As of writing this, I have passed the 150th day spent on game development. Whether it is spent on research, development, or design I have been logging these days on Game Dev Friends Club discord channel. Also, I should add there were some days solely on research or study that not made the cut to be logged as game development as I am studying in Game and Interaction Technologies Master’s program. Except for course assignments and exams, I had a research course, required lots of reading and writing. Outside of these cases, I did log the projects regarding courses.
I really have been enjoying the challenge, logging what I did each day spent on game development. Some days it was oh, I did not do anything today so maybe I should do x or y. Or sometimes if I have been working intensely, I could call a day feeling at ease.
After logging them on the server I kind of want to have a place where my actions listed more compactly, so I decided to write this post. I had started this challenge on 26th September 2019 and writing this post on the 1st of May 2020, this is 216 days of duration. As a defense of this many count of free days, I can re-present the days spent on course work and were not cut to be included in the logs.
Timeline
Here I will be listing what I had been doing through the images or tweets to keep it visual. Each project has a start and an end day as the start of the project and the last day it logged. Some are dropped, or put on hold because they did not make the cut on the importance order.
Scaling Objects With Two Pivots | Tutorial
Start Date: Day 1 (Sep 26)
End Date: Day 1
Duration: 1 Day
I had written on scaling objects with 2 objects on Unity (Link) and recently I used this implementation for our VR assignment which will be mentioned later. I had implemented the mechanic before I started the challenge so here we have tutorial writing.
Gyro Input | Experiment
Start Date: Day 2 (Oct 4)
End Date: Day 2
Duration: 1 Day
I worked a little bit on gyro input on the second day, probably before starting the challenge too. This was on my mind before I had started writing this, would like to keep experimenting with it later.
Design Prototyping | Tool
Start Date: Day 2 (Oct 4)
End Date: Day 3 (Oct 5)
Duration: 2 Days
I used Unity to prototype my design assignment with simple objects. This was a Kit Of Parts centered design assignment and I used Unity to visualize the design with given parts, also had written a run-time script to level items so they all touch the ground the same.
Pokestop Effect On Unity | Experiment
Start Date: Day 3 (Oct 5)
End Date: Day 6 (Oct 11)
Duration: 2 Days
I had been playing Pokemon Go intensely, and I have a tendency to think about how can I do that in Unity and wander around. Poke stops seemed easy. But dropped after Newton Disc idea interrupted development.
Newton Disc Effect On Unity | Experiment + Tutorial
Start Date: Day 3 (Oct 5)
End Date: Day 10 (Oct 15)
Duration: 7 Days
Started the Poke stop development by spinning disc with mouse input, this reminded me of Newton Disc Effect, first started with pure physics development, later found a blend shader, and used it. Lastly, I composed my findings on a tutorial. (Link)
Working on 3ds Max | To Ease Assignment
Start Date: Day 6 (Oct 11)
End Date: Day 33 (Nov 21)
Duration: 3 Days
For my modeling course I had to use 3ds Max to model objects for the game, so I needed to learn 3ds Max. along the way I had followed some tutorials on YouTube, I suggest 100 tips for 3ds Max series, at least the first 5-6 videos.
Guided Research | Research Assignment
Start Date: Day 11 (Oct 18)
End Date: Day 18 (Oct 31)
Duration: 6 Days
For my research project, I chose the topic Importance of Audio in VR in a general way. For this, I researched topics; audio games, 3d audio in VR, and mobile VR development. I had written a report and I don’t think I had logged all the days I had worked on this.
01 Particle System | Experiment
Start Date: Day 12 (Oct 19)
End Date: Day 13 (Oct 22)
Duration: 2 Days
This again stem from a post I had seen and wanted to replicate on Unity. Still, on my mind, this is not finished.
OTG HyperJam | Game Jam
Start Date: Day 14 (Oct 26)
End Date: Day 15 (Oct 27)
Duration: 2 Days
This had been my most chill game jam experience. Plus I had recently published an upgraded version.
Audio Simon Game Development | Published
Start Date: Day 18 (Oct 31)
End Date: Day 83 (Feb 9)
Duration: 29 Days
During researching for audio games my head wandered into designing an audio game, also Simon Says was a game that I wanted to prototype and the Audio Simon has been born. This is my first published project. This was a valuable experience.
Virus Bump Game Development | Published
Start Date: Day 19 (Sep 1)
End Date: Day 149 (Apr 30)
Duration: 21 Days + 2 game jam days
Right after the HyperJam, I continued on this game a little bit, but courses became intense so put in on hold. With all hyper-casual hype going on I decided to continue the development of my entry on OTG HyperJam with Virus theme. Then Coronavirus spread further and became an incentive for me to finish and publish this game. Very recently I had published it, making it my second published project.
Codevember | Experiment
Start Date: Day 20 (Sep 3)
End Date: Day 20 (Sep 3)
Duration: 1 Day
I like challenges last year had drawn half of the Inktober, even created a prompt maker for it on Unity. And this year I had stumbled upon Codevember, It is a very cool challenge but almost every entry was wholly created with code, mines were unity objects moving with a script so I dropped it on day 2.
Move 2D Objects With Mouse | Experiment + Tutorial
Start Date: Day 27 (Sep 14)
End Date: Day 28 (Sep 15)
Duration: 2 Days
I was browsing my old projects and stumbled upon the touch move study I did for my internship. At the time I had been wanting to write a tutorial so bad that I found this an interesting challenge and listed some ways to move sprites with mouse input on Unity.
