Hello once more readers,
Here we are near the end of the term and at the final blog post. I have been amazed throughout most of this term at how fast it has been flying by. It is funny that for over a year before taking this course I was pretty nervous about it and was questioning if I would be able to handle it but it has turned out to be one of the most memorable and enjoyable experiences I’ve had while enrolled at OSU. I could not have asked for better teammates or a better project to be assigned to and for both I am extremely grateful. Since the previous post I did implement some missing features from our game and have focused more on testing rather than expanding functionality.
With each passing week, there are fewer and fewer elements missing from our game. It is exciting to see it nearing completion! Since last week I built our options menu and added a couple of quality of life features to make the overall experience better for the user. This includes a credits screen and a controls screen that lists the keybindings present in the game. My group and I also decided on a template to move forward with for the project poster. I think the next in person Career Showcase is happening in summertime. When my advisor and I last spoke, he mentioned that as an Ecampus student, I am allowed to go to commencement so I am already planning to be in Oregon in June for that. If the Career Showcase happens to be around the same time, I would love to attend that as well. I would be proud to stand beside our project poster, considering how much work I’ve put into it and how much I have learned by doing so. As I mentioned before, that trip will likely be part of a larger roadtrip that I’ll be taking with my family so I’ll have to get the dates in order to see if it all lines up. Still haven’t decided our exact route for the road trip. However it turns out, it is for sure a very exciting time. Even though the job search hasn’t been fruitful as of yet, I am confident that it’s just a matter of time.
At this time I am feeling a sense of excitement that the term is ending soon and that I’ll have my degree but as I said before, knowing I had to take this course was something that made me nervous. If I could give any advice to future students who will be taking this course, it will be to start working as early as possible on creating a detailed project plan. The template provided is the level of detail you should strive for! My group’s project plan was 14 pages and had everything from project folder structure, level items and objects, and gameplay logic and functionality laid out. Start planning it early so that whenever you think of something new or that you had overlooked you can add it to the project plan. By the time the due date for it comes around it should have most of the fundamental details laid out. Also, work hard so that you are ahead of the project in the early weeks. Within the first two to three weeks I was spending well over the minimum 10 hours a week on the project and was implementing tasks scheduled for later weeks. This gave me a cushion for unforeseen issues/bugs. Lastly I would say to be confident in yourself and to try and have fun with whatever project you are assigned to. If you’ve made it this far in the program and gotten through many of the pre-requisite tough classes (looking at you Algorithms), then you’re more than ready to tackle this project and do awesome!
Take care readers and thank you for your time,
-Navine
