Issues with Lecture in general

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#1

Hi!

So far more positive things to say than negative but this lecture actually got me a bit dissapointed. Were told to import our old console program of Number Wizard and we are then told to make this graphic representation of buttons, guess-space and heading etc.

We are then helped to assign our buttons to the guesscode written in visual studio for the button “higher” and “lower”.

Being completely unable to even begin any of the challenges here (which is a bit sad and discouraging) Rick then in the end presses “success” button which activates and changes scenes from him.

I had to pause here, saw he had “scene selector” in the hierarchy and that it was added to the button. I dont remember us ever having done this and I dont have scene selector in my hierarchy. He goes on as this is all fine and good and then ends the lecture.

This feeling of falling at the finish line is starting to annoy me. Complicated code is put in challenges in a way I have no idea how Im supposed to know at all.

I just felt the need to vent here because this lecture really made me almost angry. At no point does Rick tell us how or when to connect the "success"button to anything and if he did I will apoligize 100x over.

Sincerely
Disheartened Student

1 Like
#2

Hi Prime,

I hear what you are saying and have felt similarly myself! I’m actually going through the Number Wizard UI lesson AGAIN, and I can’t directly address your specific button issue.

However, I can really identify with your frustration! I made it up to the Glitch Garden project by following along but I hadn’t really learned much. All of the code was way beyond my capacity. What I decided to do was start from the beginning again. I can tell you that this time through my understanding is much much better.

I’ve started and taken quite a few programming courses and they seem to fall into two categories. The “tough” courses where the teachers deliberately don’t tell you everything and somehow you have to figure it out, and courses like this one where you are basically held by the hand and shown everything.

The problem with the second type is that you can go through it and make all the games and still learn basically nothing. That is what was happening for me. What I’ve found is that it is completely up to me to challenge myself and to find ways to understand and learn the material. That’s what I’m doing and it is working! If I really don’t understand I start over. Otherwise I review stuff, and go over it and over it, and even just memorize it if I have to, and it is slowly sinking in.

I’ve been given the advice that it is completely normal to feel frustrated and disheartened. I’ve felt that way more times than I can count, and don’t even get me started on all the weird glitches and bugs I seem to be having with Unity itself! How am I supposed to learn if I don’t know whether I made a mistake or it’s just Unity bugging out again!? :wink: (It’s progress that I can actually find the humor in that!)

Hang in there!
Joseph

#3

As someone who has gone through programming courses at University level, I can definitely say that these lectures are more an in-between of your two categories. The thing here is that these lectures are not only teaching programming, but design principles too. In particular user interactions, placement, the look and the feel of a game. It’s a 2 for 1, that most aspiring game developers would benefit from understanding.

I see too many people focus so much on programming, that they have absolutely no understanding of game design. Same with designers who are so focused on design only. Sure you can get careers from such specific/specialist fields, but having that wider understanding means more seamless communication between you and others in your group/team/company.

The best advice I can give is push the envelope a little with each of the challenges given. That way you learn way more than if you just follow along.

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