EVALUATION :]

To those who have played my game, could you please evaluate this survey:

(Just copy+paste this info an the comments box and either write or put the number next to it)
[1 is strongly agree/ VERY good, whilst 5 is strongly disagree/ VERY bad]

1 2 3 4 5 Was the objective of the game and instructions, clear? If not, why?

1 2 3 4 5 How was the Graphical user interface?

1 2 3 4 5 Was the game engaging?

1 2 3 4 5 Was the game a challenge and could you identify the degrees of difficulties?

1 2 3 4 5 How was the use of sound (background music and sound effects)?

Are there any suggestions for improvement?

I really appreciate your feedback and your time.

ASSESSMENT

15th November, 2010

Ok so I have thought of what types of games I wanted to make and these are some of the ideas for the different types. I know that I will not be able to start my game until exams are over because I have to study for them. So these are the ideas:

ROLE PLAY: i can't think of how i am actually going to materialise the Role Play game ideas i have. It would have been good if there was a programmer who takes my ideas and actually makes them work.

PUZZLE: I was about to do a game like "Bejeweled"- a game where you have to line up three of the same gems together to get points. There was also the type of game like a maze.

STORY TELLING: i would probably use a normal boy or girl that has to suddenly become a ninja because they are a prodigy. Then they have to retrieve various things and get to the end. (there HAS to be a HAPPY ending)

ARCADE/ACTION: I am probably going to use PONG because that is like brick breaker but what I want to create is one paddle but lots od balls with different levels of speed. My levels here are going to be based on speeds of the balls.

Scratch challenge 7

*Create a sprite that records the number of times you click it.

I found this challenge very easy as it is pretty straightforward. I set the count to zero whenever the flag is clicked to make it a new game. Then i put when the sprite it clicked change count by 1.

So it was VERY easy.

Scratch Challenge 6

*Create a sprite whose motion is controlled by keyboard input (eg. Arrow keys) similar to that used in Tetris. The starting position on the X axis should be random, the Y axis position should be the top of the screen. The object is to steer the sprite towards a target.

Here I copied what was given to me but added the random position for x through the operator blocks.

I also set broadcasts for the messages of success and failure. The background would either say "You WIN" or "You LOSE".

I used the "surprise sprite" button to get my target and funnily i got a baseball man. I put that guy as the target and obviously it still works but looks funny.

Scratch Challenge 5

* Scratch to tell a basic story with several backgrounds and some basic sounds associated with each background.

This script basically gives the sprite its dialouge and broadcasts signals so that the background changes.  

This script is when the backgrounds are receiving the broadcasts and are switching themselves. The sounds associated with each background is also visible. But i only put the sound for one background as i though it was pretty obvious that we copy the same blocks onto other background options.

SOLUTIONS...?

"1) I am trying to put three balls in. I have the option of putting in 2 balls but then when I do the same for the third ball, the balls just moves abruptly in one spot."

I have found an alternative- I messed with my scripts and something went wrong so i decided to delete the 2 balls options and accidentally I played it and three balls were coming so i decided to make it either one ball or 3 balls. when they click on the 3 balls button it will change into 1 ball so that they will know what to click on for one ball.

"2) The background music is seriously stuffed up! I try to have different sounds for different backgrounds but they all get mixed up."

I decided to have those multiple background music that will add depth to the music as they go to different levels. The music will be kind of soft. The players will be too consumed in playing the game that they will hardly notice the music. I have also added sound effects- when the unicorn gets hit it will make a "aaarrrgghhhhh" sound and whenever the ball hits the paddle, it will make a "fingersnap" sound. Also when the players clik on some buttons they make a "bubble" sound.

3) I wanted to put lives in but then I realise that the lives were going into minus numbers and i thought that if i have too much on my page it will look cluttered. Look it will be like this with the lives:

So you see it will be cluttered

I decided that i was not going to put lives in. If it goes into minus numbers then the game will not make any sense.

