Entry Orange: Week 3

Reflection:

This week I finished up an assignment for one of my classes, which was to create a Roll A Ball on Unity. This assignment, was pretty much my first encounter with coding in a game engine; as, thus far I'd only truly dealt with HTML, CSS, and Javascript in places such as TextEdit and CodePen. It was definitely, a hassle going back and forth and coming across so many minor issues. It really hit me afterwards,

"Wow, I never realized just how much coding truly goes into a video game"

Because, for what would be considered a pretty simple and beginner assignment, it was intense! Now, while it was a bit intimidating, it was also exciting because it motivates me to want to get better and understand more. However, it also had me thinking about certain aspects of my future games, such as:

"If I want ___ in my game, how would that have to be coded in?" and "Oh! that's how that happens in games!"

It was exciting seeing how one part of what we did, suddenly caused the ball to be able to go through the cubes. But the part that truly amazed me was seeing how games create the 3rd-person aspect, of the camera position. We had to prevent the camera from spiraling around with the ball, but rather watching from a distance. Which makes sense to me, because when your character trips or falls, the camera doesn't "fall" with them, you just watch it happen to them.

Experience:

This week, I also tried out Borderlands 2, on the PS Vita. I had ordered a modded Vita that just came in the mail, and I was excited to play this game before I try out Borderlands 3. It's genres include: Action RPG and a First-Person Shooter (FPS). I came into it not really knowing what to expect; however, these genres are personal favorites of mine so I knew it wouldn't fail me regardless. Immediately, you're thrown into a cutscene giving much needed knowledge about the game, with hints of humor. Then you're given the option of picking between four characters. I already enjoyed this aspect, as there is an incentive to playing as each of them but the game still gives you--the player--the choice.

An interesting feat they included right out the gate, was being able to choose between countless variants of the character's look (different outfit and hair colors). Once started, you're met with a quirky little robot, Claptrap. I personally, enjoyed the humor aspects of this character and just the game thusfar. Mainly, because, humor is important to me and is something I personally would like to also sprinkle into my games. Seeing how they delivered it, was both inspiring and worth taking note of.

However, there was an issues I did have. This was the rear touchpad being the melee weapon control. I can see why this would be done but I would've prefered them at least allowing people to change this, as with the way I hold the Vita I would find my character in the middle of really any encounter, trying to jab the air. This was happening pretty frequently and sometimes would interfere with me trying to aim at enemies. This also had the reverse issue, as when I actually needed to use the melee attack then I would have issues getting it to activate, while having three enemies in my face. In a shooter game, using a melee weapon is usually last resort unless you're sneaking up on someone. Not having easy access to this, when an enemy gets too close in your face to shoot--is a big deal. I definitely, plan to keep this in mind for my games. Carefully, planning the controls of the game and allowing much more freedom if the player doesn't agree with what's preset.