Update

Right so...I can't remember what I said in my last post and I am too lazy to check right now so I apologize if I repeat myself. First of all, for some unknown reason most of my professors decided to make my finals and final projects due early so this week is going to be hell. The good news, however, is that Chad helped me reduce the semester record of 114 errors that were in my code down to zero with just a few changes. I am glad that it was so simple, but at the same time I feel silly that I couldn't figure it out on my own. Oh well. At least Meg and I should have a working game sometime in the near future. Now...off to drive myself crazy wrestling with Lightwave and thinking about my audio project... *groan*

FINAL GAME!!!!

Ok, so Meg and I decided to team up on this one in an effort to actually produce something that works how we want it to when we want it to. Right now the idea is a maze. I'm not gonna say more than that because I don't want to give it away, but I am pretty excited. I have already started on the .as file and Meg has already started on the .fla. More updates to come, but for now: to work!

Death Game: SOUL CAPTURE

Ok...so thanks to Chad's help I now have a working game. It's a little buggy still...but it works well enough. Give it a try.

Game 2

So no great inspiration struck and I continued with my Death game, now called Soul Capture. I almost have it working how I want. There is just an issue with moving to the next level and with the player's lives. You know...the kind of important stuff, but whatever. I am so close which makes it more frustrating. I may have to get rid of a secondary element I added to make the game more complex, because before I added it the level switching worked properly.

Nervous Breakdown

Ok, so after several panic attacks and realizing I was finally out of time to come up with some super awesome idea, I had to give in to a less than stellar idea for my next game. I don't hate it, and I think that as I keep developing the game and working on it, it could become good, but I am just not super into it. Unfortunately I only have one week left to make it, and considering I have to be out of town this weekend to attend to some other commitments, I am feeling the pressure. I only hope I can pull something together. Right now the user plays as Death and has to collect souls. I feel like I could maybe introduce some interesting elements, but first I have to come up with some and then I would have to code them...so basically I have my fingers crossed but I am not hoping for too much. The game is grey scale which is what I had wanted to do all along, however, I had originally wanted a much different higher contrast look than what I have so far. We shall have to see where it goes. If I come out of the next three weeks (which=hell) AND I have a working game...well I really can't ask for more than that at this point. Right now...I need to get at least a little sleep so I can work hard on it tomorrow.

The Night of Bush Capturing: A Virtual Jihadi

Well first of all, how lame of the city to cite a code violation as an excuse to shut down the show. Did they think anyone would buy that? I mean, come on, really? I can see, however, how the game could seem threatening to some. I mean, lets be honest, there are definitely people out there who would think that the game was encouraging suicide bombings and assassination attempts on Bush, and should some people actually be moved to undertake such tasks, it certainly wouldn't be good. And technically, if something is viewed as presenting "clear and present danger" then according to some supreme court case I can't remember it isn't protected as free speech. That being said, it might be a hard case for the city to prove. Not to mention time and resource consuming, hence the cop out with the code violation. All in all this could be a bit of a sticky subject especially since it's already sensitive subject matter. If it's seen as trying to recruit suicide bombers to the cause of offing Bush than I think that the city has a right to shut it down, but since it is really trying to "bring attention to the vulnerability of Iraqi civilians to the travesties of the current war and racist generalizations and stereotypes as exhibited in games such as Quest for Saddam; along with vulnerability to recruitment by violent groups like Al Qaeda because of the U.S.'s failed strategy in securing Iraq," as well as shedding "light on groups that traffic in crass and hateful stereotypes of Arab culture with games like Quest for Saddam and other media" then it is really a shame that it was shut down. Again...sticky situation. That pretty much sums it up.

In other news, I can't think of a good game idea (big surprise, right? not really AT ALL!). I have one that involves a polar bear and ice chunks and rising water, but I don't know what level 2 would be, I am not totally in love with the idea, and I am not thrilled to try to animate a polar bear. SO basically I am still trying frantically to come up with something. Hopefully some random inspiration strikes me before 9:00 am tomorrow when I have class.

Project 2

Well, as usual inspiration escapes me and I have no idea what to do for my next game. Story of my life really. Whatever, I will update when I get some sort of fantastic idea or something.

Game swf file

Ok so here's my finished game, Banana Rescue. Save the bananas and have fun!

