First I want to say congratulations to all the entrants, I look forward to playing them :D.

Well, I missed the deadline. Staying up all this time, skipping school excursions and using my school holidays was all for nothing, except it wasn't. That's the great thing about creating anything, is that every time you attempt, succeed, fail, you always learn something new, you always have a new asset(Unity Pun :D) in your toolbox that you can use in the future. I figured I would list a few things I learn't from this, partly just for me so I don't get all bummed out, and partly because I think its a fitting end for my entry.

-Planning is your friend

For quite a while there I was going to make an ambitious fruit based adventure game, probably should have stuck with it lol, but none the less I tried to plan out as much as I could for that game. I would list out all the different game mechanics, the entire story and all the settings, lots of pseudo code for optimizations and stuff etc. Because I did this, I had a set plan in mind that wouldn't be subject to the dreaded feature creep. Another thing I realized was that it was too large, and scaling the scope wouldn't do the idea justice so I opted for a simpler 2d puzzle game about manipulating traffic lights and blowing up cars. For this I didn't make a plan, so development went something like this:

Hmm, 2d, but gamemaker is a bit slow for something like this, but 2d in Unity is a bit overkill. What the heck, lets make it 3d, but with pixel art textures! Also, instead of just having each level seperately, we can make the entire map a giant puzzle. Problem is that then it all needs to be realtime and probably isn't suited for a puzzle game at all….Fine then, we can make it a cross between puzzle and adventure and whatever else comes to min-Quake! I like quake, lets have a lightning weapon. Why do we have a lightning weapon? I don't know, its the future I guess what the heck why not, etc etc until it spread out into a pile of crap that could never be completed.

Planning is a very useful tool and should be used almost everywhere :D. With some better(I did a very little bit, but not enough)planning this project may have seen completion.

-Unitys in built editor is the worst thing in the entire world

This one can be nice and short. Grab out unity and spawn 100 cubes. Now select them and try moving them, oh wait now Unity is frozen or your entire computer is having a heart attack :D. Basically, (At least for me), its best not to use it, make an external editor that unity reads from or something, who knows just don't use the in-built one for anything complex lol :D.

-Modularity is helpful

This is a rather new concept for me as I barely used classes prior to Unity, but they are really really nice :D. Along with them comes the ability to have different components that are generic enough to fit into many situations. I have found that by making as many segments of my code stand along I am able to use it more effectively, find bugs faster and use it in other projects

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Now, even though I now have two incomplete games on my hands that probably won't ever finish, doesn't mean I only get to take away experience from this. I have created several generic components that I can use in any future game, and definitely will :D

-Branching Dialog System

Does what it says on the cover. A dialog system that allows for choices complete with audio and animation support. It also has a nice node editor made in blender that can be used to make the files.

-City Generator

Once again pretty self explanatory. This can generate entire worlds in Unity from city to residential, grassy to concrete, different market value etc that makes it pretty handy. Along with that I also have a pretty robust AI that can navigate around within it, perfect for traffic and NPCs and stuff.

-Top Down Movement System

Its generic enough to be plugged into most places, and is pretty customizable and fits together with all the other components allowing for starting dialog trees and other stuff. Also is setup so that animations can be used without resetting origin points and stuff.

-Sound handling system

Basically a bunch of arrays and functions that allow sounds to register themselves with a certain type such as Sound Effect, Dialog, Music etc, and can have all there volumes altered while retaining the original one. Pretty extendable as well :)

-Experimental Attacking system

Don't know how modular this one is but its the one I was using in Moldy Apples. Pretty interesting and has potential I think.

-Easy to use Day-Night system with weather effects

Does what it says on the cover

-Very useful mesh optimizer

Merges static meshes together in quadrants based on camera view angles so that frustum culling can work its magic while draw calls can be significantly lowered.

-Custom terrain tree/grass handler

By using the mesh optimizer I have taken over the Unity terrains trees and grass and made them faster by 30 fps :D. It also uses the data from the terrain so its still possible to use the in-built terrain tools :D

- Quest & Inventory System(WIP)

Still a work in progress(As in they work but have no graphical display apart from some prints and Gui.Text draws). Allows for branching quests with different objectives, once again loaded from a separated file. Can be used in conjunction with the dialog system easily.

I'm planning on completing both my potential entries, although not sure if I will lol :D. Moldy Apples will probably re-appear as this years Science Talent Search entry, while the car one I will try and complete over the next few days so i can get back to work on my personal projects, Full Moon, Project Swing and Project Kenny :D

So although I didn't get to enter, I still get to take away a crap tone from it, so thankyou for hosting it Acid and I do not regret taking part one bit :D.