So this is what a weekly review post looks like, huh? I expect it might take a bit of time to get going with these and get a stable format. But here we are.
Overall, I’d say the week was a mixed bag. Lots of things got done, but not a whole lot of progress happened. Maybe that’s too harsh. I’ve only had my computer back for half a week.
Where I’m at
So, I’m obviously at a pretty early stage in my journey. Being precisely one week since I started, that’s hardly a surprise. I’ve (somehow) selected my first game to work on, have done a whole bunch of research and even started working on a prototype for the player mechanics. I’ll be sure to share more on this project as it moves along, but right now, it’s early days.
What I Planned
For the first week, I didn’t really have a defined plan. But, guided by the overarching theme of “release a game”, it’s safe to say that my goals were along the lines of:
- Learn how to use Unity once again
- Come up with a viable, small game to make
- Start prototyping the game
What Actually Happened
Well, given I didn’t have my computer up and running at the start of the week, I had no choice but to come up with ideas and remind myself what Unity looked like.
I don’t actually remember what Monday looked like, because it wasn’t until Tuesday that I installed Trilium, a self-hosted note taking app. And so far, I’ve been loving it! I’ve split it into daily notes, website articles and game concepts. It even comes with its own mind map feature (sorry WiseMapping) and canvas for building mood boards. For a one-man show, it does the job pretty well.
So the first few days were spent getting up and running. I watched a lot of videos about making games over a variety of topics (including releasing on steam, someone learning blender, etc). I learned about the importance of prototyping, interesting ways to develop game ideas, and other people’s experiences of Unity game development. Overall, it was very practical, and there are already several things I can start putting into practice.
By Wednesday, I had my computer back up and running, and it was Unity download & install day. That took most of the day, but I started and completed the Unity Essentials pathway. The start was a useful refresher. The rest, unfortunately, didn’t add much for me, and left a rather disappointing feeling in its wake. I have more thoughts about that, which I may share in a future post. Perhaps a little ironically, I later watched a video by Game Maker’s Toolkit about how he didn’t find tutorials helpful either.
The rest of the week was spent doing a mixture of ideas for games and articles, and developing my first prototype for a new project I’ve started. Having my notes centralised, I can quickly jot down ideas when they pop along and get back to what I was doing. Pretty handy, because I’ve already had more of those than I can realistically handle.
This morning, I’ve done some more work outlining the systems that I need to prototype before I can put together a workable demo for the game as a whole.
What Went Wrong
Other than the issues with Unity’s starter tutorial, not a whole lot went wrong. I mean, the tutorial was okay, it’s more a case of I knew that stuff already so found it a touch slow and repetitive. The whole “It’s not you, it’s me” thing, I suppose. Although one of the steps was broken and needed manual script editing to get it to work again.
What Went Right
I got my first game idea! And my second! And, this morning, I wrote down a third! Uh oh.
More importantly, I got my first small scale, potentially viable game idea! I spent most of Thursday writing it out and coming up with ideas for how it will work. Not only that, but I started prototyping the movement mechanics too. Movement might seem simple, but what I was going for was a bit different to the normal kind of movement. I’m still feeling a little protective of the idea at the moment, so I hope you’ll forgive me for keeping it to myself for now.
What Next?
Next week, I need to continue developing the prototype. I hope to get some more player mechanics developed, and then I can work on prototyping the actual player model. Or possibly some of the level design. Whichever excites me at the time, I suppose – it’ll all need to happen at some point. If I’m super lucky, it’ll be straightforward any maybe I’ll get both done.