Alright, buckle up, because I’m about to spill the beans on my “elise battlegrounds” project. It was a wild ride, lemme tell ya.
So, it all started with me wanting to try something new. I was kinda bored with the usual stuff, and this “elise battlegrounds” idea just popped into my head. No real plan, just a gut feeling. I fired up my trusty IDE and started coding. I didn’t even have a clear picture of what it would become, just knew I wanted a battle arena vibe with some cool twists.
First things first, I needed a basic setup. I hammered out some player movement, got a simple arena designed (think cubes and cylinders, nothing fancy), and rigged up a way for players to “shoot” each other – basically, raycasts with some damage calculations. It was clunky, ugly, but it WORKED. I could move, I could shoot, and I could even see damage numbers pop up. Baby steps, right?
Then came the fun part: “elise.” I decided I wanted a central character, something unique, something… well, “elise.” After a lot of head-scratching, I settled on a character that could shapeshift between different forms, each with its own abilities. I modeled a basic character and started working on the shapeshifting mechanic. This was where things got messy. Animation blending, state management, ability switching… it was a headache. I spent days wrestling with Unity’s Animator, trying to get everything to flow smoothly. There were moments I wanted to chuck my keyboard out the window, but I persevered.
Once I had the basic shapeshifting down, I started adding abilities. One form could lay down traps, another could teleport short distances, and a third was just a bruiser with high damage. Balancing these abilities was a nightmare. Everything was either overpowered or completely useless. I ended up playtesting by myself for hours, tweaking numbers and cooldowns until things felt somewhat fair.
Of course, no battlegrounds is complete without some kind of progression system. So, I hacked together a system where players earned points for dealing damage and eliminating opponents. These points could then be used to unlock new abilities or upgrade existing ones. It was a simple system, but it added a nice layer of depth to the gameplay.
The biggest challenge? Networking. Getting multiple players to connect and interact smoothly was a real pain. I tried a couple of different networking solutions before settling on one that seemed to play nice with my project. I spent weeks debugging synchronization issues, lag problems, and all sorts of weird glitches. There were moments when I thought I’d have to scrap the whole networking thing, but I eventually got it working… mostly.
Along the way, I kept running into roadblocks. I’d get stuck on a particular problem for days, banging my head against the wall until I finally had a breakthrough. I watched countless tutorials, read endless forum posts, and asked for help on Discord. The gamedev community is awesome, by the way. Everyone is always willing to lend a hand.
In the end, “elise battlegrounds” isn’t a masterpiece. It’s buggy, unbalanced, and visually… well, let’s just say it’s not winning any art awards. But it’s MINE. I built it from scratch, learned a ton along the way, and had a blast doing it. It’s a testament to just diving in and figuring things out as you go.
- Start coding, even if you don’t know where you’re going.
- Don’t be afraid to experiment and try new things.
- Ask for help when you’re stuck.
- And most importantly, have fun!
That’s my “elise battlegrounds” story. Hope you found it somewhat entertaining. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m gonna go back to fixing those bugs.
