Last day of the term!

Today is a half day and it is our final day before the holidays. We started off doing a Christmas quiz about Christmas movies. I do not watch Christmas movies so I had no clue on most of the films. In the end I got 4/10 what was ok as most of the people got 4 or 5.

Next I moved onto my game. I managed to finish the first level and I have started working the second level. I also worked on a background however it did not fit in with the game and it made it harder to see. I was having a bug with the enemies going through the platforms so I managed to fix that. The problem was that I did not add the collision with those items.

MERRY CHRISTMAS AND HAVE A HAPPY NEW YEAR!

More game development

I started off today working on my instruction screen. I needed to import this into Game Maker then edit around it so it looks good. This took me quite a bit of time as the magic wand once again missed quite a lot so I was rubbing out the white parts. I managed to do this and then add in the button for the help menu and it all works fine now.

After that I worked on enemies so they killed me and they bounced off the walls. I had a problem as they just fell off so I had to make an invisible wall so they did not disappear. Now the enemies also kill you and send you back to the start of the current room.

I also started to design my levels. I have managed to do half of level one and I will finish off the rest of the levels on Thursday. I also set up the power up so you can now have a jump boost in the game. I have not made it for the character to change so I will try that on Thursday.

More game designing!

We started off today updating our personal development plans. I had managed to finish most of my goals however I just need to finish off my work and resubmit that. I also have been proof reading my work so hopefully I have less grammar issues. My goal for this week is to get my work sent back and have my enemies working better.

After that I moved onto working on my enemies. I had some issues with them before so I redesigned the code so they worked better however I just need to sort out the speed and they make the player go back to the start. This will not take too long so I will finish it tomorrow.

Then I worked on my start and help screens. These were quite time consuming however in the end I managed to do it. The magic wand tool in Game Maker left quite a bit of white blocks so I had to manually rub out them for the start menu. I have not yet added in the help section as I only finished it before break. Tomorrow I will add in the help menu and start to design some of my levels.

I am happy with my progress  today and I will hopefully manage to make the first level tomorrow. Hopefully all the enemies will work correctly and send the player back to the start as well.

Friday!

Today is submission for assignment two. I have nearly done finished it off so I will do that later tonight. All I have left is a little on my report and I need to add in my storyboard. I will also proof read my work so I know it is alright then I will submit it all.

I started off working on my report what was quite confusing at the start but then I worked out how to do it and I managed to finish it. I will add a little more detail and proof read it to make sure. I also added in some more information into my data type table.

Then I started working on my game. I did some more research into the camera bug then I finally found a fix. I had wrote in some of the information wrong so now it works properly. I also managed to make moving enemies and spikes that kill you when you fall on them. I am happy with my progress with my game so far and I will start to make up the game on Monday.

Quiz!

Today we started off with the quiz. This quiz was designed by Billy as he had lost the week before. The video we were watching was about a games designer who before wanted to be an English teacher. I managed to get 7.5 / 10 however I did not come first but at least the usual people did not win. Next week the quiz is being made by Chris as he came last.

After that we moved on with working on our design log as that is due in tomorrow. I have nearly finished the design log. I only have to write the report so I will do that tomorrow morning then I will send it off.

Then I started work on my game. My main aim today was to make the player move left and right and try to fix the shaking camera. I managed to add in the characters moving left and right so now when I press the direction it changes to look there. At the start it did not work but in the end I managed to get it to work. I did not fix the screen shaking thing so I have left it for now and I will try to work it out tomorrow. I made the spike asset as well so I will make it reset the game tomorrow as well.

Designing the game!

Today's main aim was to start designing our game. I had a little bit to do on my design log then I could start designing my game on GameMaker.

I started off adding more information into my design log. I had to write the pseudocode what I do not like to do at all. I only needed to write a little bit of code so it was fine. I managed to finish the code quite quickly so I could start working on my game.

I did not start designing my game straight away as I wanted to get some more practice in. I had followed a guide for the code so I could write the pseudocode and have my player moving on the level. I finished  the tutorial and I understood more so I started to work on my game.

