What I learned this semster

Throughtout this semester I learned quite a bit, and not all of it was strictly towards coding and gameplay. But what I think was the strongest aspect I learned was just how hard it is to program a game, even a simple one, by yourself. Through this semester I thought I would have gotten a lot more done on my game, but I did not get nearly what I wanted done. Some of this was me having to do a few different things on my own, when another group had three people to split the jobs between. But, some of this was also me spending more time on certain things than I needed to, or having to go back and reprogram/design aspects of the game, which put me behind.

Overall, I am reletively pleased with the progress I have made on my game, even though it was not exactly the finished product I had in mind. Some changes were made so I could at least have some type of playable game. I still have to try to program some more on the game. I at least want to get the collision detection code on my villian to work. If not, at least I tried. What I do know is that I am not the best when it comes to coding. I'll just stick with the aesthetics.

Competitive

This is just how competitive the older style gamers actually can get over their different games. The way video games worked back in the early 80's I think allows them to be more compettive and die hard about gaming. These days people can spend 12 hours playing but they are at home. Then, these people actually had to go out to an arcade and spend their day there. I feel that this meant that they might have even more passion about games then people now may have.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W-RG9c3tk0A

Just been coding

So I've finally been making some progress on my game. It is not exactly turning out the way I had originally planned, but do to some coding issues and the difficulty aspect (and the fact I'm working by myself) I made a few changes to make it easier. It is looking pretty good overall and I'm just happy I'm getting things to work. Hopefully I can make some more progress to get at least a full first level together before the end of the semester.

Flash is a Pain

So after making some progress last week, finally getting my character to stay in the areas I want him too. Now, i tried to code my bad guy to chase him and everything went to pieces. I realized at first that my layers in Flash were not set up properly or things were in the wrong place. Anyway that confused me. Then when I tried to start over and move everything into a new window none of the scales were right, so I had to try to redo all that and then I still couldn't figure out what was wrong with the layers and that threw me off even more. By the end of only an hour I was ready to break the computer, which is usually something that doesn't happen to me. So I needed to take a break and thought I'd write it down for this blog.

Gamer Relationships

Going back to my original source "The King of Kong", this clip shows the relationships between gamers and just how intense it can get, especially amongst the classic gamers. The arguement between these players and the newer ones is very different because of the advancement of the way games are made and manufactured now. There is the possibility of modification to your system which can allow a player to get higher score, invincibility, etc. but it is not as easy to do or get away with. I think this clip also shows the extent at which these people go to make sure records that are made are real (even if there is the possibility of a conspiracy).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MkMWw1whxjE

Change of Pace

So today i have been working on trying to figure out how to use a separate layer, which I created as a border to keep the characters in the game board. I have not had much luck so I decided to stop for a while and move back to designing my elements and items that Fred will collect on his journey. It is easy for me to do but I feel that at least I have done something productive today. On Thursday I will go back to trying to code the borders and hopefully make some progress on it.

Classic Gaming Expo

Since my topic is on retro gaming and it's followers compared to newer games I found this link to show that Classic games are still very popular amoung a specific crowd. This is the website for the Clasic Gaming Expo. At this expo they have thousands of old games and systems from which Thousands of people visit every year. The You Tube video that I found also explains why people like these games so much. Mainly because they are simple and many times this can be more addictive than the newer games, when there is so much going on.

http://www.cgexpo.com/news.htm

Flash is a pain

This past week I have finally started to try to code my game. I decided to start from the bottom and work my way up. Basically I am starting with the larger aspects and moving down to the smaller ones, hopefully hitting the most important parts first.

The first thing I have started to do is to try to create the borders of them game. Because Fred is supposed to be contained in a certain area, I need to code the board to prevent him from moving out. I took some code from another game which is exactly what I need but I have to figure out exactly how they coded it. I have a seperate layer that holds the borders, so I need to code that so it prevents Fred from passing through when he comes in contact with it.

I have made a small amount of progress but Flash is becoming annoying at times. I had it coded so Fred can move, which worked great, but as soon as I tried to add another set of code, he stopped. And then I could not code it again so that he would move. It was real annoying because I know the code was exactly the same. But, I am going to work on this over Spring Break so I should have more time to play around with it.

Research!!

So I finally began my research for codes for my Flash game. Hasn't gone too well so far. I began on trying to look for codes on how to make a maze, like in PacMan, since my game has a similarity in that aspect. It all takes place on one board and the all the characters and elements have to remain in a designated area. My first attempts to find coding that would work were unsuccessful.

I first found a site where there was coding on how to make a maze like PacMan but it did not work at all. I also did not understand what the guy was trying to explain in his explanation. I think I had to have a better understanding of other aspects of Flash that I did not.

After that I looked for more coding but all that lead me to was code for mazes like the type you do on paper. You have an intricate maze where you have to find your way from one end to the other. This is not what I need so I am going to have to try again. I may have to search for something different then mazes. I may try collision detection instead to see what I can find.

Topic: Competitions

During my research for competitive gaming (mainly between classic gamers) I did find this link to GameBattles which is supposed to be the world leader in video game competition. It is part of MLG which is Major League Gaming, which I did not know existed.

