In this dev log, I will be discussing progress as of September 11th, 2016.
On September 6th
- I borrowed a song from an all-time favorite game, Banjo Kazooie, in order to make testing my game more fun for the time being
- I thought of a simple way to implement a neat tall grass effect
- And did some more testing with moving platforms. At this point, the platforms were working much better.
By September 11th,
- I had made a CRT filter to give the illusion of playing on an old-school CRT TV
- Implemented water and swimming (with animation)
- Programmed an actual difference between walking and running (as well as an animation for each)
- And one of my biggest struggles to date: writing a “Character Field of View” script and having the player notice certain objects as they come into his view. This involved projecting a series of raycasts from the player, then indexing all objects in the field of view, determining the best target, and rotating the players head to look at that target
Also, there’s something else I’d like to go ahead and touch on. I’ve had people approach me with two different mindsets. I’ve heard some people say: “It seems like you’re putting in a lot of hours to this. I don’t think I would have the time to actually get into this.” Or “Wow, this progress seems to be coming really fast, you must be putting in way more hours than I thought.” So, I’d like to address the issue of time spent on this hobby.
Obviously, the amount of time I am able to spend on this varies from week to week. And some days I do feel a little burnt out, but other days I can sit in front of my computer all day and grind away at it. On average, (during weeks where life doesn’t get in the way) I’d say I probably put about 10 hrs into it. Which may sound like a lot, but it really isn’t. This generally means ~1hr every week night and ~2.5 hours on Saturday and Sunday. I am fortunate enough to have a 9/80 work schedule that gives me every other Friday off, so I do try to use that to my advantage. Some weeks I’ll only work on Friday, but I’ll treat development like it’s my full-time job that day.
Regardless, the great thing about this hobby is the convenience. I can work on it just about any time, just about anywhere. Going home to visit family? Take your laptop and work on it for 30 minutes to an hour after everyone goes to bed. There’s no crucial time-sensitivity. And most importantly, it’s easy to put down and pick back up at a later date.
I think you’ll find that the more you practice, the better you’ll get (duh); and when you get better, it becomes drastically more fun. When you start out, you do most things by mulling over it for 20 minutes scouring the web for 30, implementing it for 15, debugging for 50, and celebrating for 5. Once you get to the point that those standard things take you about 20 minutes from beginning to end, you start seeing results much faster, and it becomes much more rewarding. And believe me, it doesn’t take long to get to that point. Keep at it for a few months, set the Unity Scripting Reference to your home page, and research EVERY unfamiliar term you come across. You’ll get there in no time.
Until next time,
Cheers!
bodhi games 