BANANA RESCUE

So I came across some random inspiration thanks to a chance encounter with a news article about bananas and a comment from a girl on my vb team. With my new idea I made progress and am really pleased with my graphics and overall game design (which was a fair amount of work considering I had to start from scratch), but I found that I still don't really know enough to code my own game from scratch. Therefore my game is extremely similar in function to the example. It took longer than I anticipated for me to sort through all the scripting and figure out what goes with what and how it all works, but I am proud to say that I managed to figure out almost all of it on my own and with some help from Tracy got my game up and running. Unfortunately I was unable to successfully add in a new element that would make the game harder and more interesting to play. I am planning on coming in early to ask for help because I know that I am just missing something small and I know which area the error is in, I just can't figure out how to fix it. I was hoping to form my game around the example from class and once I had it working to make adjustments and changes from there to make it my own. Due to time and a not working section of collision detection I haven't quite reached that goal yet. I also thought about adding more levels, but for only having 2 weeks to create full functional game from scratch that was kinda asking for too much. So as it stands I have one almost perfectly functioning level, a load screen, title page, instruction page, and credits page and I feel pretty good about my game. It's kinda silly, kinda educational, and sends an environmental message that isn't too blatantly obvious or in your face (at least I don't think so). Anyway, I am starting to ramble and it's late and I have to go catch a bus and get up early tomorrow so I guess that's it for now. YAY for Banana Rescue! (The name of my game)

Grrr...so I am super frustrated because I basically have to come up with a 2D game idea and then make it by next week and I can't think of a good idea. Story of my life. I have no idea what important, not-cliche, meaningful message I want to send with my game. I will just be happy if it works. But before I can make it work I need to decide what it should be. Ah, stress!

Exercise 3

Ok, so I just finished up with Exercise 3. The three car parts were pretty straight forward, but the tank-shooter thing was a little bit more tricky. I managed to figure out most of the problems and get a working .swf but there is still one section of the code that I don't understand and the projectiles don't always line up quite right. Other than that things seem to be going well. Until next time!

Success!

Whoo Hoo! Moderate success! At least now my character will walk, jump, duck, and kick on command. I still have a few things to iron out, but at least I am moving in the right direction!

Exercise 2

Ok, well to say that I am struggling might be a bit of an understatement. I can't seem to get my movie clips to play correctly when certain keys are pressed. I tried a couple different ways which I thought made perfect sense and would work, but apparently things only go that smoothly in my head. I had some help from a variety of people but still no luck...well very minimal luck. I am gonna take another look during lab time tomorrow and hopefully I will be able to find some small degree of success.

Exercise 1

Ok so here is exercise one. Part on was to create a vector image in flash using two or more photos from online. I chose to make my image about the technological advances that are shaping our society. When I was little my family had two rotary phones (we still do) and that's what I thought a phone was. I still remember when we finally got a phone with buttons. I would always be surprised when friends would be over and they would have to ask how to use the phone. I thought everyone had rotary phones. Anyway I was thinking about those experiences when I made this. I traced over the photos in flash to get a more comic/cartoon feel. It's called Obsolete and illustrates the idea that people are constantly being swept forward by technology, and often unfamiliar with the past models. HIstory is really important to me and I think that it is a shame that anything gets forgotten.



Part 2 was to make a sprite sheet and several animations. I imagine my character fighting monsters or something. I think she's pretty funny because she looks cute and harmless but then changes when she kicks or punches.



And finally the reading. Again it was pretty straight forward, but certainly something to remember and keep in mind when designing a game.

First Post

Mmm...Okay, I can't remember what this post is supposed to be about so I'll just cover the basics.

First off, the reading assignment was pretty basic, just terms and definitions about game design views etc., but things you need to know when designing a game, so I guess it was helpful. It made a lot of references to future chapters in the book and from them I got the idea that the book is probably pretty useful in designing flash games.

As far as some of the games I played on addictinggames.com for research...I found I couldn't get into a lot of them. I liked the ones that required some thinking, or action on my part (unlike the shoot a kitty out of a cannon and see how far it bounces due to various objects on the ground such as trampolines or TNT) but if they had too many controls or rules I found myself not wanting to waste time. I wanted something simple, fast, and fun. I don't know if that's because of the type of mood I'm in or if it is something a lot of people look for on that site. I liked untangle, but got bored after awhile because it doesn't have too much going on. Games designed for the sake of being mindlessly violent, like the cannon kitty one and the 'throw a man down some stairs and get points for level of damage done' didn't have any appeal to me whatsoever. I guess I am looking for a game that isn't mindless but isn't really hard either. I want to be able to figure it out/play successfully, but I don't want to spend excessive amounts of time for that to be possible. I guess I want quick easy entertainment, a trend that I think is growing in the modern world.

Update

Okay, well first thing first. I just cleaned out all the old posts from my other class so that I can start over with a fun new series of posts for my 2D Computer Gaming Course. Ready, Set, Go!