Unity in Quarantine, running from the responsibilities

Well Hello Hello again to all of all the lovely Lads, Ladies, Ol Sports, Chaps and everyone else in between to another new edition of Classy Man Sam's Caffeine induced chin waggles also known as my blogs. It has been a hot minute since we have talked about all things Unity and Game Design hasn't it. I mean in the span of the hiatus since then I have aged by a year and I am now a 20 year old who looks older then he does but still looking classy as ever and full of Caffeine as I am used to. So today let's have another dive into the world of the Unity Engine so let's not waste too much time and get into it shall we.

(let's continue with that running game)

So in the last Unity Tutorial video we were in the middle of creating a running and jumping game with a scrolling background and that we were essentially making an updated (and completely broken) version of the dinosaur game that you play when your Internet is down and this is where we find ourselves with the last bit in this week tutorial. So we have added a character, multiple obstacles, a repeating background and implementing character AI and all other code to make sure that it doesn't go on forever. So now we are adding on the last of the implementations for this prototypes tutorial. But before I do, stop for a moment and listen chaps, and tell me what do you hear? That's right complete and eerie silence, so todays tutorial videos that culminate into about an hour of footage, we learn to add the sound..... of music, as well as adding sound effects to our jumping and sudden death of getting hit by a multi spawning object. Sure music is fine and all but it is missing something else and then I realised that there is no pazass to the whole thing so we will throw some particle effects into it as well to make it seem more exciting with dirt flying up from behind you and the an appearance of the character and the object from a magic puff of smoke. Well it looks like we have ourselves a dino run game clone on our hands.

(in the current world of a possible crisis, one nurse will rise to action to save the world from the virus)

Now with every new story completed their is always a challenge or quiz that goes with it. So far we have learned to make a plane fly normally and made a parody of Flappy Bird (remember that game chaps, ah good times) and we created a game where we were playing a nice game of fetch with a dog but we were not throwing tennis ball as we were shooting hundreds of dogs from space at tennis balls falling from the sky (again let me clarify that no Animals were harmed in the making of that game, I would never allow it in the first place) but they have been tame to what we have to learn this week as this one brings the BOOM!!! (pun intended). For this we are creating the classic mini-game from the gone but never forgotten online game Club Penguin (I'll never forget that game as long as I live) that was known as Jetpack Joyride where we would take off from the roof of the lighthouse on the beach and fly through anvils, Large bags of Coffee Beans and even Fish to collect coins, Jetpack fuel (which was apparently part Cream Soda) and even some collectable stamps as you make your way to the landing zone on the roof of the Night Club. Well this was sort of like that to create the challenge but instead of coins it's dollar signs and instead of Anvils, Coffee Bags and Fish it giant comical bombs that you have to avoid and instead of you being a penguin strapped to a jetpack so that they can experience what flight is like you are just a balloon floating through the street. So what did we have to fix to this? Well first we had to get actual control over the Balloon itself because we want to make the balloon float up at the press of spacebar. We then notice that the background only moves once the game is over, so we go back to our info for the background repeating in our old challenge so that it starts when we start and stops when the game ends. There is also the distinction that the game doesn't want to spawn any of the collectables or obstacles so we have to go back to our previous code to find that as well and remember what triggered that. There is also a weird feeling of a firework sparkle particle appearing behind the balloon when it should be part of the balloon as a particle effect. Lastly before the bonuses, I noticed that the backgrounds were not repeating properly as if something was wrong like an old record skipping on the same line over and over and we want it to make it out as a smooth transition that it doesn't look out of place. As for the bonuses it was to make the balloon more lifelike to how you would see them in real life (when they are associated with a creepy shapeshifting clown who lurks in the sewers and who is from space hiding from a giant turtle who has the entire universe on the back of his shell, you know the usual stuff chaps) where we don't want it floating too high off the screen or clipping through the ground because that is not how balloons work in the real world.

(this right here was the beginning stages of feeling nostalgic)

Now with every weeks tutorials there is always a challenge and difficulties that come with it and this week was very similar to the last one:

(even after countless hours of trying to find the problems it is always something  with the script that causes great stress it does)

Like last week it has something with scripts not wanting to connect with objects in the Hierarchy or just work at all when they are connected and it has caused many hours of typing retyping, hair pulling, plenty of caffeine consumption and even in some cases crying in a corner, but hopefully there will be one week or a day where I will look through it with the help of a professional to see where exactly I am going wrong here in this tutorial because I am on the verge with it. But like always it is alway interesting to learn new code and use new assets like the use of audio and everything else and I always find that enjoyable.

Anywho, I think that is enough of a chin waggle and deep dive into the world of the Unity engine for another day as my jaw is tired from all that chin waggling that I did today. Now if you'll excuse me, I need to get myself ready for work because even in a somewhat lockdown I still got to make a living, especially when I have to work out how I am going to pay certain amounts of cash to a really chill raccoon when I become the mayor of an island getaway package and establish a city for the new residents but I guess one step at a time. Anyway I am going t leave it there, so until next time.

Cheerio!!!

-Sam H