Right now, I'm beginning to work with Unity, a simple and popular game engine. However, it's not the only one. There are countless game engines right now. But which are the biggest and what do they mean?
For a long time, games were made from scratch. In the 1980s, the first game engines were being used, but it wasn't until the 90s that they'd become mainstream. Epic Games - the same company that made Fortnite - released Unreal Engine in 1998. That was a big moment for game development, as companies really turned to game engines. These days, virtually all games have been built in game engines. I've played games on the Frostbite engine like FIFA and Star Wars: Battlefront. Source is a PC engine that Half-Life 2 was made in. IW Engine was used to make Call of Duty. Ubisoft uses Anvil game engine. There are lots of other options too, and many are free and downloadable for anyone to make their own games in. Programs like Unity have made game design very accessible. Game engines are easier to get and more diverse than ever before. If you're passionate about games, you don't have to go to an elite university for eight years - just open up your computer and do a couple Google searches. There are so many different choices and so many different opportunities for anyone to make their very own video game thanks to game engines like Unity. So, the next time that you're angry at software, even something like Google Chrome, just remember: you're using revolutionary technology. Enjoy your unique opportunity, especially in a game engine. Because technology is fascinating and game engines are cool. Buttle, Paul. “The Power Behind Video Games: A Look at Game Engines.” Medium, We The Players, 29 Apr. 2020, medium.com/wetheplayers/the-power-behind-video-games-a-look-at-game-engines-2731315086e0. Summary
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Games seem to be the pinnacle of modern technology these days. All the talk is around the next Minecraft update, new strategies for Among Us, new characters in Fortnite, and new sports games. If it wasn't for politics and COVID, games would be anything anyone talks about. But why? Why are games so popular?
The first ever game was probably wrestling. It makes sense, really: lots of animals wrestle, whether it's competing for mates or just for fun. Obviously, free time comes with ways to pass the time. But what about board games? Senet is considered the first ever board game. Unlike wrestling, there is chance as well as skill. Senet also had religious importance, but there isn't much known about it or its rules. Nowadays, wrestling isn't the most popular game and most people haven't even heard of Senet. However, chance, competition, and physical and mental skill still exist in today's games. It's fun to beat someone and brag about it. But games aren't just about winning. Stress can be addictive and exciting, convincing the player to return. On the other hand, too much stress is bad. The flow state of a mix of boredom and anxiety keeps players attentive and likely to return. Updates also keep games fresh and avoid boredom. Games, like books, help you see into another world. Wouldn't it be cool if you could live on a spaceship, build floating houses, and be a millionaire football player? Yet another enticing element of most games is social interaction. As we're all learning in quarantine, even introverts sometimes need to talk to people. There are notable exceptions in games such as Solitaire, but many games include some way of social interaction. Lastly, good games provide a sense of accomplishment. From beating a dragon to winning the World Cup, many games leave you feeling satisfied. Summary
Valentine's Day, coming up this week, is a widely celebrated holiday about love and romance. But how the heck did it start?
There is no definite start of Valentine's Day, but Ancient Rome celebrated a love-centered holiday during the month of February. From February 13th to 15th, Romans would drink lots of wine, sacrifice goats and dogs, and whip women with the skins of the sacrificed animals. This festival, called Lupercalia, featured a lot of nakedness and was thought to help people improve fertility. The name of our winter holiday may also be derived from Rome. Twice, Emperor Claudius II executed a man named Valentine on February 14th. The Catholic Church deemed them saints and began celebration of St. Valentine's Day. In the 400s AD, Pope Gelasius I combined Lupercalia and St. Valentine's Day, thus erasing much of the wildness of the Roman festival. Valentine's Day did have more wine than usual, but none of the nakedness followed. However, Lupercalia's focus on love continued. Another romance-oriented holiday was celebrated by the Normans in February. Called Galatin's Day, it was probably confused with Valentine's Day. Now, Galatin's Day is no more. William Shakespeare played a major role in making Valentine's Day more romantic via playwriting. During the middle ages, people gave each other paper cards to celebrate the holiday. Since 1913, Hallmark Cards started producing its own Valentine's Day cards. Now it has become a 17 billion dollar industry, and people everywhere buy their loved ones cards, cookies, chocolate, and flowers on February 14th. Summary
Seipel, Arnie. “The Dark Origins Of Valentine's Day.” NPR, NPR, 13 Feb. 2011, www.npr.org/2011/02/14/133693152/the-dark-origins-of-valentines-day. Today I've been wondering what to blog about, but now I know. It's Spooktober, and that means Halloween is coming up. The wonderful day we know and love kickstarted thousands of years ago and has come a long way. The holiday began as an Ancient Celtic festival which marked the beginning of winter. The Celts had a calendar that began on November 1st, and they believed ghosts came out on October 31st, the last day of their year. Druids, Celtic preists, built massive bonfires for sacrifices and the people wore costumes usually made out of animal heads and skin.
When Rome captured much of Celtic territory, they combined existing Roman festivals with the Celtic holiday. Feralia, a day late in October, was a Roman day commemorating the dead. Pomana, another late October day, was for celebrating the goddess of fruit and trees, which probably led to the modern practice of bobbing for apples. A few hundred years later, Pope Boniface IV established All Martyrs' Day in mid May to honor important dead Christians. Pope Gregory III changed the holiday to November 1st and to include saints as well, and the previous night became known as All Hallows' Eve. In the early United States, southern states began to hold parties to celebrate the harvest in late October. Ghost stories and spooky tales spread across the country by the late 1800s, but Halloween was not celebrated everywhere. Waves of immigration helped improve, popularize, and spread the holiday. Soon, Americans were dressing up in costumes, going to people's houses, and asking for candy. Trick-or-treating partially emerged from impoverished people on All Saints' Day parades begging for cake in England, and wearing masks on Hallows' Eve to protect themselves from ghosts. Halloween parties and movies became immensely popular in the mid and late 1900s, and the holiday finally became ubiquitous. Summary
History.com Editors. “Halloween 2019.” History.com, A&E Television Networks, 18 Nov. 2009, www.history.com/topics/halloween/history-of-halloween |
AuthorHI! I'm a 12th grader and on this page, I will blog about me and what I'm going through, both in Game Design class and in life. There are a mix of required blog posts and personal reflections, which you can sort, among other things, below the disclaimer and archives. DISCLAIMER
The views and opinions expressed in this blog are solely those of the author and do not represent those of Durham School of the Arts or Durham Public Schools. Archives
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