The Making Of: Zombie Runner

THE COURSE

I created this game alongside a course.  This wasn't my first 3D game but it was my first first-person game.  I was really excited to write a first-person controller and then shocked when the instructor had me download one from the Unity Asset Store instead of coding it myself.  Do professionals use premade character controllers sometimes?

THE EXPERIENCE

Some of the new things I learned from this project:

• Using ProBuilder, ProGrids, and Unity snaps packs
• Using a version control system
• Level design using Unity's terrain system
• Complex ammo system
• Fine tuning weapons
• Handling lighting issues on WebGL builds
• 3D models & animations
• 3D spatial sound design
• Source control (this was the first game where I actively used git during development)
• Using Unity's NavMesh system
• Raycasting (used for bullet mechanics instead of projectiles)
• Animation events (used to determine when the enemy actually hits the player during the attack animation sequence)
• Broadcasting messages to call methods in other scripts without coupling them
• Writing enums (created ammo types)
• Manipulating the cursor
• Drawing gizmos in the editor's scene view (used to visualize enemy's radius of awareness

This was my least favorite project and I didn't write any of the code myself (aside from the course's challenges), so I probably won't iterate on the game but the codebase is available for review here.  I think one of the reasons I didn't enjoy working on this project as much is because, as a Call of Duty player, I have high expectations for a first-person shooter that a developer at my current level could not reasonably achieve.  I really enjoyed the visuals that come with 3D graphics and I look forward to creating another first-person game, but it will probably not be another shooter.