Hello everybody , i’m new to the forums and this is my first thread. im working on a science project for the moment and its for the annual school science fair. guess what? its a game (:P). so i spent the last 6 months or so studying scripting languages and practicing game developing. started out with 2d now im in 3d. this particular game im making talks about a wizard living on a deserted island with huge forests and all kinds of animals and so on,who accidentally travels to the future as a result of a mistake while casting a spell and he found himself in a desert-like drought land and everything was gone and the island had become a horrible desert of emptiness due to the human races disregard for their only home planet (global warming , pollution, etc). long story short, you have to use your “magic” to restore life to the island , left hand to cast a water spell, which will spawn water and the right hand to cast a forest spell which will spawn big trees. i added walking sounds and beautiful spell sounds for when casting a spell, though the game is still very bare bone as you will see in the video i uploaded to YouTube (game-play):
so i wanted to post this on here to get some advice on what to do next and i just wanted some fresh ideas, criticism is welcomed and i would also like to know what i could improve. i recorded without any sounds, but i have basic walking and spell sounds like i said earlier. The map is also kind of small but i’m just experimenting and it will get bigger soon.
I hope you like it guys!
I think it serves a purpose stating his age, it should mean people cut him more slack. Also yes, people should be impressed making a game and following through with a project over 6 months at that age is impressive. A lot of adults can’t follow things through for 6 months.
The project looks good so far so well done with that! In terms of improvements you could look at improving the overall terrain and environments to be a bit more interesting as they seem rather empty currently. Some form of interface to indicate anything the resources the player has or is consuming might be an idea as well (HP, Mana, etc).
Keep up the good work and keep working on it, I’m sure it’ll be a great learning experience.
What’s up with the UT forum where some can’t give appropriate feedback and just posting nothing of value and just wasting time? I’m confused.
@topic: I liked your story, looks like you even came up with a hidden critical message which not many games have.
Regarding gameplay: have you thought of some enemy’s? I imagine plating forests and watering them could be a bit boring for some players. Maybe you can somehow combine the wizards spells to defeat them.
-the hands are a bit static maybe you can animate them a bit to give then more life
-it looked like in your video that it was possible to plant trees with out water. Also let the trees “grow” and not plopping out
Ah, thank you for your confirmation Chambers. Here it goes:
cutting slack: you are 2% on the way to project completion. Don’t worry, you will have the rest finished as well.
impressed: hey, you have a controller, a pair of hands, 2 types of projectiles and a tree spawn in 6 months! Well done!
Now all flower-power-hippie bullshit aside. Don’t tell us your age. We don’t give a flying crap. Being 14 makes you a teenager, that’s all.
The project has a nice idea in it and good story as for the rest, you still have a lot of work (and I don’t mean graphics wise, but mechanics wise).
@0tacum, that single line, was feedback. In fact was me requesting some more feedback so I can understand how someones age would fit with a video game project. If he didn’t wanted that type of feedback, maybe he shouldn’t provide that type on information.
@on topic agan: Good luck with your science project Tony.
just a note primus, i spent 6 months STUDYING java and C++, this game is no more than a month old,plus its for a school science fair so,… yh im not going to be 30 years old, but thanks for the constructive criticism, helps a lot. thanks Otacun and Chambers, i will be adding a health and mana bar soon, and a new damage spell which will be a combination of the two spells.( thanks Otacun for the idea )
later on i will have to see what form of enemy to spawn on the map,… maybe some black pollution clouds in the sky or something like that… what do you guys suggest i put in the map to fill up the emptiness?
May I ask how this has to do with science? I mean to me it looks more like a simulation//game of the earth than an observation of such and such. How do you expect to present this? I did something similar for a History Class, I made something related to WWI and my teacher told me, “Okay, cool, you showed me WWI, now can you explain it to me.”
@primus88 I agree with you primus, age shouldn’t be presented, but we shouldn’t look down or up regardless of age.
@Topic Other than that, looks good so far. Should make the place more lively. Addition of say… Educational aspects, should be included, say a sign that says “This is so and so, and is bad for the earth!” So you are explaining and understanding, since this is suppose to be for your science fair.
I think it’s a very cool concept. Rebuilding what humans destroyed instead of being about more destruction. I get the idea behind the barrenness is because everything is gone. But like some others said add some more rocks and possibly you could add some remnants of humans. Maybe that is something you could transform into energy to cast your spells. In this way you also are cleaning up the crap we left behind.
