Did anyone else find this section REALLY difficult?

Unity Courses Talk
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I’ve been having a blast working through this course and gaining layer over layer of practical knowledge through the various sections. Section 8 was just such a different experience for me. I felt pretty discouraged about 2/3 through this section. I was at the point where I couldn’t really follow the lectures without pausing the video every sentence to try to figure out what was happening. They move so quickly, and so much material is covered, that I felt like I wasn’t so much learning as I was just following along the steps in the videos and hoping for the correct result.

Not to mention my game started breaking in ways that didn’t make any sense (i.e., just importing the Test Tools created errors, and my animator triggers quit working without warning and I can’t for the life of me figure out why. Not the animation itself, just the triggers), and I just couldn’t follow the TDD concept at all.

I’m hoping to come back and work through this section again sometime, probably starting it over from the beginning and absorbing some info I may have missed the first time through, but I ended up shelving the section for now and skipping ahead to see if I can get back into the swing of things with Section 9.

Did anybody else have this experience? What did you do to overcome the challenges? I’ve loved every other section of this course so I’m not sure what’s going wrong for me in this one.

1 Like
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Yes, I’m having that experience right now as I type this. Things started out challenging but manageable, then go completely south starting at Lecture 204 (the debugging lecture). I’m just going to move on and try BowlMaster some other time.

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Yes this is a tough section, and also very long.

As with all challenging online sections, I just try my best to do the challenges. If I get stuck for too long or have no clue I just watch what the instructor does. Then I try to do it on my own. I still learn a lot and it’s better than getting frustrated, stuck, or losing precious momentum.

Worst case just skip it.

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The purpose of the Bowlmaster section is to introduce Test Driven Development (TDD) to the user. This was accomplished very well. However, everything else in this section seems to have been swept under the rug. Not to mention this section is very unforgiving for people using Unity version 5.3 or beyond (since the testing tools are now included with Unity 5.3+, and trying to install them on the more modern versions while you follow along with the videos causes issues. However, I do remember seeing some note in the video warning us of that conflict).

Here are some other issues I have with this section. Hopefully these will all be addressed in the new updated version of the course in Unity 2017, but we will see. Technically, all these issues can be addressed by anyone who has been following along with the course up to this point, but it would have been nice if they were addressed in one additional video towards the end.

1 - A quick hack was put in place to keep the 7 and 10 pins from slipping off the side of the lane when they are reset. The box collider was extended, but that causes the ball to roll along an invisible lane on each side of the lane.

2 - No end game. It would not have taken much to prevent the user from continuing to bowl after the final roll and to display their score in big numbers over the screen (and a start again button).

3 - Having the user blindly copy the ActionMaster code was a disaster. So much so that the final version of the game makes calls to the older version of the ActionMaster script called ActionMasterOld. This really needed a debug, and not a shortcut back to the original working version of ActionMaster. I still have nightmares of strikes registering as -/

4a - No condition put in place to handle the scenario of the ball hitting the swiper. I know during the video it was mentioned that this could happen in real life, so we’ll just leave it like that. That is true, but in real life the bowler would not stand there for eternity looking at his ball resting on the swiper. A collider could detect if the ball hits the swiper, and if so, trigger a ball reset.

4b - The user can simply mess up their roll by hitting the mouse button and not moving the mouse up. This simply drops the ball straight down with no forward momentum causing the game to freeze forever. Again, a simple line of code could detect the ball not moving, never left the lane box collider, and then trigger a ball reset.

All these things can be addressed by the user at this point in their learning, but it would have been nice to see them covered in the videos. These are not enhancements, but bug fixes; especially the issue with ActionMaster.

But just to be clear, this entire series as a whole is so far beyond anything else out there. It is still simply the best two years later. Can’t wait for the upgrade; though.

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Well I ended up watching each video but not following along in my own project. Once I finished watching the section videos I went ahead and started on the next section, Zombie Runner. I will likely go back and redo the Bowling section in the future, when I feel ready to tackle TDD again. For now I’m content moving forward.

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I found this section to be quite difficult in some respects. In terms of the actual following the videos etc, it was fine, it was just when he got to the video saying “now completely refactor scoremaster” I kinda froze up and couldn’t think of how I could refactor it, to the point where I left the course for about a year.

I’ve come back now and decided to do this section again to get myself back in the swing of things and refresh my memory, hopefully this time I won’t completely freeze up, if I do, rather than running away, I will simply concede and see what Ben wants to do.

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The pace definitely picks right back up again in the following Zombie Runner section, so I encourage anyone to push through even if you don’t understand or follow the videos in your own project. Plus, Ben has mentioned in the past that sometimes watching the videos and then re-watching them may help you to understand, since you can see the trajectory of the project.

I think for myself, given my better understanding of the modern Unity version(s) and the built-in test tools now compared to when I originally started the section, many of my original struggles could be avoided if/when I go through the section again. Plus, having a fundamental understanding of TDD going into the section now, I think I will have an easier time grasping the earlier lectures which will help propel me through the later, more challenging ones.

Overall, I definitely struggled with the section, but I am excited to move forward and to tackle it again, probably after I’ve completed the rest of the course.