With the last background image ready from Aoife, I was finally able to build the final version of the project and upload it to itch. It took some time to get all the files up and running but I'm happy that the game is finally out to be played. Below is a quick video walkthrough of the first two days:-
Upon recoding the playthrough I already found not a problem, but definitely something I can see being addressed when people start playing the game. While the quick solution I had for finding universal animation speed for the text worked in most areas, there was some text in the game where I felt the animation speed could have been shorter. Granted, this could also just be me being critical of my own work having stared at the Unity screen for far too long.
<<Final Reflection>>
In the end, I was happy with the way the game came out. While some of our loftier ideas didn't make it to the final product (like implementing a money system based on actual data on student spending), we did the best we could in a strenuous situation. Below are just some of my final thoughts on this whole process of making UniVerse :-
· Is there anything I would have done differently?
As much as I should have played around and learned more about Bolt before starting to make the game, in the end, I felt that I was biting more than I could chew regardless, as I was already warned before making the game that Bolt had a very steep learning curve. So to answer this, I would say that I would have learned and used Playmaker from the very start of this project. Because from there, the time that I would have spent learning Playmaker, I would have used to implement the main feature of the game - having the ending be based on the number of times the player has chosen to do the essay.
· What are my strengths and weaknesses in my output of the project?
A strength I had found out while making this game would be the ability to learn new things quickly. When the issue of Ink no longer being a viable solution arose, it didn't take me long to understand and comprehend the basic functionalities of state (Playmaker) and flow (Bolt) machines. But with that also came a known weakness, which is that I need to take my time to disseminate high concepts. As seen in my previous blog posts, time was not on my side with the increase in college workload, so I did not have the mental capacity to juggle learning what can be seen as a months-long understanding of visual scripting.
· What did I do right? Why?
While I made the mistake of thinking that Ink would hold our project together, I think it was a miracle that it dawned on me to use Unity to its full potential. By learning more about the functionalities of Unity through its assets (UI, animation, visual scripting with Playmaker), I have gained more valuable knowledge of Unity that I will bring with me to future projects as I continue to pursue game development.
· What did I do wrong? Why?
I definitely learned the hard way of doing one thing at a time, and this showed when I learned how to animate the text and then had to painstakingly add that to every text component in the game. Granted it was the timing of me finding the dotTween Animation asset that I implemented it to the game so late, but looking back at the my process now, I should have had a more organized approach to creating the game, and that lesson I will bring with me to my future projects.
· How does the project effectively communicate its goals to its target audience?
While working on Day 5 and writing the ending, it did feel very meta for me, as I alongside the rest of the team were in the same situation as the game's narrative - continuing to struggle between daily life and college. Although the context of many scenes in the game are related to Maynooth University or Irish University Life specifically (e.g Phoenix, the SU), in the end, the common goal of "trying not to fail college" is still universal and I think we achieved that by putting in our personal stories in the game; even if we didn't achieve our goal of using backed-up data to show the realism of these kinds of situations.
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