Foreword
This was my first time working with Unity 3D, a game engine used for video game development, architectural visualizations, and interactive media installations. I actually had lots of fun learning the program by watching lots & lots of online tutorials, trial & error, and help from my TA. Under the tight time constraint of this school project, I didn't have time to draw my own graphics so I borrowed most of the visual elements from Pinterest. Overall, I enjoyed building this miniscure two-dimension interactive game environment from scratch. The software shared similar characteristics of Adobe Flash, andwas quite easy to figure out with the help of online resources.
Concept & Objective
The objective of the game, Bad Berries, is to navigate around the world of Bonbonsphere to collect
the number of candy berries determined in the beginning of each level. The difficulty of each level will intensify
by the growing number of candy berries and the combination of challenging obstacles and time restrictions.
The following video is a short demo of a scene in my gaming environment.
It features the protagonist, two collectible candy berries, two villains, and a token star.
Controls
Moving around the game, you will run into a variety of obstacles and obstructive villains that you must find ways and resources to surpass them in order to collect all the candy berries. To collect an item into your
inventory, the protagonist must collide with an active component of the game. Essentially, the game
immediately ends if the protagonist collides with any of the bad villains during game play.
In this Bad Berries game environment, the keys; ‘A’, ‘D’, and ‘W’, will help the player move left,
right, and jump accordingly to shift or leap during game play to complete each mission.
The following video will guide and teach you all the key controls of my game.
This video teaches the controls of my gaming system, Bad Berries
Criteria & Specifications
Just incase you were wondering why I showcased the option of switching the game play view, it was actually one of the many criterias I had to meet. As one of the assignment specifications, I was required to have at least two cameras controlled with a switching mechanism. Currently, I have one camera projecting the entire game play, and the second camera provides a zoomed in view of the protagonist. My chosen switching mechanism is the space bar.
Creating Prefabs in Unity simplify the proccess of object instancing. By turning my candy berries into a Prefab, mass producing the component with the same format and consistency is easy as drag and drop. Altogether, I put a behavior animation onto the active candy berries that the protagonist is meant to collect so the player can differentiate the difference between the foreground and functional elements of the game that are meant to be interacted with. A sound effect is also incorporated into the collision script so that the feedback response of a candy berry collision is more valued and adds to the sense of being rewarded for the player. Associating the feature of the candy berries with the name of the game, each candy berry acts as a mystery item that may assist or hinder your game progression.
Collision with Candy Berries
In this particular case, there are no attack mechanics to help the protagonist destroy the evil villains; therefore the player is obligated to select the right candy berry in order to get rid of the obstructing villain. When the right candy berry is collected, an exiting animation of the villain occurs. Additionally, the bat is under the influence of a collision script and an animation loop where it will destroy the player bear if they collide. Therefore, the player must avoid getting into the path of the bat.
Star
One of the obstacles that I intend on adding to a full game play of Bad Berries is to hide one to three stars around the map of the level and rule out a requirement for the player to find the set number of stars in order to unlock a hidden pass way, bonus quest or secret chamber. However, the star is only computed as discovered if the player triggers the right candy berry close by at the moment. Additionally, the star will spin in a clockwise direction as an indication for a star discovered.
Game Over
Unfortunately, when the protagonist collides with the villain or enemy, the game is over.
