PROGRAMMING MY OWN GAME WITH UNITY

Ever since I was young, I’ve always enjoyed playing video games. It is my go-to way to destress myself, or what I go to when I just want to relax during breaks. Additionally, my mom took Computer Sciences in college, meaning that this is a subject that sort of runs in the family. Some of my first memories involved playing video games, whether it was playing on the Wii or playing Roblox on my family computer. Naturally, this led to me developing an interest in computer sciences in general, as well as programming games. Additionally, I have also joined writing and overall being imaginative. A lot of times I can end up daydreaming and thinking about story concepts that I wish I could create, whether it be writing a story or drawing it. However, I lack the artistic talent to be able to design these stories. On the other hand, I see programming a game as a good opportunity for me to be able to create stories based on my own imagination. I have an interest in computers and want to further advance my knowledge about programming, which is why I decided to choose this as a Personal Project.

Product Goal

My product goal is to be able to code a game using the programming language Python and CodeCombat. Hopefully, through the learning process of programming games I will be able to improve my own skills. I decided that the basis of my game will be history. This is because history is another side interest that I have had for a long time; one of my favorite types of books to read would be history books. If any book I pick up is a history book, whether it be about a famous person or civilization, I will immediately be intrigued to read it. Combined with my hobby of writing, I want to be able to create a compelling history based story, and then turn it into reality with programming.

Reflection

The completion of my product was a very gratifying experience. I had stayed up late that day to finish, and had to make sure to double check everything so that nothing wrong happened. When I finally loaded up the game on my website, it was an insanely satisfying moment, knowing that I had successfully completed my first ever game. Obviously as it was my first game, it was easy to see how I could keep improving from it. The most glaring improvement that could be made would be designing the game by myself. I do not have the artistic skills or resources available to be able to completely design all assets by myself, so there were many sections where I had to compensate and settle with something that was not completely similar to my intended plan.

The most important takeaway from this project for me, is that it gives me much more confidence in deciding to major in Computer Sciences for my future. To be honest, the original motivation for me to take this project was to see if I wanted to take this major seriously. After completing this project, I can say that I am definitely looking forward to taking this major. It was also a unique experience.

Product Evaluation

The game was able to meet the criteria in all of the specifications. However, it was not perfect in most of these specifications. Good at all, perfect at none. The graphics and sound design are good, however the graphics can still be improved particularly on my own graphic designing part, and the sound volume can be adjusted as well. The gameplay is easy to understand and smooth to run, however the wall jump mechanic definitely needs to be fixed, and there could be more gameplay mechanics to add in. The coding is fine, nothing wrong there. I also need to be more careful in adding every single portion to the game, evident from the 2 missing parts.