Blog #3
This marks the end of week #4. I got a late start to the week as I missed Monday due to a Chicago trip over the weekend. I’m not feeling quite as fresh with all of the traveling, but I still have that same level of excitement to start new projects and finish the ones from the last few weeks. This week we submitted our prototype of Racoon - a game made in Unity where the player plays as a racoon who is attempting to steal food from a nearby campsite without being spotted by the campers. This game’s final version will be released next Thursday. I also finished writing the code for the turn based combat game over the weekend!
LEVEL DESIGN
The above models were made in Thursdays LD class in Maya. The idea was to take a ground map and combined with aerial/side images create the UCF downtown campus by creating the polygons with vertex points, extruding the building from the newly created polygon, using the multi-cut tool to create more geometry for the buildings, and finally extruding/deleting faces as needed to form the building shapes.Tuesday’s level design class discussed the foundations of the best Block Meshing practices. Here were the key concepts and take aways:
Leading Lines
Drawing lines with roads, pipes, cables, logs, floor grates etc
These point towards where the player should be looking
Pinching/Funneling
Angle shapes funnel the player to a spot
Good for redirection
Great for setting up a reveal of landmarks or other things we want the player to see
Framing and Composition
Blocking out other parts of the world to frame your landmark
Breadcrumbs
Pickups, enemies, lit areas, etc
Things the player should walk to pick up and then discover where they should go next
Let's the player know that they are on the right area
Textures
Arrows pointing the way
Signs on the wall
Scrapes on the wall
Add signs in blockmesh
Movement
Grabs the eye
Birds, sparks, enemies, scripted moments, cloth flapping in the wind
Brings the audience's eye to view the object you want them to see
Cubes lerping in the sky can suffice for birds
Light and Light Rays
Can be used to guide the player to the goal with light rays
Lights can literally point to where the player should go
Can show an exit or an entrance in a dark level by having light pour out
Affordance
Leading players (ledges to climb, ladders to climb, ramps to smash through vents, planks to guide a path)
Be consistent with affordances (ladders should look the same)
Denying Affordance
Communicates where NOT to go
Uninvites players from going there
Boards blocking doors
Bushes blocking windows
Visual Language - Shape
Keep shapes consistent. Flat edge might be climbable
Spikes can be used to move players a direction away from the spikes
Visual Language - Color
Color can add depth and context
Ground is dirt/water/lava/grass - make it the right color
Yellow tends to tell the player where to go (industry standard)
Landmarks
Orient players
Big objects that can be seen from far away
Goals to work towards
Opening Attract
Caves, Doors, Archways
Often leads to a space of refuge
Gates
Stop progress until some sort of progress is met
Valves trap the player after entering an area until a condition is met
Used to reduce space
Allows player to focus on the task at hand
Doesn't need to be a door/gate. Can be a ledge the player jumped off with no way back up
Might need an ability in the area to get out
Rapid Prototype Production
This week in RPP we have been finishing up the first iteration of our Raccoon prototype game. There have been some immense challenges with this project. First and foremost our team wants to use 2D assets instead of 3D and I have never worked on a 2D game before (I have also never worked in Unity before). In my opinion this process is significantly more challenging because the possibilities of a 2D game feel very constrained compared to a 2D game. The gameplay loop that the team decided on is that the raccoon will sneak up to a camp and begin stealing food. While doing so they must avoid detection by the campers. When the raccoon has stolen 3 pieces of food the game is won.
Making a game like that in 2D space seemed very very difficult so the team is using a 3D world with 2D assets. Above is my first iteration of what it would look like. However, I quickly realized that what works in 3D does NOT work in 2D! In a game with 2D assets the camera movement is limited. If you allow the player to fully control the camera, the 2D assets quickly become paper thin and the immersion is ruined. So my next iteration went more like this:
In total I have spent anywhere from 5-6 hours planning, block meshing, iterating, completely destroying my first blockout, and reimplementing the 2D version. In retrospect if I could start this project over again, I wouldn’t waste the time blocking it out in 3D and instead I would have blocked out the level using 2D sprites and planes inherent in Unity.
One positive takeaway is that I have realized for my career I would prefer not to work on games in Unity or 2D games in general. Unity lacks a ton of the features I enjoy in Unreal. The biggest one I miss by far is the ability to duplicate with Alt+Dragging. Additionally, I find myself very limited in what I can accomplish in a 2D game from a level designer perspective. I love when a player can pan the camera and see a beautiful world in front of them. That’s where a lot of my passion for game design stems from. The limitations of 2D games simply do not offer that opportunity.
