End of Year Summary and Future Goals

Its the end of 2016, finally! Hopefully it will stop killing off celebrities, muscians and being a generally bad year for the world at large and myself. So I thought to sum up I would go over everything I have achieved and a mini evaluation.

Firstly, I created this blog to record my development process in my game development in June, its been over half a year already! I've aimed to have a blog post at least once or twice a month, to keep up a digital record of my projects. I did this not only as a record, but also as a quick source to show people that are interested in my work, be it potential employers or others. If you're reading this, thanks for being interested in what I love to do!

In the summer months, June - August time, I worked on a Wipeout inspired anti gravity themed racer game, and when I say game, I guess I explored HOW I would make a game like that. Doing this vastly improved my knowledge of programming in the C# language and problem solving as I coded everything from the ground up, and in the end, had working ship and track selector, lap timer, as well as a playable level (in an early alpha stage) that incorporated all of these.

In the last few weeks of summer I used the Construct 2 engine for the first time and created a simple infinite runner platform game, inspired by the Overwatch character D.va! This was my first time using the engine, creating pixel art, and creating a game of the infinite runner genre. I hosted the game via my own GoogleDrive, but after encountering some hosting issues, I uploaded the game to Itch.Io and ScirraArcade websites for the public to play and it gets some good attention! Maybe in the future I will recreate the game in a more complex engine such as Unity and make it a deeper experience for players that holds attention for longer. You can play it here!

During the university semester I was very busy with modules, creating a Virtual Reality game using Google Cardboard on Android phones, programming a text summary software (not my favourite, I must admit) and deciding on a final project topic, which has evolved into ARIA. An Augmented Reality Integrated Acquaintance, again on Android phones. These games have really opened up my skills and introduced me to new hardware and technology, expanding on my development experience.

On the side of my personal project, scroll down for the latest on my Robot Wars inspired game which I intend to keep developing into 2017 and hopefully have a alpha build to play as soon as I can.

In 2017 my university modules will cover my final project, Mobile Technology and building a portfolio, which I am hoping this blog will be featured in as evidence of my work. Happy New Year, and lets make more games!