DRAW ASSEMBLER
October 2021 - May 2022
Individual Project [CI6600]
Engine: Unity
Programming Tools: Microsoft Visual Studio
Language: C#
Artwork Tools: Photoshop
Team Size: 1
Game Plan
Welcome to the Draw Assembler blog!
I’ll be posting updates every 1-4 weeks to keep you informed on the progress of my individual project.
For this project, I have the freedom to choose any game genre. After discussing it with my supervisor, I decided to create a 2D drawing game for mobile. I believe this genre will allow me to showcase my skills while exploring new technology that I haven't used before. I had the option to develop the game using either Unity or Unreal Engine, and I chose Unity because of its simplicity, ease of access, flexibility, and superior support for 2D mobile development.
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WEEK ONE
Drawing Mechanic
I’ve implemented the drawing mechanic, allowing the player to draw in black on a white canvas. For now, the player can only draw one continuous line using a trail renderer on the swipe game object. Although the system can support different colours, I’ve chosen to stick with black for simplicity.
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At the moment, there’s an issue where the drawing always starts from the centre point (0,0), which I’ll need to fix going forward.
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1st November 2021
WEEK TWO
Drawing Mechanic v2
I decided to allow the player to draw multiple lines by creating a swipe manager game object and adding a trail prefab. The Swipe prefab, containing the trail renderer, was then attached to the swipe manager to handle each new line.
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I was still facing the issue where each new line started from the centre. To fix this, I moved the instantiation of the line from the top to the bottom and changed the transform position to the correct start position.
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8th November 2021
WEEK FOUR
Audio Manager
I’ve set up the audio manager game object along with the audio manager and sound scripts. These will be integrated once the game mechanics are finalised.
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22nd November 2021
WEEK SIX
Scenes
I’ve created the main menu, how-to-play, and options scenes, linking them with two scripts: "LevelSelect" and "MainMenu." These scripts are applied to the buttons in each scene, and after testing, everything is working smoothly.
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6th December 2021
WEEK ELEVEN
Options Menu and Scene Fader
After the Christmas break, I continued working on the audio settings within the options menu. I developed a script that allows the music and SFX volumes to be adjusted separately, and these settings are saved across different scenes.
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I also improved the scene transitions by adding a scene fader, creating smoother transitions between scenes. In the earlier version, the scenes would snap immediately to the next one, but now the change feels more fluid and polished.
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10th January 2021
WEEK FOURTEEN
Game Manager and UI (Game Over & Level Complete)
I’ve created the game manager and the UI for both the game over screen and when the player successfully completes the level. The game over screen activates when the player's lives drop to zero.
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Next, I’m planning to reduce the player's lives based on drawing accuracy—likely deducting a life if their drawing is less than 80% accurate. To beat the level, the player will need to successfully recreate all the images.
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31st January 2021
WEEK SIXTEEN
Drawing Mechanic v3 and Images
While attempting to create a comparison matrix, I realised the current drawing mechanic couldn’t subtract the values of the trail from the pre-made images. I had planned to use a 64x64 array, but the trail system exceeded that size.
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To solve this, I decided to develop a grid manager script to create the drawing canvas. This will enable me to capture the value of the black paint and compare it to the images.
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The images were originally made in Photoshop as 64x64 pixels, but translating them into the game for comparison posed the same issue.
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14th February 2022
WEEK EIGHTEEN
Grid Manager and Tile extended
I’ve now split the grid manager into two separate systems, each generating its own canvas. One is dedicated to the player’s drawing, while the other is for creating shapes. This fixed a bug where the player could accidentally draw on the shape creator’s canvas, so I had to create an additional tile script to prevent this issue.
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28th February 2022
WEEK TWENTY
Shape Creator
The right canvas can now generate shapes for the player to replicate, with two shapes available so far. I created these shapes by modifying the tile's tag and adjusting the render colour.
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14th March 2022
WEEK TWENTY FOUR
Accuracy Checker
I'm currently working on an accuracy checker script that compares the tile colours and tags of the two drawings to verify their correctness. However, I'm encountering significant challenges in getting it to work.
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28th March 2022
FINAL PROTOTYPE
I've accomplished a lot and set everything in place for the game's development. However, I couldn't achieve my goal of creating a comparison checker between both images. Unfortunately, I became extremely ill in April, which hindered my progress and left me with limited time to manage all my projects. Ultimately, the game evolved into a free drawing experience, allowing players to express their creativity.
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Thank you for your time, and I'm excited to move on to the next project!