After learning all about how unity works and what everything in its basic parameters can do, I honestly have to say that even though I'm still a little confused, it's really neat to me. The stuff like snapping, importing different assets, post-processing, and the fact that you can even put code made by others into the game is pretty cool in my eyes. However, I don't know how I feel about Unity quite yet, especially because it seems like it enjoys crashing, specifically when I had to import certain assets for the demonstrations. The interface is pretty nifty, at least, and not too hard to understand, so that's nice. Overall, I think that Unity is a pretty good starting place for developing games.
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For the purpose of just cutting to the chase in terms of the current situation, we've just begun using Unity in Game Art and Design. It's a bit of a strange program to me, and it confuses me quite a bit, especially with how easily it seemingly crashes. However, it also works a lot like 3ds Max in a few ways, and with those familiarities, it's at least not too bad to try and figure everything out so far. I still don't think I quite have a grasp on some of the things, and the fact that Unity doesn't seem to like cooperating does not help with that. However, I do still want to try my best to make something out of all of the confusion, because as much as it is frustrating, I also do think it's pretty neat, so there will likely be more updates on that at some point. Anywho, that's all I have to say, so until then, see ya'll on the flipside.
Sub Terra is a collaborative board game in which your primary goal is to escape with as many fellow survivors as possible. You explore the cave system over time, trying your best to evade horrors, avoid deadly areas such as gas chambers, flooded caverns and rough terrain, and whatever you do, don't let your flashlights die. The experience as a player can be very funny, frustrating, or even nerve-wracking, as you desperately attempt to make it through the game alive and with your fellow players. However, there are deeper ways to look into this game, so without further ado, let's see what the game looks like under a more detailed lens.
The 7 core mechanics of any game still hold very true in Sub Terra, and some have a far more prominent role than others. Space is pretty obvious, since the space of the game is really the board itself, and said space, even though it grows as the game progresses, does not extend outside of the board area. Time is also very prevalent, since the first time limit is up until enough turns have occurred that the hazard cards have all depleted, causing the Out of Time phase to begin. Once this phase starts, the game only ends once every player is either escaped or dead. Resources are one of the more minor features in the game, but they still exist in the form of ropes and a player's abilities, almost all of which are very limited in their use in exchange for providing help in furthering through the game. The rules of Sub Terra are pretty simple, with the baseline guidelines of not cheating and things like that, but also defining the consequences for doing things wrong in the game, and things like the restrictions of how many moves you can make in one turn and whatnot. Procedures mostly consist of attempting to explore the caves until you find the exit, and then to escape through that exit. The way this is done is by cooperating with other players in using your set of moves to explore the caves, evade threats of any kind and wander through the map until one of you finds the exit for the others to run to. Skills that contribute in this game are primarily mental and social, because you need to both be able to think your moves through and effectively use your abilities to their best extent, and communicate with your fellow players to try and form an effective game plan as a collective team. Finally, chance, which has one of the largest roles of any mechanic in Sub Terra. The variable of uncertainty in Sub Terra is very high, with the cave parts and hazards that occur being completely randomized via cards and tiles shuffled into a deck. This, combined with all of the other factors that come into play, keep this game tense and engaging for practically every player. This unit has been really weird, especially since for a good chunk of it, I was stuck at home due to COVID exposure. However, I have at least tried to learn about a few of the things this unit is all about, and even if it's not actual game creation or art yet, it is still quite interesting. We ended up being taught once again about jobs, though this time we went more in depth about what jobs are in the game industry. While at first I just wanted to be an artist, I now know for sure that in particular, the role of a concept artist is what interests me most. I didn't even know they had dedicated artists for things like the textures of games. We also learned about the history of games, and in the process, I had the, for lack of better terms, experience of trying to create a timeline of games that leads up to my game of choice to describe and trace back. I'm not actually very proud of this timeline, because it's hard to follow without having the full description, and even then, I really, REALLY struggled to try and connect them all in a way that made sense when spoken out, and the fact that it got super loose by the end didn't help either. Either way, though, I didn't really know exactly what to do, so I just tried to make it easy to follow at least visually. Finally, we've learned about the ethics of game design, with things like respecting copyright and royalties, acting in a diligent and respectful manner inside and outside of work, and even the reasons for the existence of age-based game ratings. All of this stuff, even if not exactly what I really want to learn, was pretty interesting and fascinating to learn about. I just really hope I can remember enough of it for the test. Alright, that's all I have to say. There'll be more updates in the next post.
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AuthorHello! I'm Alex, or John. I already told you quite a bit about myself in the About Me Page, so I won't say too much here. I'll just say that I like to do things like roleplay, make concepts for characters and stuff like that, and overall like to do things that require visual things, like drawing. Archives
January 2023
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