"4) I think that my game will be visually crowded because of the number of sprites there but i think it would be better if you have too much rather than have too less that will not enable you to continue with the game."

I decided to keep the rest SPRITES because they are essential components.

"5) I fear that my game is too easy..."

I actually realised that it is not that easy but this was because I knew a secret that would make a player in the definite top of the high score list.

FINISHED

I asked my brother to check my game and after he pointed out some mistakes i finished it and i am going to make sure that it is good and publish it on the due date.

PROBLEMS

Today I furthur worked on my assignment. I encountered a lot of problems. I hope to find alternatives or solutions to these:

1) I am trying to put three balls in. I have the option of putting in 2 balls but then when I do the same for the third ball, the balls just moves abruptly in one spot.

2) The background music is seriously stuffed up! I try to have different sounds for different backgrounds but they all get mixed up.

3) I wanted to put lives in but then I realise that the lives were going into minus numbers and i thought that if i have too much on my page it will look cluttered. Look it will be like this with the lives:

So you see it will be cluttered

4) I think that my game will be visually crowded because of the number of sprites there but i think it would be better if you have too much rather than have too less that will not enable you to continue with the game.

5) I fear that my game is too easy but when my friends tried it out they said that it was actually hard because you are getting killed so many times

I encountered a lot of problems but they were minor and i was able to solve them ,the major ones though were those that i mentioned earlier. I will post about any solutions i have found.

"SAVE THE UNICORN"- CHARACTERISTICS

These are the various characteristics I am going to use in my game:

There is going to be a score and a high score block. These are the main components that i have incorporated in my game to make it engaging. Players may play with others and see eho has the highest score or who beat who. It is a challenge and a competition.

This is also a really important button because it allows the player to play with one paddle and 3 balls. This, of course, will turn the notch up!

These are the settings for the different types of levels. Now that we have 3 levels and the option to play with 3 balls, we have a combination of levels (EASY being the easiest and HARD+3BALLS being the hardest)

Here we have a range of buttons or SPRITES to deal with.

RESET- Sets the score and high score to zero

Menu- Goes to the front page that has the options of PLAY and HELP

START- Starts the whole game without going to the front page

STOP- Stops the whole game without going to the front page

CHANGED DECISION

I've come up with a completely new idea. Ok so here is the run down on the new game. It is still like PONG but WWAAYYY BETTER!

NAME: Save The Unicorn

TYPE: PONG kind of game

OBJECTIVE: The objective of the game is to ultimatley save the unicorn from getting hit by demonic balls.

INSTRUCTION: I've already finished the instructions and they look like this:

Chosen game

So the game I have chosen is to make a kind of a PONG game.

At first I tried to modify the game that was already present in the examples of scratch but then i ended up changing the whole thing. It looked much more complicated and had different levels Below are some screen shots:

The above picture is the script for the brick that could get hit by the balls and give extra points. The scratch programme sometimes made it work and other times, it didn't even do anything.
And the one on the right is a script of the ball and what actions it must do to keep the game going.

scratch Challenge 2

* Create two sprites, have them randomly move around the screen (see challenge 1), when they touch have them stop (or react in some other way)

I completes this challenge and added some of my extra features to it as well. I actually made the shark close its mouth when it eats the fish. I did this by switching between different costumes under the  if statements. I also made the characters start at a certain place rather than at random places.

everyone was experiencing problems with this one because the shark seemed to be constantly going out of the screen, i just put the command if on edge bounce. However it was alway son the edge again. Everything seemed to be going too fast. so i slowed down the steps. but that did not seem to work.
To make it more realistic i made the little fish faster than the big shark.
I am probably going to use these variables as part of my game because it is an essential part in any game.

Broadcast

Broadcast:
 The process of a web construction with the combined and synchronized motion of two sprites.  

It uses broadcast signals to activate different parts of the process.

  It basically is when two sprites "communicate with each other and perform processes at the same time whilst interacting.

Gliding/ scratch challenge 3

I used this glide control structure to make bees fly around flowers. Gliding allows a character to smoothly follow a given direction. we can give them the directions points either through typing in the specific points x and y. Or you can type in the name of a character and make another character glide in that direction.

