The most important lesson I’ve learned since getting serious about coding is this: you need a plan. The biggest trap I’ve fallen into when starting a new coding project is not having a clear roadmap for where I want to go and how to get there. I’ve spent countless hours writing what I thought was meticulous code, only to realize I had no idea how to tie everything together or how to implement the components I needed to fulfill my vision.
With that in mind, my son and I sat down over a delicious meal at a local Mexican restaurant to hash out the basics of our game. We brainstormed plenty of ideas, but these are the ones that rose to the top:
- A 3D game.
- A setting in a post-apocalyptic, broken world.
- The player is on a quest to discover who they are and their ultimate purpose.
- Minimal combat, with a focus on puzzle-solving.
- Dark, nightmarish entities that stalk the player.
- A “Madness” mechanic, where the player accumulates madness, which alters aspects of the game.
- A storyline revealed gradually, potentially through finding diary pages.
- The title: "Descent Into Madness."
Based on these factors, I decided to stick with Unity. I had dabbled with 3D projects in a few game jams before, so I felt more comfortable with its workflow. I did briefly consider using this project as an opportunity to learn Godot, but Unity’s sweet siren call was too strong to resist!
After reviewing my notes, I decided the best first step was to create a basic "sandbox" level (or “scene,” in Unity terms). This would be my testing ground to get the core mechanics in place: basic player movement, collisions to trigger events, and a simple AI for some monsters. My goal was to build prefabs and reusable scripts that could be implemented throughout the larger game as we expanded the world.
Time to fire up Unity Hub!
No comments:
Post a Comment