Week 34

Week 34:

Critical Reflection:

Conclusion:

Over the course of this college year, I have managed to design, create and test my Horror-based game “Monster Bear” using the Unity Engine. Initially, I was really unsure what to create this time around as I felt starved of any worthwhile ideas that I could use for the Unity Project. In addition, I was really unsure as to how difficult it could be or how it would eventually turn out in the end. After all, I had no prior knowledge or experience with Unity Engine.

In its current state, the Unity Game itself has most of its features that I wanted to implement into it as mentioned above. Over the year, I feel that I have gathered a lot of skills, knowledge and experience from this Unity Project, and they’ll likely prove to be invaluable. As such, I feel slightly more confident than I was in the beginning of this course. But I feel I may still need to use research sources if I ever wanted to continue using the Unity Engine in future.

Additionally, I should mention that I did run into problems and that there are still a few bugs in the game than I had intended there to be. And if I wanted to forward with this game, then it would need a lot more development and research in order to be in fully working order. Working with Unity Engine also took a lot of time and research itself to learn how it worked and sometimes it left me frustrated learning that the coding itself was out of date.

For example, when I was typing in and editing the code, I had learned from watching YouTube Tutorials I would sometimes learn that the coding itself would not work and this is because I was using older pieces of coding from earlier versions of Unreal Engine. Additionally, Unreal Engine itself gets updated almost yearly and once we had reached 2019 the coding, I was using from 2017-2018 had become now obsolete, and it was better to not even update.

It was because of issues like this, I sometimes had to either go back to an older version of Unity Engine, or somehow revise and modify the coding I had to fit the updated services. As a result, I ended up scrapping the game a few times before I eventually found the best way to implement the coding that I was using. Thanks to the steep learning curve, partly my own fault, I feel like I may have wasted more time and that I could have gotten more done.

For example, in-game I wanted to include a “stamina system” that would have caused the Player to lose stamina the more they run, and the only way to rebuild the stamina was to stop and take a breather. Of course, this would also mean any Enemy NPCs nearby would be able to spot them and chase after them. Additionally, I had also wanted to create an actual torch that requires batteries and the Player also need to collect them less they run out. As such, when it came to using Unity Engine, I found it to be a trial-and-error experience.

As for Assets, I found that Unity Engine offered a lot of free Assets that I could use and easily upload into my game. As well as tutorials as to how to use them. This was especially useful for a student like me, who is still looking for a job and has little money to spend. Any Assets or Unity Kits I ended up using, I’ll be sure to mention and link them in the appendix at the end.

Overall, however, I am relatively pleased and satirised with the results of my Unity Project. During the development, it turned out to be a much larger feat than I had realised, and I wish I could have implemented a few more features. Regardless, at this point I am confident that with a bit more development I could get the game into a more complete state. Other than that, I am very satisfied with the functionality of the coding mechanics and gameplay. As a result, this year I have learnt how to use Unity Engine and C# Scripting.

Week 33

Week 33:

Play-Testing -- Peer Reviews:

Elliot White:

“Sean has made a very simple game in a similar vein to that old Slender game. The format is
simple, you explore a forest and collect pages. But instead of Slenderman, Sean has added “killer
teddys” that wander around the forest and chase you when they spot you. The graphics are alright,
but the music is really loud and can get really annoying. I think he could have done the controls better
too, as I found moving around on the keyboard a bit awkward and difficult to escape when being
chased. The mini-map could also be a lot smaller.” – Elliot White

Matthew Flanagan:

“Monster Bear is a horror setting game within a forest not too much unlike the setting in Slender or
Naughty Bear and has an eerie tone to its atmosphere. The objective is to explore and collect the
pages scattered throughout the forest while the player has to avoid the line of sight from the monster
bears which will chase them down relentlessly until they can take shelter in a safe spot and wait for
them to leave. The speed of the enemies appears to be the same as the player’s run speed giving
them enough time to out manoeuvre and escape, but they can’t slow down for nearly anything when
escaping pursuit. The heavy footsteps the monster bears make gives a sense of adrenaline and suspense, and it is quite effective in showcasing how important it is to evade them. Once the player
manages to collect all the pages the enemies become inactive and the entire arena is lit up revealing
the area in better detail in which the player wins the game.

If I were to give some points of improvement, I’d say the game could give you another two levels with an increase of bears and different maps to make the game a little longer and have the difficulty ramp up. Also, some variety in gameplay additions such as having obstacles you can slide under to
temporarily stump the bear pursuers by making them have to go around them during the chase or
being able to climb some objects to add some safe places could be nice to give different options.
Maybe even have it so if every five minutes a new bear is beamed down adding to the enemy count
as a sort of punishment for the player taking too long to increase the suspense and urgency. And to
top this off a Big Boss Bear character at the end of the final level that can step over obstacles to
challenge the player to avoid them much more than the normal bears until they collect all the pages.”