First I build solution, making sure that my program doesn’t create any errors. After it is successful, I start debugging my files and a program error came up. I tried to understand what is going on but because of my lack of experience in debugging and there is over hundreds of files for this game, I gave up. So I suppress it and the game actually compiled! It really made me so relieved.

Before everything gets on its way to compile…

I searched a lot of games through google typing keywords like “OpenGL C++ rpg game” but this doesn’t work because it’s too specific. Then I went on to search for broader terms like “C++ source code game” which starts to give me what I am looking for. I start to look at different C++ games like “Secret Maryo Chronicles” or “Battle of Wesnoth” and I think around five more games that I have downloaded. I always encounter a website to download these games, sourceforge which I think is the best website for source codes of games. I opened the files and start to look for “INSTALL” text so I can potentially get it working on Visual Studio. However, there were so many files and folders that I do not know where to start and the .txt files doesn’t’ really help much. I had to text warp every time I open such files, read the instructions but it does not tell me how to open it in Visual Studio. There were .cpp files, .h files and .dll that I have some experience how these files were linked in Visual Studio, but I cannot find the main file that I can run in Visual Studio. I thought I was looking for .vcproj files and I was trying my hardest to look for it.

Enough for files, I finally encounter something that tells me how to open a source code and getting it running on Visual Studio! I have to congratulate myself.

Not only this game but there were other games that told me to download a software “TortoiseSVN” so I can export the trunk file for the game. After 30 minutes of download, I finally got the file and it asked me to open a .sln file using Visual Studio. Now I start to get it, I’m not looking for .vcproj but a .sln file to open in Visual Studio!  Then I try it out but building the solution and debug to run the game.

I got the game to run but because the graphic resolution is too high with lots of function and buildings, it ran very slow. I had to close of the effects like shadows in order to smoothly run the game.

Through the process, I found other interesting process that is similar in each game. Open source games usually have a website and inside it have instructions that teach you how to get source code and configure it to Visual Studio! Many games will require you to install dependencies, which are independent files that you need to install to the computer so files will not go missing when you run the game in Visual Studio. To get the source code, there are two ways to download. One is tarballs and another is repository. Both require extraction so that is when Tortoise comes for the source code. Last is finding the .sln which is inside one of the folders somewhere that is indicated in the game website. If you can’t find the information from the website, I found the forum to be the second place to look at where sometimes it tells you information if you have any errors encountered. Sometimes additional work need to be done after as well.

The website will sometimes tell you to update files because maybe the game is made years before and new features need to be added to the file so it can run successfully in the new Visual Studio, if they didn’t indicate anything and it doesn’t run, it might also be a good idea to downgrade the software from Visual Studio 2010 to something earlier. Anyways, one of the easiest way to run a game successfully in my opinion is to find one that doesn’t require you to download dependencies or any other software like directX or SDL libraries (except the tarball and repository one that you MUST have) because they already have it with them which makes it potentially easier to run the game. No wonder why game companies need to hire programmers to do such stuff. This experience gave me some insights on how to download games and make it work which I think is useful for me in the future.

The code says that the background will stay at each position and when one of the key is pressed, it changes the terrainX and terrainY values in the main Stage so that it will have a scrolling effect. This applies to all the background.

I have a code inside that cannot be shown on screen because it involves using a pen and this collides with the effect of the scrolling so I cannot use it anymore. Basically, this code is to select the peons by click and drag to select a bunch of sprite instead of clicking each individually. However, this version of Scratch doesn’t support having pen drawn on top of sprites so it can never be done. I heard that Scratch 2.0 will feature a scrolling effect so the code to move the screen which I have stated earlier will become history.

I spend most of my time trying to make the move effect, the move work which I am satisfied with. Even though it is just one button and one action it takes a lot of time just figuring out the logic. If it wasn’t about the scrolling effect, I can just use glide to my mouseX and mouseY area. This will not work because the mouseX and mouseY are only limited to the areas of the screen and it does not calculate the total area of the scrolling. Which means the maximum size will be x = 360, y = 460, the size of the screen. But with a scrolling effect, the size can go up to more than 1000 for x and y since the area becomes larger.

