Final Project Indy Game Journey #4

This week was a whirlwind on decision making, running with those decisions, and not looking back. We got to choose the Unity game engine as our development engine instead of the Unreal Development Kit. This opened up the opportunity to use C Sharp and or JavaScript instead of UnrealScript to code. Once we moved forward I jumped right into Unity and JavaScript tutorials. I chose to start with JavaScript tutorials because of the amount of help and sample code on the Unity forums and website. At the end of this week we had to have the foundation of a vertical slice completed. This vertical slice is a small sample of our game that will give our professors an idea of the time, effort, and abilities our team has to get this project to a gold build.

(Powered by Unity)

Since I was already introduced to Unity through my own research for potential jobs and internships, as well as a bit of experience from class, I felt pretty confident to move forward quickly. After a few hours of tutorials to brush up, I jumped head first into Unity and JavaScript and coding the sections of a vertical slice that is due this week. I started with trying to get a player token moving on the x and y axis, while locking movement on the z-axis. This is because of our 2.5D camera design. I was then informed that Andy Poquette had finished that, so I moved on to researching our camera and followed a 2D game tutorial that Andy had linked to our team.

After finishing the tutorial and seeing how a 2D game can be made in Unity, I reviewed the code Andy had put together that made our first week nearly complete. The only issue he was having was with our enemy moving in the z axis and the enemy shooting from odd locations. I researched the movement and shooting issues and came up with a few solutions. This is where I talked it over with Andy and he helped clear some things up with me.

After my coding, research, and tutorials, I turned my attention to our backlog and getting what I believed needed written with Kelly, Kyle, and Ed. I mentioned everything I thought was needed and decided to help out with better breaking down the programming sections of our backlog. The backlog will show us everything we need to accomplish and our timetable to complete each. We also are using a version management system outside of Unity called Perforce, but Andy Poquette and I are buying the pro version of Unity so we can use the integrated version management system as well.

(Week 1 Towering Verticle Slice Progress)

After this week, I am getting a good understanding of JavaScript, C Sharp, and Unity. I am feeling a lot more confident about success next week and look forward to the work. Next week I will be further programming and getting specific programming role so that Andy, Ed, and myself do not step on each other's toes and complete code while another is working on it. This is something that happened this week. I am pretty sure I will be coding the weapons and deployable, but that can change after our Monday team meeting. We will have a playable vertical slice for all you readers to download and play!

On a side note, my website is finally under development! I will keep everyone updated through Twitter, Facebook, and here on my blog. I am always looking for talented people to work and network with. Feel free to follow this RSS and my Twitter feed, friend me on Facebook, and connect with me on LinkedIn!