Microsoft Visual was a new program for me at this point.  I did not enjoy this assignment.  However, now that I am over my frustration, I realize Professor Rueda’s intention.  He wants us to be frustrated!  No, seriously.  Through our frustration, we actually learn how to solve the problems we run into.  I don’t necessarily agree with his methods, but they might be effective… maybe.

Anyways, I tried.  I tried at least 9 times.  I spent literally all weekend from the first bus to school until the 8 or 10pm bus trying to find a game that would run.  However, it wasn’t until Sunday that I was able to get one to work – and it was the example shown in class…  I believe I still met the requirements, but it for sure wasn’t impressive.  I attempted to edit it, but it wasn’t in any form I was familiar with (it didn’t have the form window that shows the what the window will look like when it runs).  I was able to edit the colors slightly. Here are the differences in the code and the results they produced:

The above images show the original code and color scheme

The above images show the new code and color scheme

Unfortunately, this was all I was able to figure out how to change.  Like Thomas Edison said, I didn’t only get one solution for making a game (or light bulb in his case), but I discovered 1000 ways not to make one…. or something like that!  Stay positive!  Hopefully, I’ll be able to take away a little more from the next assignment!

After the previous assignment, I was about ready to give up on Visual Studio – AKA murder it.  I was so frustrated, I just wanted to make a very simple RPG and not worry about downloading anything.  So, I started make Zelda! It was such a trivial attempt that I didn’t even bother saving the project before Professor Rueda stopped me and told me to download an RPG game and compile it.  Tentatively, I gave in and began searching.

Here are some problems with this assignment: 1) Visual Studio GAMES are not easy to find. 2) RPG games are even harder to find. 3) RPG games tend to have many many many external libraries.  It took me at least 6 tries before getting one to work.  Thankfully, my classmate, Mariel, used to Linex (a fairly new term to me) so she is familiar with linking libraries and compiling programs.  She was able to download and compile a game by the next class which was about a week before it was due.  So, she was nice enough to help me out with downloaded and compiling my game.  After a couple failed (or too complex) attempts, we came across a Pokemon game.  If you’ve played Pokemon, you know there’s a lot of Pokemon, a lot of attacks, a lot of abilities, a lot of items, etc.  The Pokemon game I downloaded had hundreds of libraries full of much of this information.  Mariel walked me through how to link libraries and set up project files properly.  After I had to link all the libraries by hand (as opposed to clicking on a single folder), we realized that it was necessary to download a new compiler and access their libraries to get the game to work.  A brief attempt at finding these was unsuccessful, so I went back to searching.

I found a game called Hale.  I had everything copied into my project folder and was about to compile when I opened the last folder and realized it was in Java.  However, the linked files and everything still works fine, it’s just not the right language.  I’ve played the game for hours already – I think it’s really fun!  But sadly, it’s worth nothing if I do not find a C++ game.

It wasn’t long until I found another game.  This one is called Witch Hunt.  It’s an ASCII game written in C++ and works in Visual Studio.  This compilation was surprisingly smooth.  After Mariel’s help previously, I had a decent understanding on the basic requirements of compiling a game properly.

I am not sure if I’m doing something wrong, but early on in the game, it is necessary that you walk outside where monsters can attack you.  When this happens, I try escaping – then the game crashes.  Although this is frustrating, I DID get it compiled on my own!

This assignment, admittedly, taught me a lot.  Mariel was a huge help and now I’m curious as to what games I will be able to compile myself since I get so much enjoyment from playing Hale.  Hope the next Visual Studio project will be this successful!