I use 3 sprites to create the desired effect. One sprite captures the mouse and clickable area. While one sprite captures the location, meaning a variable that stores the larger mouseX and mouseY values.The last sprite stores the unmovable mouseX and mouseY value so the character will walk to that area.

I had always like to play Warcraft and I find making a RTS game a lot harder than any games I have made. This is mainly because of the scrolling effect which limits how the characters and objects are places regarding the screen.

ViewTalent is a social community platform that connects people around the world through different skills, entertainment and competition. It aims to provide people the opportunity to show off their capability of doing and making things using their amazing skills. Sharing their thought on how some skills are done and challenging others to see the best of the best.

The idea came from different shows released in Hong Kong recently that focus on challenging people’s skill on something.

One of the shows is “Minute to Win It” which is released in America in 2010. The contestants participating will have a countdown of 60 seconds where they perform challenges that use objects commonly found around the house. It is like other money game shows where the participants bring prizes and money home. The show gained popularity and now it is played internationally.

Another show “The Showoff Show” premiered in Hong Kong this year. The contestant challenges on other contestant something they are talented upon and show off who has the best trick. Interesting enough, it gives audience the chance to understand the world of challenging skills these contestants provides.

Skills

Are you good at something? Show and tell! Everyone have their own skillset on making and doing things. Some people are really good at something, some people are really bad. This platform let people share their skillsets with their friends, family and the world. The world has a lot of crazy people that can do crazy stuff but they really need to show it to the world and see if anyone can beat their record. Some people don’t even know they had such skill and the platform provides ways of discover their own skills. Let people show off what they are best at doing.

Competition

People can challenge their limits of impossibility. It will become the main feature where users can challenge different people to do a particular skill. For example, stacking five eggs on top of each other in one minute will be the challenge. The user will be able to gain rewards and rankings in their profile.

How it works?

The platform will be based on a social network website featuring profiles to form different connections in the world. A list of categories of different skills will be set and organized so users can navigate easily. Users can request new categories if they find something that are particular different in a way. Under each category, there are postings of the different skills by all users. There is some options they can do like giving a comment, like it, share it or challenge the individual. The website will automatically sort which categories you like the best and updates the newest posts from friends. To post, the user can select photos or videos and organize it into different steps. This is useful if they want to teach other users something. Under the challenge category, in order for the skill to be true meaning no editing allowed, a feature on the website will record the challenge instantly and upload it to the web.

This platform will be particularly attracting to teenagers who is still finding their way in life and likes to accept challenges so they can show off to their friends.

I created a lot of function and call it whenever I encounter a situation in the main game. The most difficult function is the dialogue where I can select topics and display it when I talk to npcs. I created an array to store the selected topics so when the player talk to the npc, it will display only those that are called. I used arguments in the function which will be called in my main and while the player doesn’t type 0 (which only end the conversation) it will loop on the topics and tell to display it.

There is an area where the player encounters an animal. It calls a quest for the player to complete by defeating 4 of them.  The battling is the same as running and it will run until the condition is over. There are variables that store the number of animals the player need to defeat, player and enemy’s health and attack which is stored in an array and called in different conditions.

When pressing ‘0’ in all the different areas, it triggers the inventory so the player can look at their status and item where they can use. I use functions again and for loop where it goes over the list and trigger the array to display the item.

I have always loved to play music games in my life. So I decided to make a version of dance dance revolution. The song will feature the most popular music in these years: Gangnam Style! I have been experimenting with a lot of new features from this game and found out more what about what Scratch is capable and not capable.

This time I used comments when I was writing my code which helps organize my thoughts and understand which code is performing such action. I also cleaned up all my sprites which make my code more organized so if programmers wanted to borrow my code, they can understand my functions easily.

