Flash game final version

Having tested my game with a few people I have decided to make further alterations. The biggest change was to add a timer, like I previously questioned, this firstly made the game harder, as setting a time limit forced the player to make quicker judgements, and therefore miss more often. To combat this I decided to add a choice of difficulty levels, which was achieved simply by passing different values to the variables which allocate the time and shot allowances. However by adding at timer and difficulty setting I affected various other game play mechanics. A small problem was now physical space on the title screen, where I had one button and a description before, I now needed two and a substantially longer explanation, so to get around this I added a third button which sends the player to the rules section, leaving the main title page free of clutter.

A bigger problem though, was the fact that the game now had three possible outcomes, win, loose through lack of time, or loose through lack of ammo. This meant dragging different parts to the stage based on numerous conditions being met, leaving my code being full of ‘if’ and ‘else’ statements, and weird values being passed to variables to try and stop one code interfering with another. I feel that I achieved my goal, but have produced a mass of code which given more time and a better skill set, I am sure could be shortened.

To introduce an outside factor into my game, I found to be a real challenge. This wasn’t because of a lack of skills, it was purely down to a lack of ideas. I wanted the factor to be something meaningful to the game, so having a news headline feed, or the equivalent, on the title page would have been useless. Instead I decided to use the computers clock to get a rough time scale based on the hours count, and if it was passed 7pm the hunting would take place in the dark. Below is a screen shot of the game during the day, you shot ducks and they explode, however below that is a screen shot taken between 7pm and midnight. As you can see there is a new backdrop which has been called in, to replicate the night sky, and now if you shoot the ducks they turn into devil and angel duck ghosts, with a spooky sound effect. This doesn’t change the basic game play, but is a way of using an outside source to change the game slightly, whilst still being true to itself. And finally, yes the tractor is now animated during daytime play.

GPS tracker art

This new phenomenon of tracking with GPS markers, then noting the path and transforming them into a work of art, can be seen as an interesting exercise in mapping the ‘natural flow of life’, but can also be manipulated to create a conscious perception of art, like the picture below.

Using a GPS enabled device in conjunction with ‘Google maps’, we set ourselves a few simple rules to follow whilst walking around the city centre, then I mapped the results with my unique interpretation. The rules we followed were to firstly follow a group (3 or more) of male young adults, then change to a group of mixed young adults when their path intersects ours, and then swap to a group of female young adults when their path intersects ours, before going back to the beginning using the same rules.

Below is a basic map with our GPS locations dotted on, and also my take on the findings using a graffiti/modern art look to show the paths as we were in a city centre following youths, and I believed these two ideas could be represented with that iconic style. I also slightly extended the paths to show the direction the groups were heading before we changed direction. I used blue for boys, red for girls, and yellow for mixed groups. I also used a 3D effect with the slight differences in height representing the different group sizes.

Hertzian space

My understanding of hertzian space is that it consists of all the ‘real’ things/objects which happen outside of human perception, i.e. radio signals obviously exist physically, otherwise we wouldn’t be able to pickup radio stations, but we can not see them in the air all around us without a device that can pickup the signals we can not with our senses. This space operates with both natural and man made inputs, and can be used or interacted with in many ways.

Using Union Street as our location we used a Wi-Fi enabled phone to pick out one aspect of this hertzian space, i.e. Wi-Fi signals and strengths. The diagram below is my representation of this exercise, it shows the strength of signal by using different size and coloured circles, green and large are strong connections, red and small are weaker, these are given the name of the connection (therefore showing each signal has a unique identity, and it doesn’t just exist as one object) and also shows whether the connection is secure or not, denoted with a padlock image. I found this interesting as it shows points where you can interact with this entity.

Re-designing my web site

Having already stated that I wish to improve my online profile, the first practical steps which I wish to take are, firstly to make my contact form on my site link to my email rather than to an echo form, so people can contact me through my site. Secondly I wish to change the appearance of my site, I like the colour scheme but believe it could be executed better. Thirdly, to change the content of the site from a personal web site to a professional site which displays my work, and has a section about me. Finally, linked to that point I would like to transfer my blog from the outside source it is on, to host it myself on my own web site, this would also make life easier for me to keep track of one site rather than several.

Flash game testing

Just a quick post to say that having tested my last version of my game I have decided to make a few changes to the current version. Firstly, the main criticism was that the game became too easy, too quickly, so to rectify this problem I have changed the amount of shots the player has from 15 down to 12, so the player only has two chances to miss in a game. The other changes are small aesthetic changes, I have added a static image of a tractor in the background to break up the large chunk of colour, changed half of the blood splatter images to another I have drawn so there are now two different effects, and brought the ‘game over’ and ‘congratulations’ banners to the foreground rather than leaving it in the background, so they are more visible. I still have to add an outside factor into the game, and I am toying with the idea of also adding a timer, and animating the tractor, so version three will be finished and added to my web site soon.

My Flash Game

As I mentioned in my last post I wanted my own game to be similar to the shooters of old. Whilst looking through 3 volumes of the “Guinness world records – Gamer’s edition”, I found myself kept getting drawn back to one of my favourite games “Duck Hunt” by Nintendo.

