Main Character Concept

Remember, this was done in paint, by me. As you will be able to see, I would be able to do a lot more with the art in the game if I had a tablet to use, but good ol' Microsoft Paint has always been there.

Almost ready to begin!

GOOD NEWS! I'm almost ready to begin work on the actual game. Today, I'll most likely draw a few things in flash, and maybe begin design on the main character. A sidescroller, the game that Matt and I envision is probably going to be the only educational game that people will WANT to play. Not that we arew bragging or anything, it's just that, in my experience, educational games are hardly ever FUN...
So.
The idea is that druggies have kidnapped your girlfriend, but you are...I don't know, I guess my 15 year old sister would call him "Diesel". You rage, and then you go and you pwn the druggies. It's not gory, because this is school, but the premise is fun enough to make you want to play it.
I'll get on Newgrounds.com and study a few flash tutorials for extra info on coding this game. If I get my way, it'll most likely be epic.

Haha. SO. I'm back at the head of the class!

As well as being fun, the game is still going to have it's message.
Drug abuse is a serious problem, and it can make you evil. That's what the game is going to show. No good will come from drug abuse.

You might actually be beaten down by a dude who is raging because you kidnapped his girlfriend. That's my anti-drug. Beatings. Imagine that commercial. >:3

Epic win, right?

PAPER PROTOTYPING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So, Matt and I are doing a paper prototype of our game. We already have the menus and things done, and today, we are going to model out a level. It's a 2d sidescroller, so we need to model the main characters actions, interactions with enemies, picking up powerups, and so on. It's going to be a lot of fun making a battle system. I am determined to make this game fun enough to make people actually WANT to play it. I will probably use outside sources in the making of this game, like battle systems and stuff. Using tried and true systems are usually easier that trying to invent new ones, especially when they aren't copyrighted, like the d20 system in games like D&D.

To be honest, it feels lame to go through the prototype as if it is the actual game itself, but it is important to work out large kinks that will arise during the prototyping before we actually start, so I have to work through it.

An Idea is Born

Now that my minigame is finished, it is time for me to begin work on my actual game, beginning with the planning. I am envisioning a platformer, where the player will fight druggies to rescue his kidnapped girlfriend, whom the druggies intend to sell for drug money. I want to make my game fun AS WELL AS have it contain a social statement, so this project may be very difficult. If I simply wanted the grade, I would just throw together a boring and ineffective amalgam of facts and well-known snippets of advice onto a click-to-advance background, but besides getting me a good grade, this would be crud. No one surfing the web for games wants to play that. However, I wish to do something truly great with this project.

Now I know you might be thinking that that is against the rules. It most likely is, as educational games aren't really even ALLOWED to be fun, but if no one ever tried, then we wouldn't be where we are as a people, would we? (Some might say that it would be an improvement if we weren't, but whatever.)

Success Kid has been posted, in anticipation of the great success of my project.

Minigame Day 4

We all started working on the minigame project as a class today. I am still pretty far ahead, so I helped other kids get theirs started. I fooled around with my flash while I waited too, trying to get more familiar with the various features. not much else to say today. Once I have a breakthrough concerning the movement issue, I will be able to continue on and have much more to say! =^_^=

minigame day 3

After 2 days of having trouble with the movement issue, I have decided to create a topic about it in group discussion. I don't have much else to say about today. I helped a few people with their blog roll and things like that.

Still having trouble

The minigame is holding me up. I still can't figure out how to map keyboard control. The actionscript doesn't work. I will post the block of actionscript here, maybe someone reading this will be able to tell me what is wrong with it. I have spent all day trying this. It's trying my patience! :D

if (Key.isDown(Key.UP)) {
bunny._y -= 3;
}

Minigame day 1

I started the minigame project today. I had no problems until I got to the part of the coding which mapped movement of the bunny to the arrow keys. I couldn't get the code to work at all, even though the compiler found no error with the ActionScript. If anyone knows anything about this, some help would be greatly appreciated.