I found some problems in Scratch that is a disadvantage for this game. A good music game all depends on the accuracy of the beat so that players can follow the music easily and press the corresponding buttons. There are two main operators that determines the time, the wait () sec and the timer. However, if I use wait () sec, there is definitely a delay but a timer will never have a delay. The timer under sensing is always good for counting, but it can never give you an accurate time. Say if you need perform something for every 3 second, it calculates between the ranges of 3.000 – 4.000 resulting in numbers like 3.412 or 3.579 for example. Another problem is layering as the sprites will always go in front of other layers that I don’t want. Last is the variables which I cannot set the location in the screen so that every time when I open the game, variables that I show is not in the position I want it to be.

Since I haven’t played with opening scenes, this is the first attempt on making one.

I used the ghost to make a flashing effect on my opening so it shows the company and the game that is played. I also made doors using two sprites where one slides to the right and one slides to the left creating an opening and closing door effect.

When the door opens, the music starts and arrows will slow come up from the bottom of the screen. I put detection on the grey arrows and if it is touching the arrows and calculate the distance between the coming arrows and the hit (grey) arrows. Then show a result like a perfect or miss depending on it. I created two sprites for each arrow so I could have more varieties on arrows showing on the screen.

This is probably the longest code I have ever written. These contain the main part of the game, the steps and wait time for the arrows to appear. As stated earlier, timer doesn’t give a delay but I gave up using it because I cannot extract a number from the timer to perform something. It is not possible with those decimal numbers. So the only solutions are by manually counting the steps and have a delay after.

Life is the key determining if the player win or lose. For every game, it will set at a position and correspond on the ratings the player receives. When the life is below a certain number, it will flash red warning the player. Then the game loses when there is no life. If the bar exceeds the maximum life, the bar will run a colorful rainbow.

The scoring system is based on DDR 3^rd series. It calculates the score by the total amount of steps and the least amount of score for each step. By having a combo, it also adds extra to the score. Lastly, the ranking depends on the overall score.

The lemmings will automatically walk along the paths when it touches grey or orange. When it touches anything else like the background, it will automatically fly where it will fall down until a grey or orange object is touched again. I created a gravity method that it will walk along the ridged lines of any surface and not just flat plains. Then the mouse comes and it will change when it points to the lemming. I found that the detection of a walking object is very hard to detect and click on if I use the “when lemming clicked” option so I created a function that will allow at least one second of detection of the character so I have enough time to click and do a skill. I created six skill sets. One of them is to climb on the object when it reaches the end. Another is it will fall with an umbrella with it and slowly land on ground. The next is a bomb where it will stop walking and disappear, leaving a hole on the ground. Then there is a block skill where it will turn away any lemmings walking towards it. Next, it will build stairs and also dig holes.

The stairs and the dig hole have to be separated from the original sprite.

The describes the menu selection where it will show the yellow selection under the menus.

When the button of the “Kill All” is clicked, all the lemmings that are active will use the skill bomb to end the game.

Reflective Statement

This gave me a lot of time to do trail and errors. I found that the most difficult is to do the skills because I have to experiment each of them individually before I can put it as an if statement. Sometimes even though it is working, there were times that it didn’t work at all and I have to experiment it all and test it. The testing part gave me a headache because every time I change even a tiny bit, it will affect the skills I made and it will stop when it have previously was working.

Summary
 Genre: Word game
 Differentiating selling points:
o You can play a game by speaking on the microphone
o Determines who can be the master of expression
o The amount of expression and emphasis determines the word

 Concept
o Send a phrase to a friend and let them express the words with meanings

 Target audience
o Targeted to teenager between ages 14-20 of women. Women tends to be more
emotional attached to expression.

 Release date
o The game is released on June 2014 because it is summer time and kids will be
out of school at that time.