Then I worked on my game design what was quite confusing at the start. This is because the assets were quite blurry and they did not fit on the screen properly. I fixed the blurry assets by changing a setting so it worked fine now. I set up a view so the camera could easily follow the player around. This is so it is easier to understand where you are and it is more interesting when you are walking around.

Overall I am happy with my progress today and I hopefully will get some more done on Thursday. Tomorrow I will design the asset for the spikes so there is a way to die. Also I will look for how to get the enemies so they can kill you and move around.

Assignment two

We started off today refreshing our mind on pseudocode. I do not like pseudocode and I was hoping that we did not have to do anymore pseudocode however we need to for the game design. I do not like pseudocode however I do understand it so it is not so bad. We did some simple pseudocode just to refresh our memories just in case we have forgotten. 

After that we had to do our personal development plan for this week. This is a weekly task for unit one and we have to do it for assignment three. We have to make some SMART targets to work for and I have managed to do two out of my three targets this week.

Then we worked on assignment two. I started off working on my storyboard as I did not finish all of it before. I managed to finish that and went over it in pen so it is better to photocopy in. This is so I can add it into my design log. After that I worked on my design log some more and added in more detail and wrote out the action list. 

Designing the game!

Today our main aim was to start designing our game and write our design specification. Some people have started to create their game however they are making their design log as they go along. I might have to edit it as I might include more than I have written.

First off we started with a little table discussion about the things we need to include in our design log and in our work for assignment two task one. This task is designing the game so I am excited for it and I'm hoping the game will work in the end. I had to design another enemy for it so I chose to create a monkey as it was quite easy to do and I found a guide to design it.

After that I worked on drawing out my storyboard. I am not too good at drawing so my storyboard is not the best. I am happy with what I did and I have nearly finished the design of it. I will finish it off on Monday.

Overall I am happy with what I have done today and I hope to start designing my game on Monday. I have some experience with GameMaker so I should be good with designing it.

Quiz

We started off today with the quiz. This week Zoe made the quiz as she forgot to write down who lost last weeks quiz. This quiz was about self driving cars what is quite an interesting invention. In the end I got 5/12 but I was not last! It was a fun quiz and it is a nice weekly thing to do to break up the week.

After that we carried on working on assignment one task one. I have now finished that and I have moved onto task two. Task two is about different genres of games and different platforms. I think I will find this quite easy as I know many different game genres and I finish this unit quite fun.

This has been a good day and I am happy with all my progress today and I have finished half of my game genres. Tomorrow I will try to finish all of the genres and work on most of the different platforms.

Tuesday

We started off today with a little group activity to discuss the advantages and disadvantages of gaming. We were writing the advantages and then we had to feed back to the other advantages group. After that we wrote them on all a piece of paper and read them out to the class.

Then we discussed all of the different factors. This is for assignment one task one and I found it quite interesting. I never knew there were so many different factors about it. After we had discussed all the different factors we started to work on task one. I found task one quite easy and I have nearly finished it.

This day have been quite interesting and I am happy with my progress today. I will finish off task one tomorrow and also start my report for unit one. The deadline is for Friday so I should be able to meet it.

New unit!

Today was a new unit. We finished off the last unit on Friday and we have moved onto games development. I have been looking forward to this unit because game design is a fun unit and I have always wanted to learn more about designing games and how to do it.

The program we are using for game design is GameMaker. I have used this program before about three years ago so I have some knowledge of how it works. Before I made a platform game and that worked well but now the whole program is quite different. It has a different design however I enjoyed playing around with the program.

We were given a tutorial about a simple game. Some people were getting confused with it but in the end we all managed to finish the program. Some people did add more after the tutorial such as a background and some background music. I did not do too much and I started to work on a different game however  I did not get too far with it.

Overall I am happy with today and I am excited for the unit ahead. I cannot wait to learn more about GameMaker and make our games. I will download GameMaker tonight so I can work from home and also practice from home.