Actual Assignment

I was assigned to do a blog review, and I chose Chris Duncan from the English class as my target. Upon first entering Chris' Spot, it can be seen that not much customization to the layout or coloring of the blog itself has been done, however, the eye is immediately pulled to the picture that Chris has posted, which, while small, is pretty epic. While I enjoy the coloring, it is just a template, and to be graded well, it must be customized. He doesn't post very frequently, and when he does post, it isn't much more than what is assigned, but he has much potential. Good job for a newbie, Chris. After this class, you should keep blogging for yourself. Get better, and you will most likely gain your own following. If you work at it, that is. :)



This blog is deserving of Success Kid.

Another day...

So, I completed the "Choosing a Topic" assignment yesterday, so there isn't much for me to do today. I will play more of the play to learn games, I guess. I am not going to get too far ahead in this class....maybe. It depends on whether it's POSSIBLE to get ahead. I don't really want to wait, but I can't be so selfish. At any rate, the anxiety is palpable. I really want to start on the minigame project, and I feel that it will be a great experience.
I plan on maybe looking ahead at what I will soon be doing, and maybe getting ready for that, but if there is nothing else to do, I will be forced to be lazy today. :D yay me!

Choosing a topic

Today, I chose a topic to focus on with this project. Drug abuse sort of just popped out at me. I figured that it would be the easiest social issue for me to address, since I deal with it frequently, and also would most likely be one of the most fun topics for a game. I will have to dance around this carefully, though. I have to watch what I do with this, since the B of E won't just let me purely do this for fun. I'll have to put some educational stuff in there. It'll be alright though. I like a challenge.

I wish I could do this as a solo project though.

Playing to Learn

Today, I played games both by professional game-makers and students in the Globaloria Program. While the professional games were better made, the amateur games tried very hard to get their points across, and most were successful, which, in my opinion, means that the games themselves were successful.

This is Success Kid. If I do well, or mention someone else doing well, you will see him more often. Way to go, amateur game-makers. GG.

Online Safety, or whatever.

Yeah, so I have to blog about mindless things along with the rest of the class, since the program is education-oriented, and therefore has so many requirements and restrictions on it that it almost makes it not worth it. The focus of the school boards should NOT be on requiring students to perform menial tasks that revolve around the fact that teenagers are subordinate to the almighty Board of Education, it should be to prepare us for the world around us. I don't care if this gets my grade reduced. It needs to be said. We are in high school. If there is anything about Online Safety that we haven't already had shoved down our throats, I'll be surprised.
So, I have to blog about Online Safety. For those of you who are simpletons, get off my blog. For the rest of you, you already know everything that I'm about to tell you, because being safe on the Internet has EVERYTHING to do with COMMON SENSE!
1. Don't give out your passwords to ANYONE.
-This means you. No respectable site is going to ask you for your password for any reason. They don't need it. So don't give it.
2. Don't give out your personal information to ANYONE EVER.
-Real names, addresses, phone numbers...bad things happen when you feed your "dox" to the "Internet hate machine."
3. Be Aware!!
-Look at what you are doing. If it doesn't look right, it's probably not. By the way, if a website's name is spelled almost like a popular site, like MySpace, but isn't, it's not. Keep an eye on your address bar, and make sure you are where you think you are.
4. Since you don't know anything about the Internet seeing as how you need me to explain this to you, DON'T BELIEVE ANYTHING THAT ANYONE THAT YOU DON'T KNOW TELLS YOU. This is extremely important. Sure, some people don't want to cause you any harm, but the ratio of malice to altruism...don't risk it.

If you need any more help with Internet Safety, check out these sites.
http://www.dummies.com/how-to/content/using-the-internet-safely-for-seniors-for-dummies-.html

http://kids.getnetwise.org/safetyguide/

http://www.fema.gov/kids/on_safety.htm