Game Making Skills Audit

This week’s spark challenge got me thinking about how applicable my existing skills are to my current academic pursuits. While multiple decades of code crunching has helped me change my career and get a new job, it doesn’t directly translate to being a good game designer.

However, it does give me a grounding in how certain things work, and help you understand how to learn new things by breaking them into smaller, sequential chunks which are easier to digest. (VYGOTSKY 1978)

Before starting the skills audit challenge activity, I wanted to consider my game engine choice. I worked on Unity in the second rapid ideation session, and think I made some bad choices, specifically deciding to spend time on optimization vs building new features. Making this decision led me to consider that if I spent time optimizing on such a small project, I was not focusing my attention on delivering new content or features.

Unity is a great framework and has many benefits (Dealessandri 2021). However, given my career goals - I want to build a game, and not get a job as a game developer - something a little more “casual” might suit me better. This week I’ve been exploring Gamemaker, and have decided that its the right engine for this project.

The skills audit below considers my new choice of engine, and, contains two rankings, one before I chose Gamemaker, and the second, after I’ve completed some tutorials.

• Input: Not yet -> Confident

  The breakout tutorial was crazy easy, and I learnt more about Gamemaker in this two-part - 85-minute tutorial than in 10 hours of Unity tutorials. While the programming language is quite esoteric and the function names are unusual, once you get into the Gamemaker mindset, I found myself coding ahead of the tutorial.

  • Gamemaker Breakout Tutorial

• Physics & Colliders: Not Yet -> Confident

  I found this one a little scarier, as in Unity I’d completed tutorials with colliders, but if I had to do it myself, I don’t think I would have been able to, let alone explain it to someone else. Again, Gamemaker makes this trivial, and I had it up and running in minutes, including more complex concepts just as distance reducing collisions.

  • Gamemaker Manual Page for Collisions
  • Gamemaker RPG Tutorial

• Run time object spawning: Not Yet -> Confident.

  Another one that was pretty straight forward from the breakout tutorial.

  • Breakout Tutorial

• Animation & Control: Confident

  Not having worked with animation in Unity, I was confident that whichever engine I chose that I’d be able to make the animation work with little effort.

  • Farming RPG Tutorial

• Level Design/Layout: NOT YET

  While familiar with the concept of tiles and layout out a level, based on my experience in the second rapid ideation session, I am not sure on the actual form of the levels and how best to layout a level for optimum user experience. I’ve read a few books on game design, but none have given anything that I’ve been able to synthesize into what a good level design should be. Improving this skill is going to be a goal to research and build an action plan for.

• Pathfinding: NOT YET

  I have no experience in this area, and my previous games have not needed this functionality. This youtube tutorial seems well respected in Gamemaker circles. I will spend some more time on this, as for my Pirate RPG game, ship battles are going to be a significant part, so I want to learn more about applying real naval tactics into the game.

  • Gamemaker Tutorial on Pathfinding

• Basic Game Logic: Confident

  The years of coding experience help here, the game logic is pretty straightforward, and the manual for the language is enough to get the basics. More advanced patterns are available in the tutorials above.

  • Gamemaker Language Overview

• Particle Effects: NOT YET

  Particle effects are another area I haven’t explored before, and am looking forward to learning more. I anticipate using particles in a few areas of the game design. The manual and youtube video should be an excellent place to get started.

  • Guide to Gamemaker Particles
  • Particles in Gamemaker Tutorial
• Character Sprites: NOT YET
• Environment Sprites: NOT YET

• Character Animations: NOT YET

  These three elements are a particular weakness of mine, and I made use of third party assets last time to speed me along. I’ve been running through this Udemy course on mastering pixel art, and intend on making my own character and environment sprites and animations.

  • Udemy Pixel Art Master Course

• UI Design: Confident

  This article gave me some insight into the types of game UI. However, I still feel weak in knowing how best to apply this knowledge to create a great UI.

  • Level Up – A Guide to Game UI

• Sound: NOT YET

  I was impressed with the Udemy course on pixel art, so I intend to enrol in this game music course and compose some public domain sea shanties.

  • Udemy course on game music

References

• DEALESSANDRI, Marie. 2021. ‘What Is the Best Game Engine for Your Game?’ GamesIndustry.biz [online]. Available at: https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2020-01-16-what-is-the-best-game-engine-for-your-game [accessed 22 Jan 2021].

• VYGOTSKY, L. S. 1978. Mind in Society. Harvard University Press. Available at: http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctvjf9vz4 [accessed 18 Nov 2020].