Coding errors and new bat

 This week Unity, the program I am using to create my level in the game, was acting weird, and I had to delete some of my progress because my coding scripts were not complete, and the program was not wanting to work with unfinished scripts. During this process, I realized that I have to have my bat begin coding the bat movement within the game to start. I thought I had a bat asset already downloaded from the program's free store, but I did not, so I took the time with some help; we got the bat drawn from scratch and uploaded it onto unity. I will include the bat drawings below. I have started coding the bat movement now and have to work more on my background images to add more layers and depth. After I saw our bat drawing come to life, I got really excited, and I am so eager to see the progress with this level; I want to take time in the summer to keep this process moving. 

Background paper and ideas

 This week the background paper was due so it took most of my time as well as how hectic getting assignments done has been. I have come up with more planning ideas for the game; when I was planning, writing, and editing my research paper rough draft, It sparked new ideas for how I will test my research. I want to use my family and close friends to research the game when it is done. Due to COVID, I cannot really ask anyone else to help with research. So far, I have started reading more articles on conducting the research and keeping track of it. The atrticles I have been reading describe that there is already a lot of research proving video games enhance cognitive abilities and help learn more than traditional methods, but not many tests using a video game than traditional learning. It is more simulation and apps. I am excited to start building the game but I know building and coding is a tedious process; it will be a long process. Regardless I am ready. Below is a picture of the tools I will be using to conduct research, drawn terribly by myself. 

Slow progress

 Honestly, this week has been hectic; all of a sudden, I am behind in a class, and my entire schedule gets thrown off. It has been stressful trying to divide up time evenly because I have had to dedicate more time to the class I am behind in. This week in terms of the game, I have not done anything on the program, but I researched how to get started on editing my background. I want to insert multiple pictures and layers to the background instead of one image. I want to insert the night sky on the top portions of the game scene and then at the bottom have a dirt road or actual road. I have some coding experience, and I started researching that you can use code scripts to edit a background scene's dimensions on the game. I thought it was only through the Unity platform, but no, there is a lot of coding involved to edit the game scene. 

image from: https://answers.unity.com/questions/620699/scaling-my-background-sprite-to-fill-screen-2d-1.html

Level Foundation

This week I have taken more time to actually begin the process of establishing the foundation of the level of the game. I already had planned on how it was going to look at the beginning of the game, and I decided that it would begin with the bat flying at night time. I downloaded night sky bat assets and started coding the foundation of the game. I started making the 3 basic game objects that are basically like the foundation of the game, starting with the main focus on appearance. I added the night sky background with some cloud detail. I am still thinking of adding the moon to be visible in the entire game or to be visible only in the beginning. I got the night sky from the free assets I downloaded within the unity asset store; unity is the program we are using for the game. Surprisingly, actually building the foundation takes more time than I thought it would. A LOT of components go into the game, such as how big the actual screen the user will be looking at. We have to input actual dimensions. By today, I input some dimensions of how big the game scene will be, input the background photo, create the code basic test code script that will be run to see if the script is working in the game. I am posting a screenshot of the background photo set into the game below. 

Background paper and outage

 This week has been crazy overall. The highlight of this mess that we have been experiencing is that we had an extra week of spring break. Monday was hectic because I, probably like many other students, stressed due dates and how my classes would progress. I got myself organized on Monday, and all my teachers have been. Pushing back the due dates by a week or longer has lifted a massive weight off my shoulders. I dedicated more time to the background paper and finished my assignments on time, with other work being pushed back. I did not develop anything yet; it mainly wrote reports, researched, planned, and played with the environment. Next week I want to dedicate more time to the actual game solely. I have a lot of plans to start creating the game and how I want it to look. 

image from: https://www.pexels.com/photo/adult-blur-books-close-up-261909/