The site is built as a type of leaderboard/newsboard, but has a lot of news that has to deal with the teams that are playing. There is even an article, in the XBOX 360 Call of Duty 4: Modern Warefare page about the top group in the league and areas to watch out for while playing them. It is similar to reading a sports report about what one team should be concerned about while playing another.

This type of game play seems to be very intense and there is a counter on the right hand side of the page which is constantly updating the scores on games. I found this very interesting. I am not an avid gamer but I do know people who play all the time but I did not know there was anything this competetive. I am not sure if people win anything in the end, but I guess knowing your one of the best in the world at a game is a reward in it's own.

http://gamebattles.com/

Finished background

So I'm a little behind on my posts. Been a little distracted recently but trying to get back on top of things. Basically what I did last Thursday was finish off the game board. I put the final touches on it (mainly) pictures and cut out all my characters and items that will be in the game. With this done I can spend the rest of the time trying to code the game. I have to research quite a lot to figure out how to code certain aspects of my game such as random appearance and how to keep the characters within the designated lanes. It begins.

Single Player Game

After re-watching the clip of "King of Kong" I posted last week I noticed something that I did not pick up on right away. As Steve Wiebe was about to break a record on Donkey Kong, all the different people in the arcade came to the machine and huddle around Steve to watch him. I realized that there has been a big change in the way people can interact with each other through video games.In the more classic games it was a more solitary act. There were no two player games, or at least, not many so in order to have a bonding experience with people, they would crowd around and watch. I remember doing this when we played video games.

Of course this happens now but with the integration of the Internet allowing people to play each other all over the world more people have become participants compared to viewers. But as it was in the early days of video games, viewers still have to be in the same room as the player in order to watch them. This can be, and usually still is as fun as in the early years.

On a side note I found this link to a site that has been created for a database with hundreds of video games on it. The author created an "equation" on how to be a good gamer. He says it is a parody but I still found it interesting that he took time to create this and shows that he really into video games.

http://www.rfgeneration.com/

Board Design

On Tuesday I continued trying to finish up the game board. Once I get this completed I can work on at least beginning to program the game. I figured this was going to be the most mundane aspect of the design so I wanted to get this over with first. That way I can spend all my remaining time working on how to code the game, which will probably take up a lot of time trying to research and see if the coding works the way it should. Hopfeully it won't be too hard.

The new King of Kong

Through out the semseter I will be refering back to the documentary "The King of Kong" which is a very great source to show how passionate the old game players are as well as to the extent at which world records in gaming scores are kept.

This clip is about Steve Wiebe who just broke the "official" world record at Donkey Kong. Later, there will be some problems from the reigning champion Billy Mitchell.

Snowed in but still working

photo courtesy of abardwell and creativecommons.com

So we've been snowed in for the past week and that means no school but I have still been trying to be productive. I have drawn all the remaining items I am going to need for the game and I will soon scan them and finish them off in illustrator and photoshop. I also have cut out all the pieces of Fred I will need for future animation. I plan on getting the majority of the game coded first, and then if I have time I will animate Fred. But I wanted to have all the pieces ready so I would not have to spend time on that later. I will do the same with the enemies. The next thing I plan to complete is the game board which I only have a few more things to do. mainly to add the pictures to complete the shelves.

TOPIC: Twin Galaxies

In my last post I talked about how the original acrade games focused on high scores and that is why people spent hour after hour playing games. With modern style games this type of game play has disappeared. There are however ranking systems on certain games that, because of the advances of the internet, that include players from all over the world when they are connected through a system like Xbobx or Playstation. But the original scorekeepers are from an arcade from Iowa called Twin Galaxies. They became this concept of score keeping. In order for a score to be the world record it had to be kept but Twin Galaxies. To some extent, it still is the only word on whether someone has a record in a game and what it is. Here is a link to their official site which gives a lot more information about them.

http://www.twingalaxies.com/

More work

On Tuesday I continued to work on my game, mainly trying to design all the items that are going to be in the game, such as the fruits/vegtables and characters. I have been using Photoshop and Illustrator to trace over my drawings in order to be able to place them into Flash and animate them. I was having a little trouble figuring out Illustrator and I'm not sure how I'm going to be able to animate my characters if I do use photoshop. I think I am just going to have to play around a little with the program to see what I can do. I think I am going to concentrate more on actually getting the game working, coding etc, and then once I get that done I will try to animate my characters.

Continued Work

On Tuesday I made some more progress on my game. I actually made a few of my items that will randomly appear for Fred to collect. I am going to have to check them out in the game play to make sure they work properly. They are supposed to disappear when Fred collects them but I don't want them disappearing before Fred actually touches them. I had a similar problem in one of my early exercises in Flash game last semester.

I also changed my game board slightly as to make it easier for the player to see as well to make it easier for me to code. What I have to do now is finish off the board completely and make some more items. I also have to add my characters will will consist of me copying them in Illustrator and bringing them into Flash. If I have time before the semester is over I may try to animate them too.