Tech Design
In Tech Design I finished my turn based combat game in the console. Nearly 249 lines of code went into this game, but I think it turned out well! This took around 3 hours to write from start to finish and was written in C#!
Turn Based Game (Time Spent 3-4 hours)
Video Game Design
In Video Game Design this week we have done quite a lot. One of the assignments was to take a famous movie clip and transform the meaning by playing a different background track. I went with the ending scene from Schindler’s List and added the music “Happy” by Pharrell Williams. The idea with this was to turn a sad somber moment into a triumphant moment where Nazi Germany was ending. It did NOT work as intended. Rick (professor) said it made it look like a Coke commercial.
The other assignment due this week was to describe a character by only using words that describe their surroundings. For example, for a crooked cop you might describe a bag of drugs in his locker, or a second gun with the serial numbers scratched off. Here were my topics, see if you can guess what the person is:
The room is dim, almost suffocating in its lack of natural light. Heavy, thick drapes hang over the windows, perpetually drawn, leaving only faint slivers of sunlight to fight their way through the fabric, casting long, dusty beams across the floor. The air smells faintly of paper, ink, and the kind of musty dampness that comes from being sealed off from the world for too long.
The desk—an old, wooden affair with edges worn smooth from years of nervous fidgeting—dominates the corner of the room. It’s cluttered, though not in a chaotic way. It feels as if everything has been placed with intention, but slowly over time, until it became a quiet mess. There are piles of notebooks, each varying in size and color, filled with half-started ideas and abandoned sentences. Some of the pages are dog-eared or stained with coffee rings, others hastily torn from their bindings, tossed aside in moments of frustration. A few sheets sit balled up in the corner, rejected drafts, as though the words had betrayed their author before even making it to the page.
A lone lamp sits on the desk, its warm, yellow light illuminating only a small patch of workspace. It’s the kind of light that might make one feel safe, hidden away from the rest of the world. The bulb flickers occasionally, but it has yet to be replaced, as though the flickering itself has become part of the ritual. Next to it, an old-fashioned ink bottle and quill gather dust, long since replaced by modern pens, yet too sentimental to throw away. The computer—an outdated laptop, its screen speckled with fingerprints—sits open but asleep, an untouched document blinking on the screen, waiting for inspiration to strike.
Bookshelves line the walls, bending under the weight of their burden. It’s clear that these books are not just decorations but have been read, re-read, and studied. Many are worn, their spines cracked, their pages yellowed and fragile. There are classics—Tolstoy, Joyce, Woolf—nestled beside more obscure philosophical tomes, the kinds of books that are read not for enjoyment but for meaning. Between them, random objects are tucked into the shelves: a dried flower pressed between pages, an old postcard from a long-forgotten trip, a small brass key whose lock has been lost. There’s a sense of sentimentality in these objects, but also secrecy, like pieces of a story yet to be told.
The walls are largely bare, save for a single framed rejection letter—crumpled slightly but still mounted with pride, as if to remind the room’s occupant of their place in the literary world. Above the desk, a large corkboard is filled with scraps of paper pinned at random: character names, fragmented plot ideas, philosophical musings, and cryptic quotes. Strings of red yarn connect some of these notes in a chaotic web, as if trying to make sense of a sprawling, unfinished narrative. The chaos of the board contrasts with the rest of the room’s careful disorder—it is the physical manifestation of a mind constantly working, constantly doubting.
In the background, a record spins on an old turntable, playing quietly. The music is instrumental, melancholic, filling the room with a somber, reflective atmosphere. The occasional crackle and pop of the record add to the sense that this space is not just a room but a cocoon, insulated from the outside world. There are no sounds of the city, no passing cars, no conversations drifting in from the outside—just the steady hum of the music and the ticking of a small clock that seems perpetually out of sync.
The armchair in the corner is threadbare, its fabric faded from years of use, the perfect spot for long hours of reading and introspection. Beside it, a small side table holds a glass of water, half full, and a stack of books with bookmarks jutting out at various angles. One or two books lay open, abandoned mid-sentence. There’s a blanket draped over the back of the chair, hand-knit and fraying at the edges, offering a small, personal comfort amid the larger intellectual pursuit.
