A Reflection On My Work For Project 3

Project 3 asked us to create an island with a maze on it in unity, and give the player a target ( a coin ) and have them traverse the maze to find it.

For this project, we were assigned to create the terrain and maze outline of an island using Unity. We created an FPP character and guided them through the maze in search of a coin.

I definitely learned to use Unity a lot better, and how many of the objects and components of a game coincide to work towards the creation of a game. I learned in more depth how to connect events to certain objects and characters, how to incorporate audio and effects better into my scene, and how many parts create a whole when it comes to game design.

I find Unity’s default interface a little overwhelming at first. But, once you learn where everything is, you can more easily navigate the interface. Unity’s interface is very easy to use, so I found creating and placing objects to be quite easy. The tools Unity provides allows the user to create objects, effects, audio and textures with ease. Applying these items was very easy.

Although the interface for Unity guides you to the point you can create good looking games, many of the more complex settings and items in Unity can be hard to find and understand. Many times throughout my project I found myself wanting to add more to my scene to make it a bit more impressive. The easiest way I found to do this is to just mess around and see what you can do. And, at times, it was difficult to make your game show what you had applied or added. The extra settings for every unique object can be confusing and trying to find your problem can be time-consuming.

I could definitely improve my submission a lot. For the majority of my project, I was creating my terrain. I was aiming to make it as realistic as I could. But I learned I had to pick my battles. I tried for a while to apply a skybox texture I had downloaded and everything I tried didn’t work. I also wanted to smooth out the transitions of my mountains in my terrain but I found it difficult. Also, I found that my character sometimes collides correctly with the coin to initiate the event and sound effect, but not all the time. I would like to fix many of these issues and with more time I could improve my submission in the way I had planned.

The assignment was well laid out and easy to follow. I believe a lot of the project though required the student to do exploring with the Unity applications themselves. I also followed the directions and like I explained earlier, my character only sometimes collides correctly with the coin. Overall, I found the project a lot of fun and a great way for students to understand and play around with Unity.

I will definitely be applying my knowledge that I gained in this project to earlier projects and work situations. I plan to do game design and development as a full or part-time job in the future. Using Unity and the other software attached to beginner and amateur game design gives you a leg up when creating projects or assets. Unity is used for many app developments and indie games now. So learning more about Unity in this project will better prepare me for my future.

I reminisced about my adventures in the Elder Scrolls series and other open-world games. Seeing and exploring their terrain and landscapes really influenced my work as well. I looked more into Skyrim and its many mountains and texture choices. I believe my submission reflects Skyrim’s terrain the most.

I found this project very fun and exciting to do. It’s very satisfying to create games and landscapes to explore. I look forward to more projects with this amount of freedom and expression in the future.