to use would have cost money and I am not at this stage yet that I want to buy the assets. Instead I went on youtube and looked at how I can create my own background, ground etc and import them into my game and create the world in which my game will be. I came across this YouTube which I found really useful in getting me started and creating my world. This was one of many YouTubes I watched but one that I found really useful in creating a world. Creating 3D quads in the hierarchy, renaming them and then adding an image would create the world in which my 3D endless running game would take place.

Next was what images was I going to use for this. I had to really think about what kind of a world I wanted my player to run through. In my initial phases of the game development I visualised a very basic level with basic futuristic looking pathways and surroundings. This developed as I started to create my scene. I looked up inspiration photos and found the perfect idea for my game. From this I went onto Illustrator to start creating my scene. I decided on how many quads I needed to fill. I realised I would need 4, a ground, a background and 2 side panels. I went with a futuristic neon theme for the images to give an interesting set for my player to run though.

The first image I cerated was for the ground. I created a road with two neon blue strips on either side that the player will not be able to pass when running. This will be a continuous road that the obstacles etc will spawn randomly on.

The second image I created was the background/backdrop. This is the image the player will be running towards in the game. The camera will be facing this image.

When I created these images and put them together I felt there was a lot of open space around the 2 images so I decided to created 2 panels on either side to enclose the player in this game. This led to me creating this image.

Watching YouTubes and reading about how to get started creating a game really helped me hit the ground running (pun intended) in creating this game. I realise this might not be the first steps needed and creating the world could be done towards the end but I feel as I was coding if I could visualise the world and character and see the code in action it would have been a lot harder for me to create a game. This was a long exercise on getting the basics in game creation and creating my own images took up a lot of time but I am happy with the outcome right now. They might develop as I create the game further. When I applied all these image and put them together it really brought the game to life and got me excited to start creating code for my "Mirror Matter"