Game Testing

Game Testing

As we are testing our games it can be hard to try and self critique our work. Everyone has been developing their game with different levels of experience and creativity. I have seen some peoples games that look really incredible and well designed and have come together nicely. it is hard then to look at my own game and try to work to improve my design by comparing to others designs. I feel that i would make a much better progression if i had others to look at my game and give constructive criticism based on an outside view of my game. this allows for my work to be compared against another persons design ideas and creative eye. it is definitely a nice feeling to get reassurance from your peers through compliments on your own work but it is definitely destructive to solely get reassurance from someone just to preserve your self confidence. Constructive criticism is one of the best ways to help a peer to take a step back and see what they can improve in their design and help them to see other, possibly better, options for their game. The Closet Entrepreneur's article on giving constructive criticism does a great job to outline how to go about giving criticism in the right way and how, in turn, this can ultimately help your own work in future projects.

Alpha

Alpha

As i have been working on my game levels it has become clear to me about how little i still know about the power unity gives you. for a free program, there is an incredible amount of features available to play around with and include in your game design. Even with watching at least 3 tutorials each week i still dont feel that i could have completed any full level of my game without having to refer back to tutorials or the internet for help. it amazes me that such huge games in both design complexity and user popularity could be designed completely using the Unity software. I have found it extremely challenging to use the program and although i have progressed with designing in unity i still do not feel comfortable using the program and wouldn't have the confidence to attempt to create another game in my spare time. one huge difficulty i have found whit designing my game is getting things perfected in my design. i do think that unity is well thought out and easy to use but it is definitely a professional program and i would have enjoyed the program more if there was more of a simple drag and drop setup for assets. Im also impressed with the amount of free assets available on the asset store and i have found this to be a really great help in terms of exploring new looks for my game and to see what is possible in terms of design within unity. if i look back on my expectations of time management and goal setting in my first few weeks there has definitely been some changes made. i have found it very difficult to plan out my blog posts for the weeks and try to incorporate each of my tutorials and also creating my beta and alpha games on top of all this. I do prefer the 100% CA style of module and i would not want a final exam on game design but i have really struggled to keep up with the huge workload in this module. for the time i have spent with making my game i am somewhat happy with my game but of course it could have been much better if the game was the main focus for the rest of the semester as opposed to the blogs. having said this, i feel that working through up to date tutorials, like the Jimmy Vegas ones,each week is a really good way to learn the basics of Unity and what can be done to improve the overall look of your game.

A screengrab of my Level 1 start point