This is an example of what I'm talking about. Originally, I had planned to have moving tiles, and 4 levels, and 6 different enemies. Right now I'll be lucky to have 1 level and 3 enemies. I've been getting help from people both online and off line, but many times, despite how much I've trimmed and cut from my original project, it seems like I'll never get it finished in time. How simple do I have to go?
0 Comments
Well, now that spring brake is over, I have to say that unfortunately I wasn't the busiest of bees, however, to be honest, this break has been a lifesaver. Anyways, to get back on topic, my plan of action for now is to finish creating my own artwork and assets for my next game project. Why you may ask? Well to be perfectly honest, it's mostly because I dislike the original ones, and would like to take a shot at creating my own works. I mean, I'm probably more of an artist than a programmer anyways, but then again, that's not to say I can't write a decent script! No, I believe the main reason why is because I want to exercise my own abilities, and create what I really love creating: sprite artwork. It's been ages since I last did anything of the sort, as I've just started taking commissions again, and unless tile editing counts, I've gotten pretty rusty, so what better opportunity to better my skills? However, to be fair, it is just my personal preference, but after getting back into games like Mega Man Zero for the GBA and marveling at the fluidity and majesty of the sprite work, I've definitely have to say that pixel art and pixelated sprite art are by far my favorite type of art to be seen in games. Perhaps it is because it emits a sense of nostalgia for the "Good ol' days"? Possibly, but in the end, 16 bit heroes will always be my favorites, both to create and to play as. Maybe I'll even learn a thing or two.
At the current time of me writing this, I am only one lesson and one quiz away from finishing my introductory course and moving on to 2D game design, and so far, it's been worth it. In all honesty, I would've finished much faster, had I not stopped to help my friends who occasionally stumbled making their own path. Yes dear friends, it has all been very much worth it. From first learning what strings and ints were, to designing my own classes and constructors, it has been a worthwhile journey. Now the real question which remains is, will I be ready for what comes next? Did the courses adequately train me, or will I find myself struggling like how my classmates were in the upcoming challenges and activities? At this point, I do not know. I mean, I've had experience with javascript, unity, and c# script all before in the past, through various summer camps in past years of more true youthful vigor, and even working with more simple and rudimentary programs like gamemaker through camps that my very Game Art and Design teacher hosted and put out to get people like me interested in various careers in game design. Even with all this prior knowledge, will I still have the bravo to continue onwards? The truth is, I am only limited by my own shortcomings and lack of knowledge, which is a good thing in my opinion, as you can teach any subject with a good teacher, but never can you teach true motivation and passion.
Like with any program that succeeds in giving you nightmares, it will usually succeed in also giving you dreams, and not the kind where you fall asleep and have a weird fever vision of lines of code, but a dream for the future, of what's to come next if you will. During little "ahah!" moments where you realize that you accidentally replaced an 'in' statement with an = statement do I realize that so far C# has been pretty easy to deal with... At least so far. What I am truly worried about is pouring my brains out trying to learn this language and then discovering halfway through that I have absolutely no mortal clue as to what I'm supposed to be doing. As someone who truly wants to get into Indie game design, this is a big issue for me, as languages take time to learn, and time is something I'm fairly short on. My hope for the future is that this language is one I'll be able to master, and in time, I'll be able to create something great with this language. During the early challenges only rarely did I ever have to rely on the forums for unity, and most of my problem solving simply came form my intuition (I guess that's what I'd call it...) To be honest I'm still surprised I've come this far already, and of course with any progress I make in life, I am now instantly worrying about what said progress means. I have an inkling that it's all going to come crashing down to the floor any lesson now, and I'll realize that I wasn't actually the good programmer I thought it was... Oh well, food for thought I guess. All in all, at this point in time, its just best for me to focus on my lessons.
Whenever you're in doubt, visit the help forums, they don't exist for no reason. Ever since my initial beginning of learning to code in C#, I've had it's workings running nonstop in my head. What do I mean by this? Well, what I mean is that occasionally I'll wake up in the middle of the night thinking of how I forgot to put a semicolon at the and of a line, or how I accidentally added a public class type variable in a private OnDisable() action. Though, there is a strange problem that I face, where, I cannot prescribe a whole value to a term or concept. They remain abstract terms until I'm able to get a keyboard under my fingers and type away. For instance, you say "What is a bool?" and my response would probably be "Uhmmmmmm... It's that... True/false thingy yeah..?" But then you tell me "Go make an editable true/false statement in Unity." And my response would be "OK!" Before typing out public bool myStatement = (false); If there's something I'm doing wrong in my approach to this, I wish I could know, as It's way more frustrating than one would think.
