Developer Log 1, 29.03.2023

So the game is a turn-based, colony, factory-building resource-management game. You’re the sole survivor left conscious after the staging ship crashed on the alien world. In the orbiter above hangs your family, still in stasis on the generation ship waiting for the colony to be ready for their arrival and the space elevator to be built so that they can descend to the surface. Using the ships fabricator, build mines, factories, and automatons to get food production, living quarters and defenses against hostiles so that your family and the thousands above can start a life among the stars after thousands of years of travel.

I’ve been meaning to learn C# for like six months now so I thought I’d learn how to code it in Unity. I was kind of stuck in tutorial hell without a good project to sink my teeth into, so this is perfect for me. At work I script python web scrapers and various things like that, but getting a handle on the syntax was kind of tripping me up. However, the python I do for work doesn’t really require any difficult architecture or design patterns, and the engineering side is really what I’m interested in.

That brings me to this week, I’ve been having an absolute blast! I found a book on design patterns for game dev, and I ask ChatGPT questions about what I don’t understand. Then I ask it for examples in python. THEN I ask it for examples in C# and how it could be implemented in Unity! It’s great, I’m making way more progress way faster than any tutorial video, and I can get feedback throughout bug fixing. Obviously the robot has some intense limitations when it comes to a lot of things, but it’s making the basics just zoom by.

I heard about keeping dev logs as a way to engage with possible players and get assistance with programming snafus, so this is kind of my introduction to the community. If anyone would be interested in reading short articles about my journey with C# and Unity and design patterns, I love writing.