Before the COVID-19 pandemic started in March 11, 2020, everything was going smoothly and no one was worried or concerned about getting sick. During the Spring 2020 as I was on my last day of Spring break and was looking forward to starting my next week of school, things began to take a sudden turn when CSU Channel Island announced that they had to make all the classes virtual due to the pandemic. I had to take classes virtually instead of physically as before and it was not the same as taking classes on campus. But even so, I was able to complete many tasks as well as some of my classes.
The challenges that the COVID-19 pandemic brought was that I do not get to spend time on campus with my teachers, friends, and classmates the same way as before. There were not many people that I can work with virtually due to the limitations that the pandemic and health safety measures had on me and everyone else. In the Spring 2021 semester, I looked for people who I can work on the project with, but I did not find anyone. Therefore, I have to work on the project on my own. This is where I began to search for ideas on my capstone project. With the help of my teacher, Brian Thoms, he gave me advices on how I should do a capstone project based on my knowledge that I have obtained in school so far. At first, I wanted to create a simulation of how COVID-19 is spread but he said that the idea is too difficult. So I decided that the capstone prep project is a flight simulation video game where the player takes the role of a fighter jet flying around the world fighting COVID-19. Unfortunately, the idea never came to light because of the difficulty I encountered when I started the project. So I decided to drop the flight sim idea and replace it with the idea of an arcade shoot ’em up game.
I was able to get a good start in September by looking up videos on YouTube to get some great ideas on how to make a 2D shooter game with the limited time I have. I used Photoshop to create some of my assets as well as some premade assets online. As I progress further on my project, I saw that how much I was able to achieve within two months despite that there was more that I wanted to add in my game, but did not have the chance to implement them. In the end, I like the results that I have done so far. Hopefully, in the future, I can find some other people who can work with me on my game project and let others try out my game when it is ready and completed.
