The theme for week 4 was time and project management, it was also the week that saw us start our first rapid ideation session. During this weeks meeting, a card from the board game ‘Dixit’ was chosen at random to act as a visual theme.

The card that was selected showed a character approaching a dragon with a drawn sword. It was with this theme in mind that I was tasked with creating an artefact over the next two weeks. As with my previous prototype, I decided this should be in the form of a short demo created in Unity.

Knowing that I already possessed the ability to create small games in Unity I wanted to add something extra to give myself a challenge. I decided the game should feature networking as this is an aspect of game development I had yet to interact with. I was already aware of the Photon’s networking SDK for Unity(“Photon Unity 3D Networking Framework SDKs And Game Backend | Photon Engine” 2021), and after some consideration I decided to use it as the foundation for this project.

I knew the concept I came up with would need to accommodate multiple characters and after brainstorming multiple possible game ideas I settled on the idea of two characters exploring a dungeon before confronting a dragon boss.

Seeing as this was my first time using Photon, I knew I had to start by learning the fundamentals of this new tool. I started by watching several basic tutorials and intro guides to the system, the one I found to be of most help was by the YouTube channel ‘Blackthornprod'(“9 EASY Steps To Create A Multiplayer Game With Unity & Photon – Tutorial” 2021). These guides helped me to put together a simple lobby system.

As well as video demonstrations, I also spent a considerable amount of time reading the documentation provided by photon(“Introduction | Photon Engine” 2021). This allowed me to get a sense of what was possible with the technology before progressing further.

References