One of the things I absolutely hate is when I get into a coding or designing train, stop, test it and realise I've made a massive mistake somewhere.
All those hours of furious typing and missing semi-colons and you have to CTRL+ Z the whole thing. It can get undeniably so frustrating.
I was working on my Inventory system. I had only ever made one using Blueprints in Unreal Engine because I felt it was easier to visualise what I wanted it to do if I used Blueprints. So I was using a tutorial by Game Grind on how to actually write the code for an inventory system. I had a clear idea of what I wanted my inventory to look like, so I ignored his design and went ahead and did my own. I started setting up the User Interface in Unity. I then pressed play to see how it scaled up on a larger screen. Everything was fine. I clicked play again to exit the game mode and BAM! Everything was gone! My inventory that I spent almost an hour making wasn't visible anymore.
As per usual, I panicked. It was almost 1 AM and I had already had to restart the design twice. My eyes were heavy and I just wanted to sleep. But I hadn't updated my progress Instagram yet and didn't want to break the streak so early on. I was upset with myself because I'd spent most of the day playing Guild Wars 2 to chill out and almost forgot about my code. So as I furiously spammed CTRL+Z. I said I wasn't going to quit and try to fix it again. The same thing happened. I tried again and the same thing happened. I decided as long as I had the thing there in the hierarchy, I can always find out what the issue was later and went on to write the rest of the code. It wasn't until I saved it to go to bed that everything reappeared and I felt so dumb and foolish for freaking out earlier.
One thing this 100 Day Game Development Challenge is doing is teaching me to be patient. Other times I've tried to make games I quit because I just didn't have the patience. I wanted a fully working game NOW. I wanted something I could show off straight away to build up my Portfolio. I just turned 21, and I still don't have a proper portfolio. I have bits and pieces of a portfolio but nothing that is ready to show to people and say "this is what I can do". A girl I went to primary school with did Photography at University and posted her portfolio to Facebook and it was so impressive. She'd documented all of her greatest pieces and even had a showcase, and it made me realise that my course doesn't really allow for that.
On the other hand, for Computer Science students, it shouldn't really be up to our lecturers to tell us to make a portfolio, it should be almost instinctive. The market is very competitive and we need to stand out. Many people I know have this idea that they want to start their own business straight away. It is doable, but if you don't have a portfolio of work to display to potential customers or employees, no-one will want to work with you and no-one will want to work for you.
I have a portfolio page on my blog here but it is currently under construction. I plan to update it as I go. But having a portfolio shows that you have experience. I can't count the number of times people have complained to me that jobs want experience. They have the qualifications but they don't have the experience and so they don't apply for the position. I too used to fear this. That I had all the qualifications but I couldn't prove that I had the experience for the job. While I am doing a placement year this year, I still work on producing a portfolio to prove my range of skills. Whether it be Web Apps, Software or Games, it all goes on that portfolio page so that if a potential employer asks if I've had any experience, while I may be lacking in the field, it is clear that I have the skills required for the job.
In closing, I advise any prospective programmers to start building their portfolio as soon as possible in order to utilise any opportunities presented to you.
