Blogging and all this and whatever and junk and stuff and crud and cheese and mayonnaise and pickles with extra relish and source code, with an ext...

Yeah...so...apparrently, instead of blogging about the usefulness of hit tests, I have to blog about a given topic. In my opinion, the blogging part of the class should be optional, and not graded. Instead, the blog should be self-directed and only slightly moderated, to promote free and unsupervised exchange. When people feel that they are not being watched, they tend to be more open, and are more likely to share their findings. I favor lassiez-faire leadership and free collaboration, rather than a moderated and forced spouting of opinions on a predetermined topic. With the way that it is being done, the blogs are actually taking away from the game-making experience. Think about it.

If I had not been given a topic today, I was going to blog about my findings about hit tests, the coding involved, and how useful they can be. I am using hit tests to progress my game from screen to screen, as well as killing enemies, taking damage, and all sorts of things. The whole class almost feels forced. Someone actually wanted to help kids learn how to make games, but an overly oppressive school board, which happens to be more than slightly too anal about making everything seem traditionally "educational", refuses to let something not be purely about reading, writing, or arithmetic. As a future game designer, I couldn't be more tickled if this class helps others as much as it did me, but for science's sake, let it be about making the GAME! Pic related.

Presentation

The presentation coming up is going to be a piece of cake. I do not worry about it at all. Instead, I am focusing ALL of my efforts on making the actual GAME, shich was why I was ecstatic to be in this class in the first place. I had hoped that this class would be more about MAKING A GAME than the RETARDED paperwork like the learning logs. I know that the teachers need something to grade, but here is a super cool idea! How about actually grading kids on their PROGRESS than by stupid logs that can be faked? OH, no, that would be too much to ask for, because the school board would NEVER allow a class to be fun, no, they have to require...REQUIRE...that you post in a blog about it, and write a learnign log about what you did, keep up a wiki page, post pics and vids regularly...ugh. I want to make a flash game. This isn't that hard people.

YEAH!

Finally, I return to the blog with some GREAT news.
I have a current progress update! I have been making real leaps and bounds in animation, spawning enemies, controlling characters, and all that good stuff. Here is a link to my current character test movie. Copy and paste it into your address bar. Use the arrow keys and the ctrl key to control the character. You can't kill the zombie yet, as he is only a test of a spawning code.

http://www.myglife.org/usa/wv/rhswiki/images/8/89/Currentprizzogress.swf
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Animation

We will be using frame by frame animation in our game. Sprite sheets animated "FxF" are our main character and the enemies that he will have to defeat. Whilst lengthy, the process to animate sprites is simple and worthwhile. Every move is its own movie clip which is connected to another movie clip which is the "base". Keystrokes cause the individual movie clips to play, which in turn causes the movement to take place on screen...from what I understand at this point at least.

BASIC BUTTON NAV

Ok. If you have a button that you want to use to navigate to another frame, you must first have the instance named. Something like button if there will only be one will do. You must also have the frame that you want the buyton to lead to labeled. Lets use the word framelabel just for simplicity's sake. Then you put this nifty little code into your actions layer in a keyframe right about the frame that you intend to have the button on. (button is replaced with the actual instance name of the button, whatever it is) :

button.onRelease = function () {
gotoAndPlay ("framelabel") }

When done right, the button, when clicked, will take you to the frame with the label that you insert where framelabel is in the code. If someone needs anymore help, don't hesitate to ask.

Button, Button, Who's Got The Button?

Not me. Slowly but surely, I'm learning about button navigation. The main menu and pause menu of our game will need buttons, so they are important for our project. While not difficult, adding button navigation can become tedious, and those prone to boredom might have trouble. Never-the-less, it is rewarding to become proficient in the skill. For those games that consist of decision making, as well as those games with similar concepts, button navigation is crucial. It will take a good minute, but we will have buttons finished. Soon.