Alex Chandler: CAGD 270 Section 3

       Significant improvements have been made since the first iteration. I can at least call it a "map" instead of just a base plate with a few blocks on it. Now that I had a bit more of a understanding of the controls I was able to do some changes, but mostly, get a lot more output for the time and effort i'm putting in. I started by setting a legitimate map boundary. On the first level you would just walk off the edge of the plain and die. Now there are 4 invisible walls the surround the map. Speaking of borders, the level is also now surrounded by mountains. These are technically scalable, but meant to deter the player from leaving the area (So they don't even need to hit the invisible walls). Another Thing you most likely noticed is the castle. I originally wanted to have a singular tower, but struggled to figure out how to implement enemies with out the whole are feeling cramped. It became difficult to move in, and the camera angles were less than ideal. By wor...

       This went very poorly. I thought that my DnD experience was going to be the worse, as I've never played it beforehand. But unity, that was a whole new ball game. This is by far the most complex game creation platform I had ever used, and I struggled deeply in grasping basic concepts and controls. Even after watching multiple tutorials, basic things like camera movement simply didn't stick. The controls were starkly contrasting those I've used in other applications. When following step by step the Kit guide, I still ran into major issues as the guide was not very descriptive in some areas; there were even comments from other users running into the same issues I was. My point is that I had no experience and very basic understanding, if any, on how to use Unity. And this was clearly showcased in my first level. It technically did meet all the requirements and constraints, but no one would look at it and say it was mediocre, let alone good. What worried me the mos...

      The level was a success, but it just doesn't live up to the same quality of the first one. Maybe im scrutinizing my work too hard though, as it got practically the same review as the first level. And by that I mean it literally got the same user reviews of 7 likes and 2 dislikes. Besides gameplay, I tried to strongly stick to the theme and story requirement. I felt as even if the level wasn't perfect gameplay wise, simply looking pretty and atmospheric would carry it a decent distance. I wanted to make the player feel like they are on an expedition of sorts, so I attempted to create a raft on a river in some deep jungle terrain. Near one of the cave exits, I also made a miner in a hill, to try to make it look like the world was alive This was my first time working with liquid tiles, and I could figure out a way to create a nice looking water fall with them, so I did a combination of these new liquid tiles plus some regular blue ones to try to get a ni...

       The edits I did not the game were incredibly minor. From the first iteration I was not fortunate to receive a great deal of constructive criticism. Because of that, the second version is quite similar in the majority of aspects compared to that of the first. Most notably, the algorithm did not pick this level up either. As at the time of writing, it has a rating of one like and zero dislikes. This is in stark contrast to the first level which still has a rating of seven likes and two dislikes. I don't think the quality of the level has anything to contribute to regarding this score, I jus think it simply got unlucky compared to the first.  Before getting into the play tests. I wanna talk about my potentially most controversial change, or more or so lack off. One of the biggest thinks the play testers talked about in the first level was the beginning jump. It was very difficult, but when past, gave the players the confidence to handle any future parkour wi...

      I had a rather poor experience making my first Dragons & Dungeons game, so I had rather low expectations going into Mega Man, as it was also a game I had never played or watched before. I was quite happily proven wrong a few minutes into the tutorial, to my relief. The game was a very basic 2D platform, and had very simple controllers and level generation tools. I changed the default ZXC ones to those I'm more familiar to (ASWD), as it was clearly reflexes were everything in this game, and I did not feel willing to rewire my muscle memory to work with such a foreign set of controls to do basic actions. With the desert theme that was given, I decided early on how I wanted my map layout to work. I imagined it as a "U" shape, with the player starting on the top left corner of the left leg of the letter, slowly working their way in a inverted arch. This would lead them from the surface to a underground layer, and then eventually back to the surface. I thought i...

  By far the most developed of all the maps, the third and final iteration had aspects and improvements from both version one and two. Something I wanna throw out straight from the get go was the difficulty regarding the time restraint. For our first level, which was supposed to be a tutorial level, we were given 20 minutes for the players to complete it. This level, which not only was supposed to be difficult, have a brand new rule set, and have items; was also supposed to be 20 minutes. Both Tommy L, Anthoney J, and my map, struggled greatly to fit within this timeframe. Explaining my custom items and new rule set took 5 minutes by itself, and this was the shortest explanation of our group. All of us noted that if time duration was stretched to 30 minutes, all are levels would have been more enjoyable and the gameplay far less rushed. Regardless, we worked with the cards we were dealt. I knew time was going to be an issue from the start, so I wanted to simplify and give visual id...