Weekly Journal - gettodoing/tech190 GitHub Wiki

Week 1:

First week of this new class has been overwhelming. I joined this class hoping it would help me learn game theory, or the design aspects of game development (balance, how to make a system players will want to actually use, making things enjoyable to engage with ect) So far I dont believe this class will cover the subject matter I hoped it would. First off, the instructor encouraging his students to use """AI""" programs was very disappointing to see and hear, as while these are useful tools for getting unique "rough drafts" of things, they do not have any other current use in industry, art assets they create cannot be copyrighted, and use of generated code will become unfixable when something breaks, as the individual who prompted the code will not be familiar with the code's actual function, and will have to spend more time fixing and understanding the function of generated code, when they could have simply written it themselves, and spent less time combing through lines of "close enough" and possibly re-writing the code wholesale, and instead move on to other parts of development. Additionally, the instructor saying to "simply look up a walkthrough or other youtube video" if the student encounters errors with there programming worries me, as someone who has struggled immensely with what is apparently quite basic programming in the past, I wonder if this is a class I am even capable of taking yet.

The textbook seems decent so far. Lots of this is advice I have heard before in someway or another, but it's good advice, so it's not like thats an issue. Plus, the author is making an "intro level" book, so they need to assume that they are working with someone who has no previous knowledge of gamedev. I disagree with the author's branding of the Sims and pre-End update minecraft as "Toys and not games" seemingly because they lack a defined "loss" state, (Minecraft VERY MUCH had a "loss state" pre-End, it's called death) and the Sims "having no goal" is also a strange thing to say, as much like real life, in the Sims the "goal" is to have a good life (unless the player want another outcome) and propagate your bloodline, but that is a routine issue with defining base concepts like "a game" or "what is fun", so I suppose it is at least sparking discussion, witch is a good thing in and of itself.

Unfortunately, after getting a little bit of progress done in the tutorial for Unity, Unity updated, and something about this broke my script and the progress i had made, despite it all working fine the previous day, and elements that had previously been present had vanished. Thankfully I was not too far along, but I do need to now restart my progress from the beginning of the video (hopefully it will go slightly faster as I still have my physical notes ect) which is somewhat demoralizing. Hopefully I can learn to set up version control or something like it that can keep this from happening and allow me to simply reload from a backup instead of starting over.

Week 2:

Our textbook saying the '84 Dune adaptation is "too weird" has made me instantly dislike the author. It immediately gives me an idea of what kind of person he is. An uncreative person who would never do anything considered "weird" or "odd" because he is bound by social convention to absurd degree. This man is not the kind of person I want to be, as a human being. maybe thats harsh, but I dont know if I can trust someone like this. Another "golden" line from our textbook "Dark Souls’ theme? “Good versus evil.” lol, infact, lmao. A very shallow man has written this book. Its not even a good example of story linking with gameplay, Dark soul's gameplay and world is about struggle, not some binary "good v evil" story. Little Bro probably thinks Gwyn was a good person lmao.

I have hit my first REAL roadblock in this class. I've put in the code for spawning in pipes correctly (I've been over it 3 or 4 times by now, its all correct) but it does what its supposed fix. The code I have in should spawn in pipes at regular intervals, but instead spawns them all in on each frame, evan though thats not supposed to happen with this code. And class isn't until Thursday so I dont have anyone to ask for help until then.

My issue has fixed itself. I do not know how. I changed nothing. Frankly, I do not care, I am simply annoyed that i wasted time like this. Oh well, I suppose it's my fault for not trying to run the game again sooner. I also had a bit of an (unrelated) mental health episode over the past few days, so I didnt get the "Frappy bird" project done as fast as i would have liked. I am feeling much better now and it should not be a problem again. Plus I now know a person in the Gundam model building club I am in apparently not only goes to the same MC campus I do, on the days when I do, but ALSO has a lot of experience in unity, so hopefully I can hire them as a tutor, or at least get questions answered by them or get pointed to good resources at least. So it's been a good 2nd week overall, despite making less progress then I would like. I'm almost done (about half way through) with the Unity basics video as well, and as long as ̶w̶e̶ ̶f̶o̶l̶l̶o̶w̶ ̶s̶t̶a̶n̶d̶a̶r̶d̶ ̶i̶n̶s̶e̶r̶t̶i̶o̶n̶ ̶p̶r̶o̶c̶e̶d̶u̶r̶e̶ no further major issues arise, everything should be fine.

Week 3:

I got my Frappy bird project done somewhat last minute due to life events, but I got it done on time, and have started planning my 2nd "real" game already. Creating Frappy bird was one of the most difficult things I've done on my own this year, and I've done a lot of hard things this year. Much like most of those other hard things I've done this year, this has been worth it, and I am somewhat proud of my work. Or at least decently happy with it. My 2nd game is going to be a lot more complicated, but I think there are enough parts from the video I at least know WHAT it is I need to figure out how to do, and have a rough idea of the elements that will go into it. I'm also trying to contact friends that have used unity before, so I can ask for help or at least be pointed to a good resource. If nothing else, this class is doing its job as a metaphorical "gun to my head" to actually get me to make something.

Week 4:

First week of really working on the true project of this course: a real ding-dang video game. I have my idea set more or less, and am currently working on some art assets and figuring out basic parts of ragdoll creation in Unity. I have almost immediately run into a roadblock with this process, as the "slicer" feature included in unity appears to not currently be working correctly for me. To remedy this, I have asked a student I know from outside this class for help, although at time of writing (Sep/30/2026) they have not gotten back to me.

I have looked at a few forum posts on the official unity forums, and haven't been able to find any solutions, so I have logged in to the forums and made my first ever post. Here's hoping I will get some helpful responses, and that the Unity forums aren't smug and newbie-hostile like some forums (cough Stack Overflow cough) can be.

I finished the Title logo for the game, and learned that Paint actually has a decent toolset nowadays, and is very easy to use. Most of the game's art will likely be created in paint, or possibly photopea (a free, browser based photoshop-like program) if I feel the need for something more complex. I also am about to submit the "WHAT pitch" (one-pager) as I actually created one back during week 3 I believe (guess Im ahead of things for once). Will give it another once-over before I submit.

Week 5:

Sorry for being late with this, had a very emotionally complex week. I've started working on the main menu of my game so I can at least get some part of it done, as the sprite slicer still isn't working. Probably will work on the art heavy parts (Opening and closing slides, all 3 knight helmets ect) next if the ragdoll creation problems persist. Menu is going well for now, had to use some minor work arounds because the walkthrough im using is old by Unity standards. Sorry for short write up this week, as I said this week has been difficult for me.

Week 6:

I have finally gotten the first part of the game 100% finished, the main menu! Now that thats done, the next item I will work on are the beginning, ending and transitional story slides and artwork, and the functionality of those particular scenes (Text appearing, the player pressing a button to make more text appear + continue to the next scene ect. I also have actual code down for my game. So that feels good to finally break that barrier so to speak. Plus now that there is some actual functionality it feels more like I have an actual game rather than just an idea I'm putting together. Sadly the main gameplay is still suffering from delays (read: me working on other things) and I dont even have a ragdoll set up yet. I should probably rush the other aspects so the core of the game (the gameplay) can be worked on.