Day 5 with GameDevHQ

50% Done! At least that’s what they tell me….

Today marks the end of the first week with GameDevHQ! I can feel my game beginning to take shape into a fully functioning, and fun, game. Today I focused on getting through the “Prototype to Production” and “Powerup- Triple Shot” sections of the 2D development course. I felt a lot better today going through the works, rather than the struggles I faced during the “spawn Manager” section.

I am beginning to feel as if I know what to do. Up to this point, I’ve simply followed Jonathan through the tutorials soaking up all the information given. From Player movements, to enemy functions and shooting; I am starting to take that knowledge and carry it into these next sections. I’m also playing with my game, tweaking it to become a game I would like to play. Even though my knowledge and skillset is still limited, I find the simple functions I desire is within arm’s reach. With a lot of information available, I can even begin exploring other options.

One particular option I am struggling to understand, however, is how to gradually increase difficulty of the game. My enemies, at this point, are following a strict pattern of spawning every 3 seconds and cycling through if not destroyed. I would like to increase the spawn rate as time goes on. I’m sure, however, that with continuation of this course those functions will be explained.

Today was also our first mandatory “All Teams” live tutorial with Al Heck. Today he taught us how to create a gun animation. We also learned about the incredible “vault” of assets available at our finger tips, Thank you GameDevHQ!

It was a relief to see how great the program is at programming animations. I was relieved to discover we won’t need to write tedious code to provide an animation; instead the program already has a powerful systems in place.

Looking forward to continuing on next week!

Everyone have a great Weekend!