Multimedia development

 During the last number of weeks, I have been working on my section for the book. I recapped my writing skills and knowledge on my topic. I developed my skills by looking at youtube videos advised to watch by my lecturer and gain knowledge on more writing skills. I am content with my part in the book and welcome any feedback.  The book has been launched! 

 I can just see the finish line! I have now completed my piece of writing for my chapter along with my author bio. I have added my piece to the one document where everyone will be uploading their piece of writing so at the end we have a completed book. I have spelled checked my work, done editing on parts and I am happy with the final piece.   Here is a screenshot from the one document of my work 

 It is such a relief to finally see the book coming together and people uploading their sections and see it all coming together. It took a number of weeks to do research and gather information to go into the chapter.  This week I have finalized my introduction and conclusion. I felt as though I was in leaving cert year again watching my writing, making sure there was a beginning sentence in each paragraph and a beginning middle, and end. A very structured piece of writing.  A watched through a number of youtube videos and suggested watching for this week on how to write the 'perfect' conclusion etc.  Reading through my work, I do feel it is clear, gives information on what my title is, and is easy to follow. I drafted up a 'check your understanding' to check this. I have spell-checked my work and I can safely say I am happy with it. 

 This week I made more progress on my game, this week was to create a game design document which involved every small detail of my game from the game of the game, the game overview, genre, rules, type of world etc. All the information on my game had to be included in this document, my brainstorming etc, and followed by starting the game. I spent 2hours writing up the document.  Here is a sneak peak of my Game design document that I wrote up on word   

 I'm getting closer and closer to completing the game now. This week was to add sound to the game, including learning how to use audio files and finding music/sound. When something happens in the game, good or bad. This was easy to do however it took some time to find sound. There was a lot of coding to add for this to happen. I find it intimidating how much code is needed for a game to be created. However, I don't see myself creating a gaming app in the future so I'm not too worried about learning the code. It is indeed handy to know although. And there we have it! The very final step was to test out the completed game and allow other users to test it out to see what they think and to make sure it works. For users to play the game without having to install the unity editor I had to create a standalone application that I could upload to the digital store. There we have it, a completed 2D game dev. Here is my completed game just as I finished it in Unity 

 Starting into this new project, I wanted to know as much as I could before I got started making the final game so I did some research and watched videos on youtube. I am a very visual person so when I am doing projects like this where we can be creative as we like, I like to look visually online and do some reading in regard to the task and it'll trigger me to come up with ideas in my head and some ideas for my game.  I think I am going to use a tile base for my workflow, I feel that would be the safer option. Although doing some research I came to realize that sprite-based workflow could work well too. I came across Unity Asset Store where I can find a collection of assets to use for my game. I looked up a few ideas for my treatment which was the second phase of the project. I want to create a simple game in a 2D format. Where to begin with you can choose your character that'll have one skill so the choice is picking a character with a skill you think will be best to complete

 This week's task was very time-consuming . It took me a bit longer than other weeks to complete the tasks on the game. I managed to complete it but at the same time, It took me ages so it was a relief to get it done when I did.  This week I had to take a number of steps to allow notifications to come up on the gaming screen. Using IU (User Interface) it allowed me to overlay images and show text up on the screen to show information. Not only that but I also had to add another character to the game, which to be honest wasn't too hard to follow but it took a while for me. There was a lot of code that had to go into this part.  There is part of the coding we used to create another character in the game 

 Project progress Starting off the project this week, I am keeping an open mind about it. It will be difficult creating a game with no step by step instructions like the other game the year is currently creating. For my game, my plan is to keep it simple so during the brainstorming part of the process. I don't want to make the game too complicated and harder on myself to make. I do like a good challenge but in this case, I want to keep it simple and keep my end goal of, having a game that works. Whether that is just jumping over boxes as in an obstacle and running along or something different. I feel something along the lines of flappy bird or subway surfers but facing on a side profile. 

 Now we are right In the middle of getting this game completed. This week I am using a Unity package called cinemachine which allowed me to automatically control your camera without using code. In other words, it will allow the camera to move around where the character moves so that it can explore a bigger part of the world in the game. Following the instructions on how to do this was difficult enough but once I slowed down I flew threw the steps petty rapidly. Now that I know I'm getting closer to finishing off the game, I am excited to complete and see the final end result.   Working my way on the steps to complete the task

 This week I have completed 5 paragraphs for my chapter in the book. A reminder that my general chapter is on 'game streaming' and I and looking into 'what is the main used software used for game streaming?'. I have done a mountain of research on this question and narrowed it down into 5 paragraphs. Here is a sneak peek at what I have written up 

 So far in the game, I have created a world with a moveable character and objects with enemies to avoid. Throughout making this game, I can say it hasn't been easy. To make this game with no step-by-step instructions I would struggle a lot. There is a lot that goes into making these games from building the world to getting movement in the objects/characters. I look forward to seeing how the overall game turns out. I am a bit away from the end but it's coming together nicely. For today's tutorial, the next step was to add animation. How it looks, types of movement to include etc. In all honesty, this part wasn't too hard to do. I was able to get through it quite quickly.   

 For this week we were introduced to coding a document. We had to come up with 5 themes to divide out our piece. There was a reading part and a video attached showing us how to do it. I was confused and struggled with it as I read through the topic. As I watched the video it became easier for me to grasp as it gave examples and visuals to help. Me, I am a very visual person and I work best when I can see samples in front of me and just visual elements in general.  After watching through the 14minute long video on how to code a document and create themes for our resources it became a lot clearer. Watching through it, it gave me ideas that I kept note of while going through the video.  Google scholar is a big help. I try to use it most of the time as it gives me information on my topic and with this info, I can further add to what I have already gathered on my topic.