Starting up with Game Development in Unity — Part Two
Going the easy way… or not
This is the continuation of the Part One
I decided to go with the graphic adventure game, it was easier.
I just setup the Scene, downloaded some models from internet, created a house using Sweet Home and imported it to Unity. So far, so good.
Then i started to do the different “Rooms” transitions. I created some colliders, a camera in each room. Whenever the user clicked in a transition collider, it would switch to a different camera.
Yeah, the room transitions went really well. It really gave the feeling that you were navigation between rooms.
Then i setup the inventory system, here the things went more difficult. I still managed to achieve the inventory system.
Then i was needing some kind of requirements system. I wanted to restrict the player to entering a room until he has found a key.
Obviously i could check if the user has the key in the inventory, but i didn’t want to “hard code” every requirement in code and my inventory system wasn’t Playmaker friendly yet.
I decided that creating a Requirement System was a lot of work, and it was going to consume a lot of time and i would ending not making any game at all. So i decided to go with the Hard coded version of it. It’s nasty but it works. I always can refactor it later.
Then i wanted to do some dialogs. I realized that i needed some kind of dialog tree. I started to work in a dialog system. It was going to be generic enough to be used in the Requirements System in the future.
Again, it was a lot of work and was taking me out of the game. I wanted to finish a chapter, a scene at least. Hard coding appeared again, working and allowing me to continue. Adding another something to refactor later.
I had all working: Scene Setup, Rooms navigation, Interactive Items, Inventory System, Small Dialog Tree, Requirements and a Main Menu :).
I had all the tools to start the game. Then i realized that i was missing the most important part of an adventure game. The story. Oh god.
I like writing, i like reading and almost writing small stories.
But this was more like directing a film. I wanted to have a good story. With humor. With some depth.
I started to read about storytelling, reading books about how to be a writer. How to write stories. I read two books that i gifted to a friend of mine of Chuck Wending (250 things you should know about writing and, 500 ways to be a better writer). They were really good.
But i’m not a writer. I never finished a chapter in any story that i started.
And i certainly didn’t know how to write a story and adapt it to make it fit a game.
I had an idea about what i wanted it to be. That’s all.
Time for leave the easy zone and try something else.
Soon i will write the Part Three