Being Prepared for GameDev!

                My second year of Game Development in UOIT is almost at its end and if there is one thing that I have learned, it is that being prepared beforehand gives you a big opportunity to develop and improve on your game much easier. The one person who really taught me this was Emilian from our year has shown the world his level editor and what it can do and potentially do.

                Emilian and his friend Cameron, had researched and prepared a level editor for their 2^nd year game in GDW. When I had took a look at it initially, it had what a basic level editor could do such has load/save user generated levels, but it was completely out of the scope of what a first year game developer from UOIT could do without doing additional research. With this level editor, Emilian and his group didn’t have to create a new game from scratch when they could just build off the level editor. It saved time and it made creating the actual game much easier for his other group members. Throughout the year he had been adding onto his level editor such as to give a level in the game deferred rendering with a click of a button. It was really amazing and has inspired my group and myself to have something prepared for our third year.

                My group members aren’t as talented as Emilian is, but we can have other things to prepare. By talking with third and fourth years, we have a general idea of what the future of game development will be like in UOIT. We can create a new framework for our future game or other future projects that are related to GDW.

                We have also started a design concept of our 3^rd year game as well. We have decided to go a beyond what we have done in our 2^nd year game which was a top down shooter to a more dynamic 3D battle arena. We are confident in our abilities to create such a game, and with the confidence boost of what Emilian did with his level editor over the summer, we also plan to have a framework prepared so it gives us more freedom to create a more interesting game. The idea of being prepared before the year starts seems like common sense but no one but Emilian and Cameron thought of it. Good job guys and you deserve the Best Tech award at Gamescon and I encourage everyone to have some sort of framework for future years.

Winners of the Best Tech Award at Gamescon 2013

From left to right: Cameron Chodan, Stephen Li, Crystal Moe, Terry Fong, Emilian Cioca