Mouse pointer

This is the simple script for making a character move to a mouse pointer.

• We have to put the "when flag clicked" button so that we know when the character will begin to chase after the mouse pointer
• we need to put the forever control option otherwise it will have a time limit which doesn't make any sense
• of course we need to put the point towards a mouse pointer so that the character faces that way. if we simply do this and not put the "move 10 steps" bit then the character will not move but will simply turn to the mouse pointer
• The purpose of "move 10 steps" is to make the character chase after the mouse rather than just staying still. I personally found out that 10 steps was too fast therefor  I would recommend 6 steps.

Ants - moving the character

We have made an example in scratch that relates to moving a character. We basically used the same controls we would use for any character and they are listed below. To make an example and actually implement it on a project we added some extra control structures in which enabled us to have a smooth finish. we did find little bugs all the time but  finding them is what made us keep on improving them. Here is a little screenshot of the script.

 This example is basically- making the "mother" ant move towards the fortune cookie. Then when it touches the fortune cookie, it will say "yummy" and make the sound of a "shaker"(we couldn't find the sound of chomp). Then the rest of the "lazy baby" ants come and make that noise too and stay there. and appear to be eating the fortune cookie.

We had to make each of the baby ants eat the fortune cookie. Therefore we had to have separate control structures for each of the ants which instructs them to point towards the cookie and walk to it when the mother ant says yummy. 

Control structures

This is a control structure that I made.


When I press the space bar it will rotate 15 degrees and if I press it continuously it will move around itself continuously. If it touches the colour, then it will switch to a different costume or different image.

Moving a character

To basically make a character  move youy need to create 4 different algorithms. Each for the separate directions that you need to go(right left, up and down)
Firstly you put the "when ___key is presses"[The basic keys that are widley used are the left arrow, right arrow, up arrow and down arrow] . This is so that the person has a choice of where to go and this certain key will instigate the algorithm associated with it.
Then we need the "point in direction___". This is to change the direction of the sprite so that it will go to a specific direction.
Then we need to put the "move__steps". this makes the sprite move__steps in the direction they were turned to in the previous command.

That is basically how you make your cahrater move.

 

Scratch challenge 4 - Animation

* Using the flying bat you created in challenge 3, now have your bat fly towards you, by using the “change size” function.

• This is the script that I can possibly use to make moving animation. This works by firstly adding the "when (green flag) clicked" block. This will help the animation to be organised and start at a certain time rather than just randomly starting.
• Then we need to put the "forever" block. What this does is makes the instructions inside the block loop forever. That means the bat, which is the animal in this script, will keep flying forever.
• The purpose of the instructions inside the forever block is to make the bat appear to be flying. How we do this is cahnge between two pictures/ costumes- one of the bat's wings up in the air and the other with the wings down. The 'switch to costume "bat-a"'. I put this at the beginning because the costume needed to be changed from the orignal sprite which was a cat. So basically the bat has its wings up, waits for 0.3seconds, then moves 5 steps forward to make it look like its flyign forward. Then it switches costumes which makes it look loke the wings go down, waits for 0.3 seconds and moves 5 steps forward.
• At the end i put the "if on edge bounce" block. I f i don't put this then the bat will fly away from the screen. To make the bat stay in the screen, we need to make it turn from teh edges and that is what this block does.
• Also we need to look at the options at the top of the programme and click on this(the highlighted part which says (only left-right)

• Usually the bat will go upside down after it bounces off the edge but if you click on this the bat will stay upright.

So this is how to make an animation.

Flowcharts

This flowchart is the algorithm for how long the LED light is turned on. After one second it turns off.

This flowchart simply is the algorithm to tell us if the"sunstance" is above freezing or below freezing.

1. Convert one of the algorithms you have created in the previous task into a flowchart, e.g. opening a door, moving through a traffic light.

This is my flowchart for the traffic lights:) click on it for a better view.