Game Dev Notes #3 – Quiz Game

These are notes from the Complete C# Unity Game Developer 2D Udemy Course

UI

Right click -> Create canvas

Any element that shows up on the canvas needs to be a child of the Canvas.

Canvases use Screen Space instead of game space. The camera takes care of world space, but screen space is something entirely different.

Some common things you’ll want to do:

Create an image as a child of the canvas. Right click the canvas and UI -> Image
Use the Rect Transform on the image to set its position. Hold down shift to change the anchor point, and alt to also set position. It’s good to hold both down at once. You can also stretch elements to full screen here.
Create a pre-visualization layer so you can see what you expect your UI to look like (that doesn’t actually do anything) and set it later.

Grid Layout

For things you need organized together, you can make them children of an object such as AnswerButtonGroup. From that empty object, you can add stuff like buttons and other menu items. Add a component called “Vertical/Horizontal Layout Group” and it will automatically organize the children for you.

Scriptable Objects

Change the class type to ScriptableObject when creating a new script, no start or step event needed.

[createAssetMenu( menuName = “Quiz Question”, fileName = “New Question” )] – lets you take the script you created and use it in the Unity UI by right clicking -> Add new -> [SO]

Getter Methods

Gives a script read-only access to a private variable
Protects the contents of a private variable

string question = "Enter new question text";    
public string GetQuestion()
    {
        return question;
    }

Lists

Like Arrays, but you can change their size.

Arrays:

Int [ ] oddNumbers = new int[5]

Methods:

array.length – return the length of array

Lists:

List<int> oddNumbers = new List<int>()

The first part declares the type of List we’re creating ( a list of ints ), stores it in a variable name and then creates a new list.

Methods:

List.Count – Return length of list.
Lust.Contains(3) – Check if item exists.
List.Add( 3 )- Add an item.
List.Remove(3) – Remove an item.
List.RemoveAt(0) – remove item at given index
List.Clear() – clear the list.

Things to Look Up

How do attributes work in Unity?
What is going on here?

    [Header("Scoring")]
    [SerializeField] TextMeshProUGUI scoreText;
    ScoreKeeper scoreKeeper;

    void Start()
    {
        timer = FindObjectOfType<Timer>();
        scoreKeeper = FindObjectOfType<ScoreKeeper>();
    }

ScoreKeeper is the class I created I think, but then later we assign it to the object that has the script attached to it?

I don’t understand why we add a TextMeshUI object, then add a separate ScoreKeeper object…
Why

GAME QUEST