Unity Tutorial 03

I have finished this weeks unity tutorials, Lesson 2.1, 2.2 and 2.3 and I really enjoyed them, the aim of these tutorials was to create an animal stampede game in which you have to feed the animals coming towards you.

(my own screenshot from the unity tutorial website found at- https://learn.unity.com/tutorial/lesson-2-3-random-animal-stampede?courseId=5cf96c41edbc2a2ca6e8810f&projectId=5cdcc312edbc2a24a41671e6)

I did struggle a little bit with this tutorial as my c#script had a small error in it and when I tried to play the game it wouldn't work and kept telling me "All compiler errors have to be fixed before you can enter playmode!". Thankfully it was only a simple mistake where I had accidentally written a word starting with a lowercase letter instead of a capital letter so this was easily overcome however, it did take me quite a while to figure this issue out. I re watched the video a few times trying to see where I had maybe missed a step only to realise I hadn't been looking closely enough at the code. I think I learned a valuable lesson here about how specific and precise the code needs to be and I will definitely keep this in mind as I progress through the module. 

I was very glad to be back to video tutorials this week instead of having to figure it out myself like the plane challenge last week. As usual the videos are really easy to follow along to and the written instructions underneath are super helpful! Each time I do a new unity tutorial it makes me even more excited about making my own game. 

Thanks for reading :)

Games MDA

 The first article I read was MDA: A Formal Approach to Game Design and Game Research  This article goes into great detail about the MDA approach to game design, it aims to "attempts to bridge the gap between game design and development, game criticism, and technical game research."MDA means:

Mechanics:"describes the particular components of the game, at the level of data representation and algorithms." In simpler terms, the mechanics of a game are the actions a player takes within the game.

Dynamics:"describes the run-time behaviour of the mechanics acting on player inputs and each others' outputs over time." The dynamics are what happen when the mechanics are put together and put to use.

Aesthetics:"describes the desirable emotional responses evoked in the player, when she interacts with the game system." This is all about getting an emotional response from the player through some of the following things:

1. Sensation Game as sense-pleasure

2. Fantasy Game as make-believe 

3. Narrative Game as drama 

4. Challenge Game as obstacle course

 5. Fellowship Game as social framework

6. Discovery Game as uncharted territory 

7. Expression Game as self-discovery 

8. Submission Game as pastime

The second article I read was Design, Dynamics & Experience (DDE) for Game design, This article covered the MDA framework again however, I found the wording on this one much easier to comprehend and was able to enjoy this article a lot more than the first. This article introduced the DDE framework, although the MDA framework was widely accepted, this one was brought up to overcome weaknesses in MDA. DDE is still said to be a work in progress, it is still evolving and will most likely have more changes in the future but for now is allowing for a better, more accurately "assess and re-assess the value of the story within the overall framework of game development"

Lastly I watched a youtube video, https://youtu.be/NxiGduvDJ8s. The youtube video again discusses the MDA framework, I personally found this to be the most helpful of everything mentioned here in this blog. The visuals in the video really helped me to understand everything I had read previously, he explains how the MDA framework is used to break games down and show what is good about them and he explains each of the categories and sub-categories very clearly, while simultaneously giving very useful examples. 

image found at-https://images.app.goo.gl/Vha3ucEDavFgNhWp6

Thanks for reading :)