Delusion The Game | Assignment
Start Date: Day 31 (Sep 18)
End Date: Day 56 (Jan 3)
Duration: 9 Days
This game is the final assignment for my modeling course. I had modeled everything and coded almost everything except utilities such as player movement. I really like underwater so I wanted my modeling to be something about underwater, the closest premise with a building was SeaHourse Villas. I modeled the whole environment based on their design. The game also has nice audio touches, up-under water audio, door open close SFX, sinking state background changes. In this game, you go on a vacation on floating villas and turn of events the villa starts sinking. You should reach the roof before you sank.
Dice Upper Face Detection | Experiment
Start Date: Day 38 (Sep 25)
End Date: Day 38 (Sep 25)
Duration: 1 Day
After re-learning about vector meths on the maths course, I wondered how to use this information and guess the upper side on a dice.
Audio Based Game In VR | Project + Assignment
Start Date: Day 40 (Dec 5)
End Date: Day 55 (Jan 3)
Duration: 9 Days
This is the end product of my guided research project. This is a mobile VR game developed in Google Cardboard. From the borders of a sphere, the same looking bad and good objects move towards to player, and players should distinguish them by their audio and act accordingly.
Shadergraph Experiments | Experiment + Tutorial
Start Date: Day 57 (Jan 10)
End Date: Day 63 (Jan 16)
Duration: 4 Days
I believe these times are the start of my winter break. Among all the projects going I really wanted to do something for my game dev self and experimented with Shadergraph. I still miss those days, Shadergraph development is fun.
Phone Vibration Tester | Tool
Start Date: Day 68 (Jan 21)
End Date: Day 69 (Jan 23)
Duration: 2 Days
For Audio Simon I needed to adjust vibration when the player pressed the buttons. To test the best values I created this tester.
Some Hyper Casual Clone () | Experiment
Start Date: Day 72 (Jan 26)
End Date: Day 76 (Jan 30)
Duration: 4 Days
This would be a clone of a Hyper Casual game type that I liked very much and wondered how I would do it because almost all of them from a template app sold online. Maybe one day I will continue because I mostly got the mechanic. The rest is work.
Global Game Jam | Game Jam
Start Date: Day 77 (Jan 31)
End Date: Day 79 (Feb 1)
Duration: 3 Days
Global Game Jam 🙂 We developed with Air Console for the first time, it was not easy but it was very satisfying that we still want to keep playing after the presentations.
How Progress Bars Work Replica | Experiment
Start Date: Day 84 (Feb 2)
End Date: Day 84 (Feb 2)
Duration: 1 Day
I had seen a post on how progress bars work, and again I wondered how I can do it in Unity. Well now I know I can do it with UV mapping and Shadergraph.
UI Template For Future Mobile Games | Experiment + Tool
Start Date: Day 85 (Feb 11)
End Date: Day 89 (Feb 17)
Duration: 5 Days
After lacking the rest on Some Hyper Casual Clone, I decided to start with the UI template. This has a nice shop implementation I should say. This has been put on hold during Under My Hood development.
Under My Hood Airconsole Game | Game Development + Alpha
Start Date: Day 90 (Feb 21)
End Date: Day 122 (Mar 30)
Duration: 26 Days
We continued working on our game jam game and improved it into an entry to AirConsole developer contest. Learned lots during development.
Wall Assault – VR Course Assignment | Assignment
Start Date: Day 97 (Feb 29)
End Date: Day 150 (May 2)
Duration: 22 Days
In this semester I am enrolled in a VR development course, we are a 4 people team 2 developers 2 artists, designing the game together. Recently, most of my days spent on this project. Enjoying my days spent on VR development, as it is my main goal in game development.
Summary
If you feel lost between all the images and tweets here is a more compact list of what I did on 150 game development days.
Experiments:
- Gyroscope Input
- Pokestop Effect
- 01 Particle System
- Codevember
- Dice Upper Face Detection
- Shadergraph
- 3D Progress Bar
- UI Template for Mobile Games
Tutorials:
- Scaling Objects By Two Pivot Objects In Unity Link
- Newton Disc Effect in Unity Link
- Moving Sprites with Mouse Input Link
- Beginner Friendly Shader Graph Tutorial Link
Playable games (excluding jams and published ones):
- Delusion gameplay
- Audio Centered MVR Game
- Under My Hood itch.io AirConsole Preview
Tools:
- Phone Vibration Tester
- Design Prototyping
Game Jams:
- OTG HyperJam Viruses A(re)Live
- Global Game Jam Repair: with Re-pair
Published Projects:
- Audio Simon Google Play
- Virus Bump Google Play
One of the main incentives that keep me continue this challenge is the above quote. I probably stumbled upon Peter Drucker’s quote on some self-help book, I don’t exactly know what he does, but his quote has an impact on me. If something is of importance to its owner, its state should be tracked and analyzed to make it better. I can agree with some form of this. Game development is one of the important things for me, and I am very happy that this challenge enables me to track it easily otherwise, I don’t think I would be tracking it this intently. For more information on the challenge here is the discord link.
As of last words, I want to recap my 100th-day tweet:
I am really happy that I found out about this challenge and been participating. There could be days I had over-updated with not entirely game dev actions such as studying or report writing or the days omitted because of these actions, but these are game development related to me. I guess, there is not always only one right way to participate in a challenge.
Not only I have been able to track my actions on game development more intently also I had the privilege to follow the journeys of other devs on the server. Really thanks to the creator, all the mods and the people keep coming to the server that keeping it alive. I urge you to participate in this challenge with tweets or updates on the server here. Who knows tracking your game dev progress would bring in your life. In any way, I am wishing you the best in your game development journey.
Devsplorer 