Alright, let’s dive into my little adventure with “the game plan actors.” It was a bit of a wild ride, but hey, that’s what makes it fun, right?
So, first things first, I started with a pretty vague idea. I wanted to see if I could create something that would help me visualize different game strategies, you know, like a virtual whiteboard where I could drag and drop characters and plan out their moves. Sounds simple, doesn’t it? Well…
I decided to use Unity. I’m not a pro, but I know my way around the basics. Opened up a new project, and then I spent a good hour just staring at a blank screen. Where do I even begin?
I figured the best approach was to start with the actors themselves. I created some simple placeholder characters – cubes and spheres, nothing fancy. Then I added some basic movement scripts. I wanted to be able to click and drag them around the scene. That part was surprisingly easy. I just used some raycasting to detect where the mouse was clicking and then moved the actors to that position.
Next up, I wanted to add some “actions” to these actors. Like, maybe I could assign them a specific path to follow or a target to attack. This is where things got a little more complicated. I tried a few different approaches. At first, I thought about using Unity’s animation system, but that felt like overkill. I ended up with a simple list of waypoints that the actor would move towards one by one.
Then came the UI. I needed a way to select an actor and assign it actions. I added a panel with buttons for different actions – “Move,” “Attack,” “Defend,” that sort of thing. When you clicked a button, it would prompt you to select a target or specify a path. It was clunky, but it worked.
Here’s where I hit a snag. I realized that I needed a way to save and load these game plans. I looked into Unity’s built-in serialization, but it felt a bit limited. I considered using JSON, but I wasn’t thrilled about the idea of manually writing a JSON parser. I ended up using a simple text-based format. I just wrote the data for each actor – position, actions, targets – to a text file, and then read it back in when I wanted to load the plan.
It was messy, I know, but it got the job done. I spent a few more days tweaking the UI, adding more actions, and generally making the whole thing a little more user-friendly. And you know what? It actually turned out pretty useful.
I used it to plan out some strategies for a game I was playing. It helped me visualize the different scenarios and see how my actors would react. It wasn’t perfect, but it was a fun little project, and I learned a lot along the way.
Here are a few things I wish I had done differently:
- Used a more robust data format like JSON or XML.
- Spent more time on the UI. It was functional, but not pretty.
- Implemented a better way to manage the actions. The list of waypoints was a bit clunky.
But overall, I’m happy with how it turned out. It’s a testament to the fact that you don’t need to be a coding genius to create something useful. Sometimes, all you need is a simple idea and a willingness to experiment. Now, thinking maybe next time, I will try something more challenging like building a complete RTS game, who knows? Time will tell!