 Players
o Multiplayer, depending on the number of friends each player have

 Key innovations
o Microphone that blocks almost all environmental sounds but the quality lowers

 Game structure
o Rules:
 Create a message determined by the amount of words and emotion
 Opens a message and look at the word
 Press the microphone button once to record
 Say the word within a time frame
 Express the word in different loudness to create the meaning
 Make sure the environment is silent enough for the words to be heard
clearly
 Press the microphone again to end record
 Click on the send button
 Opens a recorded file
 Listen and rate the recorded file
 Receive total points

Game situations
Situation 1 – Messages Send and Received
 Degree of difficulty: 1 of 5
 Ranking 1 Beginner: Maximum amount of 3 words, 0 emotion
 Create 1 message and write “You are screwed” (3 words) and send
 A list of 8 messages are shown, scroll down to see more
 A message say “I hate you”
 Says the “I hate you” to the microphone
 Send the file back
o 1 star receive for saying the word correctly
o 1 star receive for using the loudness of the voice correctly

Situation 2 – Recorded Voice Received
 Degree of difficulty: 3 of 5
 Ranking 10 Super Star: Maximum amount of 20 words, 10 emotion
 Unlock character voices: 5
 A voice speaks “You are the apple of my eye”
 Rank the voice
o 1-3 points for the amount of like for the expression
o 1-3 points for expressing the emotion

Existing games based on using microphone:
 Hey You, Pikachu! From GameCube
 Mario Party 6 (mini-games) from GabeCube
 Nintendogs from NDS
 Talking Tom Cat from Iphone

Social Media Campaign:
Network Proliferation: It needs a lot of players to play in order to gain the most amounts of points. In order to gain points, you have to send a message to them and them sending back a message to you in order to play the game.
Time-based re-engagement: awaits for the player to send you a message so you can play and gain points
Accessibility + availability: The product is played on the computer through a connected microphone. Build in microphones are common on the laptop but it is easily bought in computer stores. The game is built on a website and it has connections to social networks like facebook and twitter which is easily accessible on the web. The game is not based on flash so it can also be played on Apple devices.
Shallow Escapism: It engages the players for a short amount of time because they can complete the game and gain points really fast.
Element anxiety: it increases anxiety when they are awaiting for their friends to send them a message.
Attachment to property: when they gain different amount of rankings, you get to unlock other voices that echo their voice, which makes it fun to listen and collect.
Visibility of achievement: Able to see the rankings of friends are pushes other players to get the same rankings
Law of economy: The gameplay is simple starting with very limited amount of words. It gets more interesting when more words are implemented where more emphasis and expression can be utilize in each word.
Ludology: no story and character are told through the game.

Reflective Statement
Conceptualizing such a game was pretty interesting. I explored a lot of unconventional input methods such as keyboards, voice recognition, and haptic that I found it be somewhat old. However, I am looking at its potential of being a disruptive technology. I think the microphone will be a good example of a disruptive technology because the quality of sound keeps on getting better. What if the quality becomes worst but the function is new, like it can block all the outside sounds from the surrounding environment of that person. The quality of the voice will be lowered and more robotic, more expensive and the loudness cannot be raised as loud. The sense of sound is not as well-known as the sense of sight and touch which we use almost every moment in our live. I think exploring microphone as game elements are very experimental.
I followed the concept of being a follower. Researching other microphone based games that are used through different platforms such as consoles and phones. I think using a microphone is cool for a game and communication is one of the key skills in our society. I defined a value that is similar to Draw Something but instead of drawing, the person has to speak the words the other person sends to them. I think the game will be very interactive with our voice so it is defined to be fun!

This game is a puzzle game where the player needs to kill monster and open the chest in order for the door to open.

This is level one and the objective for the player is to collect the hearts.

This controls the movement of the player. It animates the look of the player, so when a down arrow is pressed, the player’s costume change forever until it is not pressed. A shadow is created for the player because it can hide the constant actions when it is overlapping with other objects.

