After being introduced to the new 2D side-on/top-down mod I am feeling confident that this is the route I would like to pursue. I feel that there is much more room for possibility and creativity within this framework and it is much less limiting than the previous framework. I ran into a bit of a creative wall with the previous mod and found it less inspiring than the current one.
I was looking forward to working on a platformer game with this mod, as it is one of my favourite genres, so I did some preparatory learning for it with the help of some YouTube tutorials from Brackeys (2018). By following along with them I have learnt many new things about how Unity works in a 2D context. I can use the tilemap editor to arrange 2D levels using modular tiles and applying colliders to the appropriate platforms. I have also learnt the basics of mapping player movement, along with creating corresponding animations for each player state through transitions and parameters. Finally, I am able to make 2D cameras that follow the player through the Cinemachine package, tweaking smoothing and lookahead time to create the desired framing. Using the ‘Sunnyland’ package (Ansimuz, 2017) from the asset store, I made a simple level with some platforms to jump on and crouch under (figs. 1 & 2.) I really enjoyed the whole process, and the modularity of the tiles saves a lot of time while designing levels.
(Above, top) Figure 1: The game running. (Above, bottom) Figure 2: The game in editing mode.
I enjoyed this week’s GAM150 workshop on game design fundamentals. It was interesting to go over terms that I am mostly already familiar with, and understand how they are actually utilised to contribute to a game’s overall play experience. I was previously unfamiliar with top-down / bottom-up design, zero sum / non-zero-sum games and the MDA framework, on which I found the further reading (Hunicke et al.), to be fascinating, so I am pleased to be able to add them to my repertoire of game design vocabulary. My most valuable takeaway from the lecture, however, was the concept of core design pillars. It strikes me as a great system to adhere to when developing games as it ensures nearly everything you incorporate supports these key values and the vison they uphold. It took me a while to distinguish pillars from features, but now that I understand the concept I can imagine how easy it would be to overcomplicate a game and overwhelm players if developers were to have too many pillars or deviate from them. I took some time to think about my favourite games and attempted to break them down into their design pillars:
BioShock (2007): 1. Evocative environmental storytelling 2. Versatile toolset 3. Interplaying systems 4. Story-rich
Papers, Please (2013): 1. Constraints 2. Randomness 3. Dark humour 4. Moral dilemmas 5. Controlled chaos
When developing my 2D mod, I will establish my core pillars early on, and make sure to constantly evaluate my game against them in order to have a vision that is consistent.
References:
ANSIMUZ. 2017. ‘Sunny Land | 2D Characters | Unity Asset Store’. Unity Asset Store [online] Available at: https://assetstore.unity.com/packages/2d/characters/sunny-land-103349 [accessed 14 October 2020]
BioShock. 2007. Irrational Games, 2K.
BRACKEYS. 2018. How to make a 2D Game in Unity. [YouTube user-generated content]. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=on9nwbZngyw&list=PLPV2KyIb3jR6TFcFuzI2bB7TMNIIBpKMQ [accessed 18 October 2020]
HUNICKE, Robin, Matt LEBLANC and Robert ZUBEK. ‘MDA: A Formal Approach to Game Design and Game Research’. [online PDF] Available at: https://users.cs.northwestern.edu/~hunicke/MDA.pdf [accessed on 18 October 2020].
Papers, Please. 2013. Lucas Pope, 3909 LLC.