I covered the Pokémon Legends: Arceus Pokédex to learn how to make an inventory system/bestiary. As the project progressed I added other features such as shiny/alpha hunting and an options menu. My goal was to learn a variety of basic systems found in video games
Role: Solo Project
Duration: 10/31/2022 - 11/07/2022 (2 weeks)
Tools Used: Unity, C#, Google Sheets,
Flatfile CSVJSON
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Discoveries
During this project I challenged myself to make sure someone with zero coding knowledge could still contribute. Through this personal constraint I learned that you can use a spreadsheet software to create a .csv file, convert that into a .json, then read that through Unity. This allowed me to update Pokédex entries anywhere, leading to a more polished project.
Team Oriented Design
I took the extra time gained from my team based approach to polish the project even more. I added shiny/alpha hunting, with the same encounter rates found in the real game. Playtesters started hunting for their favorites while asking for more feedback. I used a combination of visual and audio cues, turning the cover into an idle clicker game in the process. The Pokédex will remember if the player was looking at the shiny/alpha entry for each Pokémon.
Special Encounter Systems
This project was the perfect opportunity to learn other menu systems as well. I added a simple options menu that allowed players to change the graphical fidelity, screen resolution, volume, and added a full screen toggle. Player catching stats were added to this menu as well after playtesting feedback.
Menu Implementation
Learnings
In game development it's easy to fall into a mindset of just getting it done, but that can have long-reaching consequences. Anywhere you can simplify workflow will greatly decrease technical debt, allowing for better polish and an overall better product.