The snake will constantly follow the player. It will look at the player whenever it goes. I set a boundary so whenever area the player is, the picture of the snake changes. I set a snakeLife to 1 so the animation of the snake following the player will only be when a weapon is not hit. When the player collect a heart, where it contains two moves to hit the snake, the players hit the snake. When it touches the snake, the snake becomes a ball and the player can move it around the map. It is defined when it is touching the player and pressing the arrow buttons.

Finally, when the player collects two heart, it can proceed to open the chest and get the pearl inside it. It is a key to open the door. Once the player got the pearl, all the monster will disappear from the screen and the door will open. The player needs to walk to the door to end the level.

Reflective Statement

This game is heavily about the animation of the objects so I put forth a lot of effort into making the animation as close to the real game as possible. I learn to set variables that represent true and false statement because there is no Boolean values that I can choose from. The hardest part is figuring out the snake because it has a lot of functions when the player proceeds to different step of the level. I have to figure out in what position will the snake look at the player. Then when it will become a ball where the player can make it around so they can get the last heart to open chest and open the door to complete the level.

Date: April 1, 2013

Game Title: The Washroom Revenge

Vision: A game to share with friends by being kind or taking revenge over the toilet world

Summary

• Genre: Interactive story-telling
• Differentiating selling points:
  • An interactive story-telling game that emphasis on choices
• Concept
  • Try to finish the story as much as possible by taking the correct path and obtaining three objects to understand the story behind the character
• Target audience
  • Targeted to women of ages 20-30, players can interactively play with their friends and argue to choose the correct path for the game.

• 60% of the majority of casual gamers are women
• Why? Feel satisfied by short bursts of gameplay

• Release date
  • The game is released on December 2013 because it is Christmas and women in the working class will tend to have more free time to start a new game to play.
• Players
  • Up to many players at a time
• Game structure
  • Rules:
    • The person controlling the story have two choices to interact
    • They have to read the story so they know what choices to make
    • When roll over an icon or word, a clickable pointer appears
    • Click on the icon or word to proceed
• Content
  • Simple gameplay mechanics, point and click
• Game Situations
  • To obtain the gum: You need to get a gum and stuck it on the sink
    • You went to the playground and meet a child
    • Ask if there is gum?
    • Ask: The child didn’t want to give you any gum
    • Don’t ask: The child asks you if you want any gum
    • Accept: you obtained the gum

Reflective Statement

I think this assignment is fun because it lets me think about the interaction between the user and the website. I try not to make a game as supposed to making a interesting storyline so I could focus on the storyline and how people are pressing the buttons interactively. What choices will they make and will they come to a dead end instead?

I used Dreamweaver to make the interactive storytelling. The hotspot, which is the highlighted green square, acts like a button. So when people click on it, it will go to other pages on the web.

In order to promote the storytelling, I think Facebook will be a very good platform to advertise because people like to look at stories like updating in newsfeed. The storytelling is also very accessible because it is a website. Another way to promote is by word of mouth and e-mail.

Game Summary

Asteroid is an Atari 2800 game. The objective is to stay alive and destroy as many asteroids as possible. The user can move up, left and right while rotating at the same time. The user cannot go beyond the border of the screen and they will bounce back as they approach the edge. Tapping on the space bar will shoot multiple bullets. There are different sizes of asteroids moving randomly horizontally. If a bullet hits an asteroid, it will split into two smaller asteroids. When all asteroids are cleared, the game will end.

Reflective Statement

I choose a game from the Atari 2800 game list and I feel Asteroids will be fun to make because it is one of the classic games that I haven’t played before. I try to mimic the old version as much as possible and add my own features inside the game. It took me the most amount of time when figuring out how and when the asteroids become smaller. Secondly, every time when I press space to shoot, only one bullet is out so I have to duplicate it into four. I also try to minimize the amount of code so it will be easier to figure what can go wrong when I am debugging the game. This game is very intriguing and I enjoyed creating and playing this game a lot.

http://scratch.mit.edu/projects/minimimi/3227274