Practice makes perfect right? Wrong. Only perfect practice makes perfect, and practice beats talent when talent does not practice. Yes there is the rare occurrence of someone just being naturally good at something, but that is rare, and most people have gotten to their current skill level through hard work and dedication. However, that's not to say that this is all work no fun, but it certainly isn't all fun and games either. For example, an assignment I have recently finished, twice, required me to draw something I commonly struggle with in my art 100 times, and the item in question? Paws, the hands of the animal kingdom, except these aren't any ordinary paws, these are expressive paws, like the ones you might see in some animated movies or shows that commonly feature anthropomorphic characters. They might even be considered harder than human hands, after all, the problem with human hands mostly lies with their expressiveness, but one does not commonly have to worry about the placement of claws, foot pads, fur, or scales on humans. Needless to say, I assume that I partially screwed myself over choosing a subject that combines the worst of both world into one piece. But I digress, all in all this exercise has given me more practice in this one area than nearly all my previous practices before hand, or should I say, before paw?
It is images like these two: Back paws, and, Front paws that make me glad that furries exist, they have saved my soul.
When it comes to the beginning stages of your first games, once you've got your basic planning phases finished, the most important part is creating a convincing pitch for your peers. So it turns out that while your digital presentation is somewhat important and will help you in what needs to be said, 90% of the pitch's worth is solely based on your verbal presentation. If you do do not show passion for your project while you are explaining it, you are perceived to be lacking excitement completely and therefore do not care about your project's outcome. The best way around this issue is to simply not be a deadpan slice of bread to listen to. It doesn't matter if you have to fake excitement, as even faked enthusiasm is worlds better than a genuine nihilistic tone of voice, and you're better off sounding chippy than downtrodden 99.9% of the time. Another item of great importance is the fact that your audience likes to be recognized and addressed, weather through direct calling or just an occasional glance of eye contact with a few of it's members every now and then. Lastly, but most importantly, make an actual presentation to go with your pitch. It doesn't matter that the real pitch is 90% vocal, having an actual presentation makes you look professional, and it helps you remember what to say when, how to keep on topic, and the points you're actually trying to convey.
Throughout most of my experience with games, the majority of the time I have found myself to be experiencing a Zero sum game, which is a game with a definitive winner and a definite loser. In what we consider to be games, very few games that we play either alone or one on one are non zero sum games, as most people find it enjoyable when they can tell who is the winner and vice versa. However, in a sense, this non zero sum mentality is one that we experience for the majority of our lives where we are faced with decisions that involve choosing the lesser of two evils, falling into Social Traps, or maybe we see it in an add against drug use in which it asks the viewer "Who's more dead?" Simply put despite what we're constantly exposed to, most skill based games that place either a human against a computer or two people against each other don't tend to have ambiguous endings. However, this all changes when you start to get teams involved. Teamwork in some games is essential, and the saying "The chain is as strong as the weakest link." has never held to be more true in some scenarios. In this situation, you and your team functions not as an individual, but a collective where everyone must be at their best performance or risk dragging down the rest of the team with them. With this in mind, you'll be hard pressed to find a team based game which isn't a non zero sum. After all, never have I played a single player game, witnessed defeat and was still left to wonder, "Surely this wasn't all on me?"
As everyone should know, summer does not last indefinitely, so it's time to get back on track. I've no doubt forgotten a few things (though not as much as a subject like math) so it's time to brush up on a few skills. (Like remembering to check if there's a blog post and not waking up in a cold sweat to do so.) The main thing that's really stuck with me though are the principals of design. Basically, what makes this design look good? 99designs.com/blog/tips/principles-of-design/ Well, while I have only learned the base four in class, being proportion, repetition, balance and contrast, this article here goes further in depth on the 7 base principals of design. I usually use these frequently with various art projects as well as a few other unmentioned rules like the rule of thirds, colors and their perceived effect on our psyche, and how shapes and lines direct our attention. To briefly explain what the article says, the first thing that is different is emphasis. Basically the rule is to make the most important part about your subject stand out. To go on Movement is defined as the way your eyes move from one subject to another, and a great image will have your onlooker either continuously scanning the image in a visual loop of sorts, or consistently lead them to the most important parts of your creation. The last new element is white space, which focuses on what isn't added. Simply put, it's mostly used to separate elements so that the viewer doesn't get overwhelmed. However, this appears to be all that I could easily find so hopefully I'll be able to brush up on some of my other skills as well soon.
|
Creator InfoThis is a blog for a Game Art Design class. Future programmer and currently an artist and writer. Archives
June 2019
Categories
All
|