So I tried to make a video game...

It's been a roller coaster of a year - I say this almost every year - so I guess it has been a roller coaster of almost a decade. But this year was probably the toughest and yet at the same time the most enlightening out of all of them. 

Long story short, I took some extra time off from full time teaching duties. Step away, rethink my life and how I want to spend the second half of it now that I've crossed the 40 year threshold.

I always wanted to finish making a game. I learned a bit of Unity back during COVID, but when home learning started ramping up and we started looking into some really exciting ideas at school - introducing an idea called 'Quest' (something I would really like to reflect back on one day here) - I ended up putting the game stuff to the side. 

Fast forward 4 years and as some of you may or may not know, Unity went through some weird payment stuff and so I decided to give the Godot engine (an open source free engine) a go. 

The Learning Process

I found some free and discounted online tutorials for Beginner Godot courses and also for pixel art. I wasn't too worried about the audio part since I did a lot of that stuff in uni so I just needed a refresher (and some new gear since I sold off most of mine when going into teaching)

Learning Godot was quite a challenge. I always felt that I was missing something and wasn't sure how the tutor went from A to B and more importantly, WHY they did it that way. Eventually I came to accept this feeling and move on, hoping that later things will start to connect itself in my brain.

Pixel Art was really interesting. I don't consider myself an illustrator at all. I doodle occasionally, but never really worked on it to improve. But the thing that opened my eyes with the pixel art learning was it taught me what NOT to do when teaching a skill. 

In theory their approach made sense. "I do and then you do". But the problem was that too much of this resulted in feeling like I was following a Art 4 Kids Hub tutorial, where I didn't really learn how to draw or create my own pixel art - all I learned was how to copy the tutor's work.

Music wise, I needed to learn how to use a different DAW (Digital Audio Workstation) since I only had a really old version of Cubase that ran on a really old macbook that I don't own anymore. Also bought a mini MIDI keyboard and deep dived into the world of VSTi's (virtual instruments) for a week or so. This would lead me to dipping my toes into some basic musicology stuff like the "Cycle of 5ths" and some common 4 chord chord-progressions.

Putting it all together

The most challenging part of this was not setting a plan for when to work on the coding, the art assets or the audio. It was constantly switching hats. From programmer, to level designer, to animator, to background designer, to audio designer, to music composer, etc... 

Sometimes I would sit down and create a bunch of different 'sprites' (2D models) and some animations but completely forget that I did these because I would get stuck on some bug in the code for a few days.

      

I think the most fun I had was composing the main background music for the game. Creating layers, trying to do build ups, breakdowns, beat drops, and seeing how it all came together. It did not feel like a chore at all. But to be fair I only needed to make 2 songs. One for the menu and one for the game.

The game itself was a very simple infinite runner platformer. Think like, pared back visuals like Flappy Bird but jump platforming like Geometry Dash or Jetpack Joyride.

I've only been learning these for about 3-4 months, so I didn't want to bite off more than I could chew. I just wanted to finish a game - from start to finish - and make every asset on my own and experience that journey. 

In the end I did end up using some other people's assets for a couple of sound effects (footsteps, jump and game over), but still very proud that I was able to create the rest of the assets myself. 

Reflection

I've been making mini updates to the game here and there. Some new sprites, updated backgrounds, fixed some bugs and added small features like a random quote on the start menu (like Minecraft).

I think the thing that really helped me get this completed was thinking about the target audience. It's aimed at kindergarten students (as that was the grade I was teaching before I went on leave) and there were a couple of kids who really like ninjas. 

Had I just tried to make this very generic, aimed at for everyone, then it probably wouldn't be near as engaging. 

The game

Anyway, if you want to check it out, you can do so HERE.

It works on mobile and desktops. 

I'm thinking of little adjustments to make to it moving forward, but nothing too crazy. Maybe some little polishes here and there and then move on to starting a new, slightly bigger project.

Epilogue... (kinda)

One thing that I did take away from this - once I started working as a casual, although I didn't have any work to take home, I was still feeling pretty exhausted from needing to be thinking on my toes all the time. Because of this, the development slowed to a crawl until I forced myself to work through the sleepiness just to get a little bit closer to finish it. 

