Sprint 1 Blog

Overview

This was the first sprint for the CAGD 495 game Entoworks. I am part of the programming team for the project and this sprint was mostly focused on reading prior code made for the project and learning how the scripts interact with each other. Also, I spent my time looking over different C# coding techniques that could be applied for the project.

Issues

One of the first issues I had to deal with was learning how to use the box method in the game scripts. Boxing is the method of converting a value type (ints, floats, etc.) into an object reference. I went over how it is used with Vivian and reviewed how it can be applied. Upon further review into Unity documentation sites and other C# forums, there may be a cleaner and better optimized way to get the same result, but that will need to be attempted next sprint.

Another issue I was assigned was to do research on enums and how we could apply it to our game. After discussing the menu system with the programming department, we went over how enums could be a good starting point for the menu UI. The reasoning for this is because the menu UI will involve a tab system. This means that the player will stay on the same scene for each menu tab they click on as compared to loading a new scene for each option. For example, when the player goes from the upgrade page to the team page, it'll be one click and on the same loaded scene as compared to needing to load a new scene when a new tab is clicked everytime. 

Another issue I was assigned was to review the existing code and understand how it works for the game. As of right now, I am reviewing the upgrade system and UI for the game. There are some scripts that work for the game already, but I will need to spend more time creating my own scripts and menu UI system that will work seamlessly with the scripts of the other members.

Solutions

For this sprint, I mostly research forums, watched coding videos, and read Unity documentation to get a better understanding of what coding practices can be utilized and be put into full effect this upcoming sprint.