Theo Knoll
When people are bored, they often look for ways to become less bored. However, without wifi or a stable internet connection, there isn’t always an optimal form of entertainment. People need a game which they can play on road trips, airplane rides, and over the course of other long stretches of time. While some may look to books, others find that books are difficult to concentrate on. Therefore, I took it upon myself to create the best solution for gamers who just aren’t in that book-reading mood. This game will alleviate their mind from the drone of boredom, creating a joyful setting in which they can play a fun game without an internet connection.
Many people will be able to benefit from my project if they decide to download it. The game is specifically targeted towards kids between the ages of roughly 10-18, who are looking for a game to play when they don’t have access to the internet. In order to get kids of this age group for testing, I will have some of my friends play the game and give me feedback. Also, I’ll have my friend’s little brother play the game too in order to make sure it is suitable for younger kids as well.
At the end of the year I will give a presentation of my platformer game. Depending on the criteria of the presentation, I may include pictures and elements of the game on a slideshow to show what I’ve learned, or if allowed I might do a brief run through of one of the levels of the game, and then afterword present about the issues I had to overcome in order to make this project.
| Date | Deliverable |
|---|---|
| February 26 | Have my ideas for the game finalized with a sheet written out of a formal plan for the game and have learned some basics of Unity. |
| April 1 | Be complete with the models of the game and have 5 levels created. Game might not be entirely functional yet, but should have a method to be able to move successfully at this point for sure. |
| April 29 | Have all components of my game completed, and begin testing, looking for feedback, and other improvement opportunities. |
One of the reasons I am excited to make a game and see how it does is because the software that I need to program it doesn’t cost any money. This would be a major constraint with some other projects, which is why I decided to stick with something free. In terms of project difficulty, it will be hard to learn how to use Unity (as I have never used it before) but I think it’s worth it to learn a practicality of coding. It’s great if I can get an A in Computer Science, but at the end of the day I want to be able to apply what I’ve learned, not just be able to make a basic program that can do calculations with binary numbers.
I am very excited to be creating a game. The thought of learning how to use Unity, a program that is a common operating system of many games today, makes me ecstatic! Throughout the course of this project I am sure I will run into numerous issues that I have to struggle and persevere through. No matter how successful my game is however, by learning how to use Unity I am opening up a new door in my coding capabilities. A friend of mine told me that Unity is difficult to use, and that it isn’t worth learning how to do it for one project. He’s probably right, it probably will be hard, but he doesn’t seem to realize that I will use the knowledge I gain from this project in the future for more things in my free time.