Journal Entry 2

Date: 15.04.2023

Activity: 

- Tried to figure out how to show text on the info post and failed.

- Spent 30 minutes writing text about how corporatized the tutorial is.

- Edited the level for 20 minutes.

- Finalized the journal.

Notes:

The design document had already implied a quite difficult level. However, during the gameplay session, I have witnessed first-hand just how difficult the game is for other people. Hence, I decided to:

1) Add checkpoints.

2) Reduce the number of enemies by more than half.

3) Remove nearly all of the chompers which were guarding spitters.

The second and third were easy to do. Adding a checkpoint is also easy, but I wanted to add an info post writing "Checkpoint" on the screen (much like the example on Unity's Zone 1 scene). However, I couldn't figure out how to do it just by tinkering with the assets, so I decided to Google it.

This is where I realized how soulless this whole "tutorial kit" is. From what I understand, this thing has been around since 2020 or so, and many features have been added/removed since then, which means that what was once taught in the official tutorial page may not be there anymore.

When you enter Unity's website on this tutorial, you see the "2D Platformer Mod: Billboard Face" tab which has dude smiling in the most soulless and corporatized way imaginable. This is the exact moment I was reminded how pointless this tutorial kit is. It has already become hard to follow in just 3 years, and it'll become completely unusable as a learning resource a few more years down the line. I thought about the wasted time and effort that went into marketing this thing.

In my opinion, video game development is not easy, and it takes a lot of time and effort (and a lot of bashing one's head onto a wall) to learn even the basics. The way I see it, these "tutorial kits" are supposed to make it easier for newcomers to get into it, but I think it's painting an incorrect image as to what it's actually like. These tutorials make it seem like the ordeal of having to figure things out can be bypassed, and yet it is inevitable.

So what is the point spending so much time and manpower to create these "hand-holdy" tutorials that are so complicated at their core that it takes a lot of time to dissect them? How many newcomers will actually take their time to sit down and tinker with the ins and outs of the assets, scripts etc. in order to understand how "the engine under the hood" really works, especially the parts of the kit that aren't documented/narrated on the official web page? Will they truly learn something or will they just follow the beaten path and THINK that they've learned?

Because of this, I feel lucky that I started learning in 2015, at a time where the was a Roll a Ball tutorial, which showed all the basics that a newcomer would have to know so that they could make simple games, and have the necessary knowledge to follow slightly more advanced tutorials. All that without having to make you do "pointer chasing" just to show a stupid text on the screen...

So, after about 30 minutes of writing this text, I decided NOT to put any text on the screen. You'll get the checkpoint without realizing it. Ok? Ok.

--- --- ---

So I put the checkpoints and tried them. And then I saw it... The checkpoints don't work if you die. They only work if you walked into an acid pool or something. Ugh... Since there aren't any acid pools in the "bullet hell area" of my level, I won't be putting any checkpoints, because they don't work anyway. I'll only be putting them in the parkour area.

It's fine though. If you die in the bullet hell area, you'll go back to the original spawn point, and just have to walk back normally. The enemies you killed will still be dead.

This is the video game.

Invested Hours:

- 40 minutes trying to figure out how to show text on the info posts.

- 30 minutes writing the journal prematurely.

- 20 minutes on actively editing the level.

- 5 minutes finalizing the journal.

Outcome: Build (Project B, 15.04.2023, post-feedback).zip

EDIT: Forgot to write the "activity" thing, so I did that just now.