Journal Entry 2

# Date: 12.03.2024

# Activity: - Installed Unity and Platformer microgame

  - 2D Game Kit Walkthrough

  - Level design

# Notes: 

Going through the Game Kit using the tutorial wasn't too difficult, rather it was a lot of simple steps and you have to take your time with each one. I didn't get stuck anywhere in the tutorial for an extended period of time.

Designing a level was already quite difficult. Having never done this before, it was difficult for me to organize my work. Interestingly the level is quite a complex mechanism, inspired by the original kit scenes I was rather jumping from one thing to another. I started by drawing tiles. That seemed pretty reasonable to me. Then I took inspiration from various elements from the original scenes and added different modifications to my level. Here I was a bit lacking in intuition on what to start with, what to tackle later, what I'd rather leave out altogether. I also had to learn to control some elements of the kit myself, for example working with acid and water tiles. Usually if I was intrigued by a specific mechanic from the original scenes I spent quite a bit of time on it, a more detailed tutorial would have helped speed it up.

The first thing I thought I wanted was acid, which didn't appear in the tutorial at all. Next I wanted to incorporate things from the tutorial like enemies, interactive elements (doors, moving platforms). I thought of hiding some of the controls so that they would appear when a condition/task is met (meaning interacting with something). I also tried the monster spawner. My level ends with a teleport to the beginning, there is potential room to follow up with another scene or level.

# Invested hours:

  - Setup of new project - 15 minutes (due to duplicate packages content)

  - Tutorials (Walkthrough): 1.25 hours

  - Level design: 2 - 2.5 hours of design + 1 - 1.5 hours of learning from original scenes = 3 - 4 hours total

  - Itch + journal: 15 minutes

*loading time of Uniti editor included*

# Outcome:

Build (uploaded to the itch.io page as a .zip file)