Okay, so I’m gonna walk you through this little project I was messing around with – the “mark andrews fantasy” thing. Sounds kinda cryptic, right? Well, it was. Let me break it down.
First, I started with this idea, just floating around in my head. I wanted to build some kind of, uh, interactive storytelling thing. Something where you could make choices and see how the story branches out. I knew I wanted a fantasy setting ’cause, you know, dragons are cool.
Step one: I grabbed Unity. Seemed like the easiest way to get something visual up and running without too much hassle. I ain’t no code wizard, so simple is good.
Next, I started sketching out the world. I didn’t go crazy detailed, just a rough map on a piece of paper. A forest, a town, a spooky mountain… you get the idea. Nothing groundbreaking, just the usual fantasy tropes.
Then I tried to write out the actual story. This was the tough part. I sat there staring at a blank screen for way too long. Finally, I just started typing. No editing, just vomiting words onto the page. Ended up with a mess, but at least it was something.
After that, I broke the story down into chunks. Each chunk represented a scene or a decision point. I used a simple text file format for each scene, like this:
Scene ID: 1
Text: You stand at a crossroads. Do you go left, right, or straight ahead?
Options:
left: 2
right: 3
straight: 4
Yeah, super basic. But it worked. I wrote a quick C# script in Unity to parse these files and display the text and options.
The coding part: It was mostly just string manipulation and loading assets. I slapped together some placeholder art – free stuff from the Unity Asset Store, mostly. Didn’t want to spend a ton of time on graphics when the story was the main focus.
Challenges I faced:
Keeping track of all the branches: Man, that got complicated fast. I had to draw diagrams to keep it all straight.
Making the choices matter: I wanted the decisions to actually have an impact on the story. This required a bit more scripting to track player stats and variables.
Not getting bored: Writing is hard! I kept wanting to just ditch the project and go play video games.
In the end, I got a working prototype. It wasn’t pretty, and the story was kinda cheesy, but it worked. You could play through it, make choices, and see different endings. I even added a cheesy soundtrack.
What did I learn? Mostly that I’m not a professional writer or game developer. But it was a fun project. I got to play around with Unity, write some code, and create something from scratch. That’s always a good feeling.
Would I do it again? Maybe. But next time, I’d probably start with a much smaller scope. And maybe hire a writer.