The room smells faintly of old books, damp wool, and cold coffee. The air is still, thick with the weight of unspoken thoughts. There’s a sense that time passes slowly here, or perhaps not at all—that days blur into nights, and one could easily lose themselves in this space for hours or even weeks. The environment reflects its inhabitant: introverted, intellectual, and endlessly self-critical, a space designed more for thinking than doing, for contemplation over action.
introverted, intellectual, under-confident author
The apartment is a fortress of sorts. The first thing that stands out is the row of locks on the door, at least four of them in varying stages of wear, along with a thick metal chain latch. Just inside, the walls are bare and cold, with only a few cheap surveillance cameras positioned in the corners, their red lights blinking steadily as if always watching, always recording. The windows are covered by heavy blackout curtains, drawn tightly shut even in the middle of the day. The room is dim, the only light coming from a harsh overhead bulb that casts sharp, unforgiving shadows on every surface.
Scattered across the room are piles of objects that seem random at first but reveal a careful pattern of hoarding. Tools, old electronics, newspapers from months ago, and empty food containers are stacked methodically. There’s no trash in the traditional sense, just an overwhelming sense of clutter and disorganization—like the person living here is preparing for something, always waiting, always on edge. The television is constantly on, tuned to news channels and conspiracy shows, the volume low but persistent, filling the silence with a constant stream of paranoia.
A battered old sofa, stained and sagging in the middle, faces the television. On the coffee table in front of it are empty beer bottles and a few weapons carelessly tossed—brass knuckles, a pocketknife, and an old revolver. There’s a sour, acrid smell of sweat mixed with the faint scent of tobacco, as though someone smokes constantly, pacing back and forth, too anxious to sit for long. Every few moments, there’s a creak or thud from the building, and it’s clear that the person living here jumps at each sound, eyes darting to the door or the windows.
Aggressive, Paranoid, Garbage Collector
The office is painfully neat, almost as if no real work is done there at all. The desk, sleek and modern, is immaculately organized with high-end stationery placed just so, a designer planner open to a week filled with half-written appointments and doodles. The desk itself is positioned to ensure that anyone walking by could see the carefully placed items: an expensive handbag draped over the chair, a pair of trendy sunglasses casually tossed next to a monogrammed coffee mug, and a few framed photos of exotic destinations, their colors so vibrant they almost look staged.
The walls are painted in soft, muted tones, with motivational quotes in faux-gold frames hanging in strategic spots, reminding the occupant to "rise and grind" or "dream big." A vase with fresh flowers sits near the window, which offers a perfect view of the city skyline, though it’s clear the blinds are more often used to block out the harsh afternoon glare. There’s a subtle, constant scent of designer perfume in the air, a little too strong, as though reapplied frequently throughout the day.
The phone rings often, but the conversations are short, punctuated by polite but empty laughter. Every now and then, there’s the sound of a nail tapping impatiently on the keyboard, but it’s the social media notifications on the phone that grab the most attention. Between work tasks, there’s the compulsive scrolling through Instagram, the checking of emails for invitations to events that never come, the constant refresh of feeds, searching for signs of relevance.
Bored, Social Climbing Wannabe Secretary
The room is harshly lit, every surface shining under the intense glare of surgical lights that leave no shadows. The sterile white walls, lined with meticulously placed tiles, reflect the cold glow of the overhead lamps, their brightness leaving no space for warmth. Metallic trays filled with perfectly arranged instruments sit nearby, each tool gleaming with a sharp edge, clean and polished, ready for precise use. The faint hum of machines and the soft, rhythmic beeping of monitors create a steady, mechanical pulse, the only sounds that permeate the thick silence.
Along one wall, lockers stand in perfect order, untouched save for one—its door slightly ajar, revealing a crisp, spotless white coat hanging inside. The room smells intensely of antiseptic, a sharp, clinical scent that seems to cut through the air like a scalpel. The smooth, tiled floor feels cold underfoot, its surface reflecting the room's stark, unrelenting precision. Even the air feels tight, as if it’s being controlled, filtered, leaving no room for imperfection.
A small shelf in the corner holds medical journals stacked neatly, alongside a glass bottle with amber liquid, just barely visible. The bottle sits out of place, yet untouched, as if its presence is carefully ignored. The cold steel of the operating table gleams under the lights, its surface devoid of comfort or warmth, an almost oppressive presence in the center of the room. The tightness of the air, the cleanliness, the sharpness of every object—all are part of a space that exists for nothing but precision and control.
The room speaks in the language of order, of exactness, where every detail is controlled, every movement planned. It is a world where emotions have no place, where the sharp edges and bright lights are the only focus, and where everything outside its sterile walls is kept firmly at bay.
Aggressive, Newly Divorced Neurosurgeon