This is something that I hope to continue doing as a hobby. I have no ambitions in trying to pursue this hardcore and eventually make it a job. In a lot of ways, thinking about making this a job actually deters me. I think it will take away a lot of the fun and creativity if I make it something where my livelihood depends on it...

iPad session reflection

Just wanted to quickly write this up before I forget. A few days back I was with a year 5 class doing team teaching with iPads. It was their first session, so I went along with my 'lesson plan' which I had prepared for all the other introductory sessions. One of the activities for these sessions was a 'wikipedia game' (an idea I got from the Extra Creditz show on Gamifying Education ), where students start on a wikipedia page for a particular topic and have to find their way to the wikipedia page of a different particular topic via the use of links embedded in the information only. The first exercise was to get from "chair" to "whiteboard", and it was quite amazing to see the different strategies and methods all the students used to get from "chair" to "whiteboard". The average amount of links was 7, and the record set at the school was 2!

However, with this particular class, they didn't seem too interested. Perhaps it was too hard for this particular group? Although the lessons with iPads were only with year 5 and 6 classes, and the other year 5 and 6 (plus one year 4 class in a 4/5 composite class) seemed to relatively enjoy it... One particular student did the ol' "type up 'whiteboard' in the search column of wikipedia", to which I told him (like I did to all the others who tried this in previous classes) that it did not follow the rules and so this cannot be allowed. To this, he was quite upset because he tried to reason with me that since both his way and the game's way essentially gets you to the 'end point' that this should be fine. He was questioning why does he have to do it in a certain way? At the time I was slightly taken aback and fired back with the usual "it's not the way you are supposed to do it, so you are wrong!" response. After seeing this result in the student become completely disengaged with the activity, I went home to try and reflect on this activity and perhaps its execution.

After re-watching the Extra Creditz episode, I have started to consider that the topic itself was not very exciting. I mean a CHAIR and a WHITEBOARD!? Like WOAH slow down dude...Also if I wanted the activity done in a particular way, I think next time I should explain WHY I would like it done this way. Thinking back of the first class I did this with, I told them that since the class will be ultimately creating their own wiki page on Antarctica, this game should get them more familiar with how a wiki page could look like and how it could work. Therefore that class was given a sense of purpose. Hmm, now thinking back to the last class, the purpose I may have implied to that class would have been, "it's a competition, so WIN!" Meaning, that could be why the less interested students just tried to complete it as quickly as they could. (This is also another topic I want to write about in a future post.)

Another thing I have noticed during these iPad sessions is the amount of students who are into Minecraft. I have been following Minecraft Teacher's blog and have been interested in this game as a learning tool, but I never really got around to checking the game out. It made me start looking at the various sites dedicated to the game, even downloaded a free version of the game on iPad (which I know is nothing like the actual version out now) and when I revisited the Minecraft Teacher 's site, I noticed a post called Structured vs Unstructured. I thought it was a very interesting read and it got me to reflect on what kind of learning environment I prefer. I can see the pros and cons of both, but I guess, the best way would be to combine the two, although to get that 'perfect balance' might be a bit difficult, and it would really differ from class to class... Hmm...

Just some final thoughts/observations/notes, I've noticed most of the students (and teachers), seem to want to use the iPad for its apps. I get requests for various apps that can help various things. Also the lack of flash makes teachers not warm to it because a lot of the websites they want to use with the class are flash based. (and the apps that enable you to view flash content, are not free...). Moreover, from just looking at the classes in general, most of the students just want to play games, or hop on YouTube so it would be great if I can find a way so that these children can play these games but make it a learning experience at the same time. I can think of a few ways this can be done (because ultimately we're always learning something, especially from our hobbies), but I just find it hard for them to do this within their class' curriculums.
Finally, I just wanted to point out this excellent site I stumbled across whilst doing some research in preparation of these iPad sessions. The most awesome thing is, that all this was done by a year 9 boy! I just love seeing stuff like this... moments of the students teaching the teachers! I am trying to keep an open mind in my own iPad sessions, and even discovered a few whiz kids in year 6! (Making them my tech support guys to help me fix any bunged up ones :))


FINAL NOTE (I promise!): I am half tempted to set up a private Minecraft server just for students, and not be involved at all, and anything can go. Will it end up like Lord of the Flies? Will people create chaos, just because they can? Will they try to create some sort of agreement amongst each other? Or will people just stop playing there because, well it's the internet and they don't have to deal with that crap. Funny, how I am just foreseeing chaos no matter what. I just can't see it being a place where nothing is stirred up lol.