Final Major Project - Evaluation
Overall, I am happy with this project. I spent a lot more time on this one than any other, and not just because it is a bigger unit. This unit was the size of 2 units together, but I did more than double the normal amount of work, which shows that I was driven and happy to work.
At the start, it was all going well with my proposal. After I wrote it, I easily did the weekly progress that I set for myself. For example, the first week was research. I did this for the whole week and got a solid week's worth of research, instead of just spending one day on it as I might have in a previous project. The rest of the weekly work was going well until the point where I actually started scripting. I was fine with modelling, research, animating the character and writing the story. The only problems came with scripting, which was a whole 6 weeks in. As I was over halfway already by then, I did not get discouraged as I expected to encounter troubles far sooner than this; the fact that it took this long meant I was doing well.
With the scripting, the problems I had were because of my character controller. As I was forced to use a certain one, a lot of other scripts that relied on the default character controller did not work, so I had to redo those. This was a lengthy process, taking up what precious time I had. As week 6, 7, 8 and 9 were pretty much continuation and virtually the same as each other, it was easy to get back into it every week. Most of the script I used, I had to find online as I needed references. A good place for references besides Youtube is the Unity Wiki, http://wiki.unity3d.com/index.php/Main_Page. Using this, I found many helpful scripts for free.
I think I worked at a good pace in this project and put in a high amount of effort. I believe I could not have done much better even if I spent every single day working on this, so I am very happy with the results. I think my game definitely takes influences from old platformers and side scrollers, but in the end it turned out less of a carbon copy and more of a tribute. This is something I planned on not from the start, but a few weeks in. I decided to instead put my own originality in there wherever I could so that I was not just taking elements and leaving them unchanged. My game definitely draws from these influences, I will not deny this. Fans of the old games I took inspiration from can enjoy this fact, while people who are not fans may not see the influences, and enjoy it as a game in its own right. This is exactly what I wanted from the unit, so I am pleased.
Given more time, I don't think I could have added much more besides possibly a health bar instead of a single-hit death system, but I think the single-hit death is a good thing as it adds to the retro style of the game. I think a health bar would only help in a side-scrolling game sometimes, like in Mega Man and Castlevania, but would be worse in a game like Sonic or Mario.
