11th April 2025, 09:00 AM
Chris's Command Centre, UK
The smell of lukewarm tea and the faint ghost of yesterday's pizza hung in the air as Chris, Tyrone, and Max reconvened. There was less nervous energy than the previous morning, replaced by a determined, if slightly weary, focus. Yesterday's triumph – the sliding red cube – felt like ancient history already. It was proof of concept; today was about building something that felt, however remotely, like a game.
"Right," Chris began, booting up his PC and bringing yesterday's simple scene onto the main monitor. The red cube sat there, patiently waiting for input. "Mission Control online. Status report: we have achieved basic lateral movement and sound emission."
Tyrone peered at the screen. "It's beautiful in its simplicity. But… it needs more. Pizzazz! Verticality! Danger!"
Max nodded, already opening Unity on his laptop. "Agreed. The absolute next step has to be physics and jumping. A character that just slides isn't much of a character."
"Okay, Plan A," Chris grabbed his notepad. "Block one, next four hours, ending 1 PM. Max, focus on implementing Rigidbody physics for gravity and a basic jump function – spacebar input, apply upward force. Tyrone, the red cube deserves better. Can you model a super simple character placeholder? Doesn't have to be detailed, just not a cube. Maybe a capsule with eyes? And find or make a 'jump' sound. I'll start roughing out a slightly more interesting ground plane – maybe a couple of platforms to test the jump."
"Capsule with eyes, coming right up!" Tyrone declared, firing up Blender. "Codename: Captain Capsule!"
"Physics and jump logic, allocating processing power now," Max confirmed, already typing #include.
The first four-hour block commenced. The rhythm established yesterday returned, but faster, more confident. Max wrestled with AddForce and Velocity, tweaking parameters to make the jump feel responsive but not floaty. Tyrone, after navigating Blender's interface with slightly more familiarity than the day before, managed to sculpt a simple, armless capsule shape, gave it two dot-eyes using basic texturing, and imported it into Unity as 'Captain Capsule'. He found a suitable 'boing' sound effect. Chris laid out a few blocky platforms at varying heights in the scene.
Git commits flew back and forth more frequently now: feat: Add Rigidbody and basic gravity, feat: Implement jump on spacebar, asset: Add Captain Capsule model v1, asset: Add jump sound effect, chore: Basic platform layout v1. They encountered their first minor Git merge conflict when both Chris and Max had inadvertently modified the same scene setting, but Max calmly guided them through resolving it.
By 1:00 PM, they paused, pulling the latest changes. Captain Capsule, replacing the red cube, now sat on the platform. Pressing spacebar sent the capsule upwards with a satisfying 'boing', and gravity pulled it back down. Pressing A and D slid it left and right.
"Progress!" Chris declared, navigating the capsule across the platforms. "Okay, it moves, it jumps, it exists in a physical world. Phase one complete."
"He needs a purpose," Tyrone said, watching the capsule hop aimlessly. "Like collecting… shinies! Or avoiding… spikies!"
"Plan B," Chris nodded, marking his notepad. "Block two, next four hours, ending 5 PM. Let's add collectibles and obstacles. Tyrone, create a simple 'coin' object – maybe just a spinning yellow cylinder or coin shape – and a basic static obstacle block, visually distinct from the platforms. Max, script the logic: player touches coin, coin disappears, increment a score. Also, need a basic UI element to display that score. I'll design a slightly more complex level layout incorporating these elements – places to jump to, obstacles to avoid, coins to collect."
"On it," Max affirmed, researching OnTriggerEnter and Unity's UI system.
"Making shinies and spikies!" Tyrone announced, diving back into his asset creation tools.
The afternoon session deepened the complexity. Max implemented the collection logic and managed to get a simple text box displaying "Coins: 0" in the corner of the screen, updating correctly when Captain Capsule collided with the coin objects. Tyrone created spinning yellow cylinders for coins and imposing, dark grey blocks for obstacles. Chris designed a small, self-contained level requiring jumping between platforms, avoiding the grey blocks, and collecting five strategically placed coins. Integrating the UI element and ensuring the collision logic worked correctly took some debugging, involving liberal use of Debug.Log to track the score variable.
At 5:00 PM, they regrouped around the monitor again. Captain Capsule could now navigate a small level, leap over obstacles, and collect spinning coins, with a counter tracking progress. It was starting to resemble a rudimentary platformer.
"Okay," Max said, testing the controls. "Functional loop. Move, jump, collect."
"Needs consequences," Chris stated immediately. "Right now, you can miss a jump and just fall forever."
"And more feedback!" Tyrone added. "Collecting a coin should feel... sparklier!"
"Plan C," Chris said, sketching rapidly. "Final block, four hours, ending 9 PM. Let's add a hazard and a reset mechanism. Max, script it: if the player touches a 'hazard' zone, reset their position back to the start. Also, let's trigger a simple particle effect when a coin is collected. Tyrone, make that particle effect – just some basic sparks or glitter – and maybe make a 'lava' texture or material for the hazard floor. I'll implement the hazard zone below the platforms and integrate the particle effect prefab."
"Sparkle time!" Tyrone grinned.
"Reset logic and particle triggers, roger," Max confirmed.
The final push began as evening drew in outside. Max coded the reset function, using Unity's tag system to identify hazard objects. He then figured out how to instantiate Tyrone's particle effect prefab at the coin's location just before destroying the coin object. Tyrone, using Unity's built-in particle system, created a passable burst of yellow sparks and applied a menacingly bright red texture to a plane Chris designated as the 'lava floor'. Chris carefully positioned the hazard plane, linked the particle effect to the coin prefab, and tested the full loop: collecting coins triggered sparks, falling off the platforms onto the red plane snapped Captain Capsule back to the starting point. He also tweaked the jump height and gravity slightly based on their collective feel during testing.
At 9:00 PM sharp, Chris leaned back, letting Max take the controls. Captain Capsule navigated the small course, leaping over grey blocks, collecting sparking yellow coins, the counter ticking up. Max deliberately steered the capsule off a platform; it hit the red floor below and instantly reappeared at the starting platform.
They stared at the screen, the sounds of clicking keys replaced by the hum of the computers. Twelve hours of focused work, three distinct iterations. What started as a sliding cube was now a controllable character navigating an environment with objectives, obstacles, and consequences. It was still incredibly basic, a million miles from a finished game, but the transformation was undeniable.
"Okay," Tyrone said softly, breaking the silence. "Yesterday, we made a cube slide. Today... today we made Captain Capsule's first adventure."
Chris nodded, a tired but satisfied look on his face. "Plan, develop, review, repeat. It works." He looked at the screen, then at his friends. "We actually built something playable."
The simple loop of Captain Capsule jumping, collecting, and respawning played out on the monitor – a tangible result of their collaborative effort, a foundation laid, ready for the next cycle of creation. The journey was truly underway.