Self Evaluation

I have to be honest, I really didnt start off on the right foot in this class, especially since I booked it the second class once lab time started.  I thought my matching game was pretty cute, little Flash vectored fruit that ranged from apples to mangoes to kiwis, but my second game, I’ll admit right now, was shit.  I really should have gone all out on the graphics instead of half-assing it, but at least it worked!

My third game I think made up for it: creative concept, interesting character designs and setting, and topped off by the fact that it now works puts that at a pretty high mark for me at least.  This is the game that really got me into the whole “creating” concept.

Finally, the final game.  This blows everything out of the water and raises the bar a significant amount; incredible music and wonderful character design by Adam, everything we imagined the game to be made a reality by Steve and Arsen, and the 3 level backgrounds by me, using Arsen’s design for the second level.   I really am proud of the fact that I was able to incorporate my illustration skills into the gaming class, something I thought I’d never get to do, and I’m proud of them on top of everything else which is a big deal!

I really think that even though it took me a couple of weeks to begin getting the hang of it, I have to say I’m pretty pleased with the work that I completed in this class.

“Games Better Than Life?”

So I guess the thought I’m supposed to respond on is: will games become better than reality? I sure hope not. The whole point of decision making and experiencing new things in real life will probably become null and void if that is the case.  Why travel all the way to Europe when you can enjoy the European sights and culture from the comfort of your own home? When those two parallels become equally stimulating, then we know there’s been a crossover between fantasy and reality in the gaming world.

I can see where the argument holds water though, will all of these evolving graphics that make the characters and settings more real to the player, it will inevitably begin to evoke emotion and attachment to the game and those in it.  Instead of parents worrying that all of this senseless killing that occurrs in some games will harden their children and numb them to the reality of death, it will do the opposite.  if a player’s character forms a bond with another in a game, and that other gets killed, there hopefully will be an emotional response.   Games also allow the player almost total control of their character and what happens to it, as opposed to a feeling of lack of control in real life.

I really enjoyed the video that David Perry showed by the gamer who became addicted… his fantasy world outweighed his reality, and so his life shifted to living through his games.  It’s an interesting concept but frightening at the same time;  will we become so frustrated with our own lives that our escape from reality will take over the way we live?

“The Game of Art”

The questions brought up by the article “The Game of Art” truly baffle me.  I have always considered games to be art.. there’s so much creativitiy and artistic talent that must go into the characters, background, concept.. how could it not be art?  Especially since computer graphichs in 3d games are getting more and more complex and detailed, if you were to frame a still image of a scene in, say, call of duty 4, the viewer could marvel at the illustration and models and attention to detail in the image.  That’s art.

For my final game (working with Team Panther woo!) I’m illustrating the backgrounds and objects in the levels.  I may be biased, but I think they look pretty damn good.  I used photoshop to illustrate from scratch, actually painting on the screen… if someone plays this game and says its not art, they can take that up with me.

The think that gets me most about this whole discussion is that if someone can sit on stage for 4 mins and 33 seconds and then walk off and calls that art (4’33″) how is actual visual stimulation in an animated medium not?

Moral of the story: games are indeed art. no question.

Game 2 COMPLETE!

So on the second to last day of finals, I finished my Trailer Park game.. no errors or anything! I’d like to say I did it all on my own, but I had a significant amount of professorial assistance in getting out the glitches, and I have to say, I’m pretty proud of the outcome. So enjoy, and here it is!

http://megaswf.com/view/31642779ee02a8c52e8c096d3c478576.html

the final game. finally.

working in a team has been a lot more efficient and fun than i thought it would be. Arsen, Steve and Adam are fantastic groupmates, because we all “get shit done” as we like to say. Our final game is more of a story than a game, although it is still interactive. Here goes: A man pets his dog before he leaves the house, and the 3 levels consist of the dog’s life, puppy, adult, and old dog, trying to find the owner in three different settings which i am designing (and pretty damn proud of for that matter, although Arsen did most of the 2nd so I really can’t take credit for that one). The dog walk cycles are fantastic and the music blew me out of the water the first time i heard it which we owe to Adam, and Steve is getting everything to come together with the dreaded task of coding. It may feel slightly jumbled right now, but when it comes together it will be absolutely beautiful.

game finally working… sort of

okay so i finally got my game to kind of work, in the semi-technical sense.   at least its more successful than it was before!  you can’t change levels because the jackpot doesnt work, and the babies dont bounce like theyre supposed to, but Kims walk cycle animates and the enemies and Kim work together very nicely.  I guess with this semi-working game, the sole point is to gather all the condoms you possibly can.

http://megaswf.com/view/d2d890af6632771b0bef7f6d8ebb9cf5.html

throw my computer against a wall?

its been 2 weeks, and i still can’t get my game to work the way its supposed to.  the walk cycle has completely vanished for some reason, as well as the fact that the enemies go through their entire death cycle over and over again and have no collision detection with Kim.  ah coding.   its frustrating beyond belief, to say the least! especially because its supposed to be due today.  i guess i am in a better place than someone whos game just flips through the stage screens though… lucky me.

Character design woo

so first of all, im really not looking forward to hand typing over 500 lines of code. and im probably going to put that off for as long as possible, gotta love being a heavy procrastinator. but until then, i do love desiging the characters for this possibly impossible project! my main character is Kim, a trailer-park raised girl who has to get her life out of the trailer park.  in order to do so, she must defeat the sleezes that try to woo her, avoid the babies, and collect all the condoms (so no babies!).  creative? yeah, im thinking outside the box now.

my kim.swf:

http://megaswf.com/view/6f7d1019560f860ff4d1b22b11a74153.html

my sprites:

http://megaswf.com/view/425d03dde80446f64855e8b1378409b0.html

coding nightmare

production has been severely procrastinated up until this point, and i’m just anticipating my eyes drying up and falling out of my head from staring at the computer screen, retyping over 100 lines of code.  for real. i’m excited to see how everyone else’s games came out, on that note, im just praying my game actually works.  ive had way too many problems coding in the past, and i have no reason to suspect that this time will be any different.  and on top of that, my graphics have to be up to par! now im just wasting time…. back to work.

http://megaswf.com/view/0bf299ba5831ca74b7306a21c286dc97.html

Project 1

Thinking about project one, the platform/shooting game, i got to thinking about issues surrounding everyday life right now.   One of the major topics is the appearance of Juicy Campus at Syracuse, which is probably the worst thing to happen to SU Greek Life.   Centering around the fact that most of the posts have to do with stereotypes about certain houses and/or certain people within those houses, there has been a major effort by many to get rid of this life-ruining website, at least at SU.  I got to thinking, wouldn’t it be funny if the shooter was a symbol of greek life, and the enemy is either the juicy campus logo? Another idea i had centered around the fact that hollywood is back-tracking into the anorexic model/actress era, so i thought about having someone like Perez shooting fatty foods at anorexic models, the background of which would be kind of like a “don’t feed the animals” zoo cage, but instead, “don’t feed the models!”  And then there’s always the generic idea of the circus game which involves shooting bullets at a clown or animal like image that falls down, but i figured because a bullet might seem slightly morbid, i should go with something more along the lines of a water gun.