On the age discussion people will have different views as you can see. Some see it as a reason to expect less. Some see it as bragging. Some others (well myself anyway) see it as excellent to actually stick with it and yet also how nice it would be to have that kind of free time again. Months of summer vacation. Anyway good luck with your project!
Woopty doo, I was 12 when I made an online tile based mmo harvest moon fan game. Lol. Kidding, good work. But age doesn’t matter. Just be happy you have gotten an early start so in a bunch of years you can be a pro making some awesome shiit
Point is, don’t expect gratitude for you being young and developing games. We all started at some point, but when it comes down to it… quality is quality and if a game is great its not because of your age but rather the skill and time you have put into it.
I know you didn’t spent 6 months on the project. I was making fun of Chambers who was too busy flaming me and acting high and mighty than actually reading your post.
Again, your project idea is good. You can do a lot of stuff with it and still having a lightweight project on your hands which you can actually finish successfully.
Flower power isn’t bad when your Super Mario! I’m actually 4 1/2 yrs old and I can read and write at a college level. Impressed, anyone?
Anyways, exactly how can the human race destroy the planet without any regard but not restore the planet with the power of… oh, let’s say… magic? You know, the same magic that this wizard just so happens to wield? Did the power of magic just magically disappear from the planet and no one has been able to rediscover it over such a period of time?
the exact plot is that the mage who lived far from human civilizations accidentally opened a black hole while spell casting and traveled to a horrible future. the game is called The Circle : Nature’s Guardian because the mage is part of a secret circle of 12 mages sworn to protect the Earth from ill fortunes. this gives me the opportunity to do a sequel and improve by making another game where you play as another kind of mage you see…as for improvements : added regenerating mana and health system( with a nice skyrim mage portrait on the side) and 3x bigger map, ONE PROBLEM though, how do i disable the spell casting script when mana = 0 ?
yes i will have to add an educational aspect eventually…
If you actually read my post I wasn’t flaming by any stretch, I might of been slightly on a high horse but definitely not flaming. I did read the post, which is why I commented on how he could improve his project but oh well.
I think there have been some fantastic suggestions in the thread so far and I’m looking forward to how you implement some of the ideas that have been suggested. In particular putting more emphasis on the educational aspects of the project.
yes i am uploading a short video on YouTube now, showing the basic mana and health bar, although i still need help with the spell casting to stop once Mana = 0. can any good coder help me with this? this is the video(notice how the mana bar regenerates slowly): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0vWqRZs9ZQA
and about the educational aspects of the game, im thinking about making future enemies( black pollution cloud, or something that represents pollution) drop some kind of doohikies which you must collect lets say 3 of those to receive some kind of reward (new spell?)and info about these pollutants, how they pollute the Earth and the method by which they can be stopped in the real world. aslo thinking about making three kinds of enemies: Water pollutants( they hang around places your supposed to spawn water), Ground pollutants( same for trees), Air pollutants(the generally fly in the air pretty much)
To have it disable spell casting when mana = 0 you would put an if statement for example,
if(mana <= 0 && Input.GetButtonDown(“CastSpell”))
{
//Do the stuff
}
If your looking for help post on the scripting section of the forums or on unity answers. You should consider adding walking animations and spell casting animations, as well as arm swaying.
“if(mana <= 0” Will perform only when mana is “Less then 0” You want “> 0” This will check if the mana is above 0. Also, You want it set up like this so you are only check when the user hits the input and not so it is checking every update frame…
(<=0) could be used to disable mana yes, But itd be better to check if you actually have mana.
void update(){
if(Input.GetButtonDown("ManaButton")){
Debug.Log("We pressed our magical button.");
if(mana > 0){//change this to > whateveer if you want the magic to take so much mana.
//do some magical shit cus we have mana baby!
mana-=1;//change this to consume amount of mana.
}
}
mana+=5*Time.deltaTime;
if(mana >= maxmana){
mana = maxmana;//mana regeneration. Regenerates at a speed of 5 * the time between frames.
}
}
Also put in mana regeneration for ya. Best of luck!
Wouldn’t you want mana to cast a spell because right now you’re saying that if mana is less than 0 than cast the spell. So you would want >= but forgive me if i’m wrong about not having mana to cast the spell.
In terms of improvements you could look at improving the overall terrain and environments to be a bit more interesting as they seem rather empty currently. Some form of interface to indicate anything the resources the player has or is consuming might be an idea as well (HP, Mana, etc).
Lol. Kidding, good work. But age doesn’t matter. Just be happy you have gotten an early start so in a bunch of years you can be a pro making some awesome shiit