Topic: High Scores

After watching the documentary "The King of Kong: A FistFul of Quarters" (a film I will be referencing throughout the semester) I came across an interesting difference between the "original" gamers from the late 1970's and 1980's and the modern gamers. This difference is in the reasons and goals that the players have in playing video games, especially for hours after hours.

The obvious fact that the original video games were not nearly as sophisticated as the ones today, so the main aspect of a game was to see how high of a points total you could achieve. The film was based on a man trying to get the world record in Donkey Kong points, but whether it be that game or PacMan, Frogger, Centipede, etc, game players would spend hours and hours in trying to acheive the highest score possible.

This has changed in recent years. Most games that are made now are played with the objective of completing the game. The idea of a high score is not as important as it used to be. While the object of scoring points in some games still remains, the goal of getting a high score does not matter. No longer do you type your intials into a roster where they will stay until someone beats it. In the popular games such as Call of Duty, Fallout, Halo, etc the objective of the game is to complete it and much of the time once this is done the player moves onto a different game.

Of course, there are some games that still use a points system but they are not as prominent as they once were. Players do not spend hours playing a game to get a high score, they play to beat the game. I think this is something interesting that I had not thought of until after I watched this film.

The film gave me a lot of of ideas to think about which have not occured to me before. Even though I have been playing video games ever since the original Atari and when they still had Arcades, it is not as easy to see the evolution of video games and the type of gaming culture that changes with it.

More Planning

Yesterday was a pretty straight forward day. I spent a majority of the class period writing out what different types of coding I was going to need to know how to do in order to make my game. It was a very helpful exercise to be honest because it helped me to understand what I actually needed to do. Once I wrote it down I realized that there was a lot more coding that I was going to need than I originally thought.

The hardest part of the game I am going to have to code I think will be the collision detection between the characters and the actual "maze" part of the game board. Because Fred (or the enemies) are not going to be able to go outside the designated boundaries I am going to have to code the board in a fashion that keeps them in this space. I don't know if this will be the most difficult but I do think it's going to be the most time consuming.

After this I spent the remaining time planning on re-organizing/formatting the game board. I like the original draft we created last semester but I need to make sure that all the blank spaces are even and that the board is not too crowded. I may have to remove a section of shelves to make more space for the game movement. Hopefully it all goes well.

Research Topic

Through out the semester I will writing about a certain subject that has to do with video games. What I have decided on, which is something that I find pretty interesting, is what I call "Video Game Society". I want to look at the differences between Classic video gamers (such as the original Pac Man/Donkey Kong, etc) players and the modern gamers. It is not unknown that with the invention of household consoles such as Playstation or Xbox that it is easier for people to become deeply involved in video games.

I also want to look at how the older game players few the modern game players and what they think about the new types of games that are being released. There is a major difference in games from the Donkey Kong era to the Call of Duty era and I would like to find out some information on what people think about this. Do the older game players find these newer games to be fun, addictive, or challenging or are the original games more complicated and addictive?

I think that also looking at the evolution of video games and game playing will add a great deal to this research topic. At this moment I think that there is a greater increase in the number of hardcore game players but I would like to see if I can find a difference in the amount of effort that it takes to be a constant (possibly compulsive) game player.

Designing the game

Today was a pretty simple day in what I did during class. I basically went through the different scenes (or the seperate section of the game) and wrote in detail what they will look like, what the player will do on certain scenes, and what actions would happen. I also noted what type of music would be in the scene, even though I have not developed any yet.

I did not think much about this assignment at first, but the more I wrote about the different scenes and stages of the game, I realized that this is going to be very helpful. I knew in my head what was going to happen, but by writing it all down it became more concrete. Now I can look back and see what I had planned on doing and this should help me keep track of what I need to do and hopefully make a project schedule easier to follow because I know have a written list of things I need to accomplish.

My Semester Goals

For this semester I basically have one solid goal I want to achieve. I want to fully complete my game. This sounds like a major goal, and it is, but I believe it should be a capable achievement. The main thing I will have to do is to learn and initiate the flash coding to have the game work as I want it to. From last semester, I still have all the elements that I will need to create the game, such as the characters and the game board. I will just need to edit them somewhat and change certain elements and do some resizing. But since I have more time this semester and more skills to do this it should not be a problem.

What I mainly have to concentrate on is learning the code such as collision detection and other effects. This is my main goal for the semester. I plan to have at least a simple, fully functional game that works. Even if the effects are not as well done as I would like them to be.

I will also be researching a specific area of video games and post weekly blogs about what I have discovered about this specific issue. At the moment, I want to look into the video game culture and the differences between the old school and new school types of gamers. Depending on the information I find

A New Semester

I have returned after the Christmas break and will soon be back to working on my game. There are some elements I need to fix, such as the game board and a few of the characters (mostly with resizing) and elements I need to add such as the coding. What I will also be doing this semester is researching and blogging on a specific subject that deals with video games. At this moment I am thinking about aiming towards the video game culture, specifically dealing with classic gamers vs. modern gamers. Hopefully I will find some good sources that will give me some useful information.