I have many fond memories of playing this game as a kid, and I am old enough to remember when that was considered cutting edge. I decided that I wanted to do a homage to “Duck Hunt”. This fits the genre I wanted to work within, could be easily achieved with my limited skill level, and most importantly, would hopefully be considered fun.

Obviously my game is not a straight port of the original, and in the first version I have completed, numerous artistic decisions have been dictated by my technical ability. The game is called “Duck Killer” and is supposed to be taken tongue in cheek, it consists of a title screen and a game screen, using nextframe and prevframe commands to switch between the two when certain conditions are met.

The title screen contains the name of the game and instructions, both written in the stencil font to replicate the macho font and styles, which dominated the 80’s film and computer game scene. It also contains a start button to get the player to the game screen. The background is the same for both the title and game. It is very bright colours and block images, i.e. Southpark, again this is due to my limited drawing ability, but also to give it the same crude, ironic, adult feel that Southpark has.

The game itself has 10 ducks which fly around the screen, you have 15 bullets with which to shoot them. Each shot causes the others to speed up fractionally, making them harder to hit. If you use all your bullets it’s game over, with your score in the top right corner, then you shoot again to restart, but if you hit all ten you win, and have to click a restart button to play again.

The ducks all move independently due to each having its own conditional statement and variables to control their movements. However they do follow their set paths each time, again due to my technical ability, which is a reason why they speed up by multiplying the x and y variables by the small amount of 1.1 of the previous value to change each users experience, but also because I remember old games used to do the same. Your score and bullets are counted in the top right corner, and are simply two variables, one counting up, one counting down. Each time a shot is fired the bullet counter drops by one, and if a duck is hit the score counter increases by one, the duck image is removed and replaced with a blood splat image on the same x and y coordinates, again to give it those ‘Southpark’ connotations, and it is all wrapped up with a gun shot sound clip being played.

If the bullet counter drops to 0 the game over message is pulled onto screen using new x and y coordinates, and if that counter drops again to -1 the game goes back to the title screen. However if the hit counter reaches 10, the bullet counter input text box is switched to a text string input, and pulls in a reset button and message of congratulations. On the odd chance that the player hits the last bird with the last bullet the congratulation message and reset button are pulled in instead of the game over by using if and else statements. Finally I drew a crosshair and by using the x and y coordinates of the mouse pointer, along with the hide command, the game uses my crosshair instead of the mouse pointer.

The game works in this version, but may not be the final version. It can be easy, but it is not and RPG epic like “Final Fantasy” or “Blue Dragon” which you pay £40 for, and intend on investing 100+ hours in, it is designed to be played in one 5 minute session, where your first couple of attempts you use to get your eye in, but then it is easily achievable and satisfying.

First experience with 3D

Working with "3D studio max" I produced this simple cannon animation by following a tutorial. I loved the outcome and wish I could afford the cost and time to really understand the programme as I would love to work with this tool in my professional life.

Standardising my on-line presence

I wasn't sure what to do with this strand in my blog. When I started, I was going to use it as more of a diary about myself (see my first ever blog post), but I then decided I wasn't that comfortable with putting myself out there so much, and left it as a dead end. However, now my confidence and skill level are growing I have decided to use this strand as a diary of my progress and showcase my own development. To go with this I intend to redesign my own website and combine it with my other web sources to create a unified online presence. The first step I have taken towards this goal is to simply match the colour scheme of my website, red, grey, and black with whites, on this blog.

Flash games

First of all, I am a massive gamer, not a very good gamer, but still I spend a lot of my free time clicking buttons and wiggling analogue sticks. I love flash games for many reasons. Firstly they are free, secondly I have always had computer games since I was young and therefore remember a time when today’s standard of flash game would have been considered futuristic in comparison, and finally they are quick and fun.

Most of today’s mainstream games, in my opinion, are too concerned with realism, both in terms of content and mechanics. The marketplace is mainly flooded with sports titles, FPS, or racing games, where as the player you either need to be an athlete or a soldier in order to get anywhere through the game. Gaming should be a escapist experience of fun, not a second career which you have to practise at just to get through the opening level. Quite recently, whilst playing on a beta version of an upcoming game, I shot someone on my own team, just to see if it would register, but the man took offence because he lost some points, and proceeded to follow me around for the next 30 mins shooting me and shouting abuse down his headset because he was genuinely enraged (not fun, and he needs to get a life).

The point is that although I own most of the modern gaming consoles, I spend most of my time playing either Nintendo Wii or Flash games online as both are short, easy, and fun. The two main sites I use are thepcmanwebsite or flashgames247. My favourite flash games are “Portal” a 2D version of Valve’s masterpiece, “Warthog launch” a Halo themed puzzle game, “Demolition city 2” as it says, a demolition game, and “stickman-game” a cool, noir-ish shooter.

The old school shooter like “Duck Hunt”, “Operation Wolf”, or “Time Crisis” are my favourite genre of gaming, so my own game is going to be along those lines.

Animatic Concept

Just a quick pointer back to the very first post I did on this strand which had a couple of basic ideas I had for the TV bumper when it was first mentioned. I have decided to base my final bumper on one of those ideas. It will be the, as of yet untitled, concept with the tag line ‘Life is an adventure’. However the idea may change slightly as the animatic is constructed, and the final form takes shape.