Prestidigitation

VICTORY

2010-06-02T12:13:00.000-07:00

I have defeated you globaloria, you and all your fiddley cantankerous software. Never again will I sit here in this sweltering computer lab, dwelling over a misplaced colon in a line of code for an hour and a half.

Though I suppose it was not nearly as bad as I originally thought, it was fun at the end, the people were nice, and I learned some stuff.

With the Giants...

2010-05-18T11:21:00.000-07:00

In the final game presentation, there were quite a few elements I had planned that were never realized. An important aspects was the fact screens that were meant to pop up whenever you successfully caught a penguin. Though actually, catching the animals was never coded in ethier. Part of the issue was a lack of experience with flash, difficulty getting questions answered and continuious bad things happening. (i.e. Game files deleted, procrastination, and general stuff)

OH TANNEBAUM

2010-04-15T11:25:00.000-07:00

Newscasters are biased toward their own opinions. This is natural, and happens in everything you see. A flashy commerical? Someone has the opinion that you should buy that object. A electoral battle blow by blow account by the daily news? Someone somewhere is more in favor of one side than the other.

The only way to avoid bias in your news is to read the same story from multiple sources.

Whitehouse Trivia

2010-03-25T11:15:00.000-07:00

The game Whitehouse Trivia by SHHS's team ABC looks like the most complete game demo, it has a full set of ten question and a logical conclusion and start. The simple game show format the game is in will allow the team to work on making it pretty and generally cleaner than some of the more (mechanically) complex games. A few of the questions need some clarification, the last one in particular is confusing gramatically. Also, an instruction screen for the maze part of the game would be nice, I was confused as to what I was doing in the beginning.

STOP. COLLABORATE.

2010-03-17T11:52:00.000-07:00

Alrighty, as a globaloria member I am obliged to answer these prompts. So away we go into the brink!

http://www.myglife.org/usa/wv/gehswiki/index.php/File:Finaldemo.swf

Here's my team's demo for our game. I'd embed it, but I don't know how without access to Flash. It was stressful making it, as we procrastinated and procrastinated, put it off and put it off. Then scrambled at the last possible second to write it. It wasn't necessarily hard, but it took all our resources to get it done in time, what with all that putting it off and procrastinating! Particularly when my computer deleted the little bit of coded work we had already done.

While Ethan patiently did graphic after graphic as I demanded, I frantically hammered in faulty codes and flailed around like a worthless ragdoll. Though with a bit of help, I was able to get my head in the right place and glue together the bits my team mate had already done.

That's the story of our group, Ethan does the tedious grueling making of the parts, and I do the frustrating confusing assembly. Though recently due to the silly old writing assessment our only way of accessing flash has been snatched away from us!

DRAT FOILED AGAIN.

Hello Citizenship people!

2010-02-23T11:01:00.000-08:00

I am Rachel, and I am awesome. However, that is rather irrelevant is it not? I defy stereotypes, so I can't really tell you how to take me. Here's it in a disconnected worthless string of facts: I'm a musician, I used to have a blue Mohawk, I dress like Rainbowbrite but with combat boots, I'm incredibly opinionated, I love techno and metal and jazz and funk.

That's enough about me.

Oh wait, no it isn't. Ethan and I are in a group together making the fabulous game Super Oil Disaster Squad, or S.O.D.S for short. We are known on the Internet as team All your base is belong to us. It was supposed to be ARE belong to us, but we goofed and it just stayed the way it was.

SODS is about oil spills, the consequences they have on the environment and what a citizen can do to help out. The object of the game is simple, clean up the oil spill. Hopefully the final game will have two stages: Saving the Animals and Cleaning up. However, due to time constraints, made necessary by snow days, we may have to down-size from our original plan.

2010-01-27T12:11:00.001-08:00

Today, I crunched the code on the preloader and have gotten the boat sinking how we wanted it too. Turns out the insue was as simple as forgetting one step. Regardless I have fixed the twitch and turned it into a full fledged sink, I drew a title (which isn't the pretiest and may very well be redone). I don't have much to say now, class is good, life is good, and I am pretty happy with how things are working out.

Hey man, Nice Shot

2010-01-11T12:21:00.000-08:00

Recently I have learned a few things about flash, specifically on how to make a preloader and the concept of pseudocoding. Both seem very useful and we will likely use both of these in creating our game.

We watched a few tutorials about drawing and animating in flash. I learned quite a few little quirks to flash and how to do some of the less than obvious things. One of the most important things I learned was how to adjust the brush size, which is not apparent at a glance like it is in most other programs.

Ethan has been working on the title screen, though he is having some difficulty in trying to get the boat to sink like we want it to. So far, he's got it twitching slightly toward the right. Which is a start I suppose. Hopefully we will be able to solve/find help with this issue as we progress.

Lateralus

2009-12-15T12:04:00.000-08:00

Though I am currently somewhat upset, for reasons pertaining not to globaloria but to band, I shall try to make this coherent. I have to the date, been so pessimistic and violently against this whole class that I have been missing the entire point.
The point is: that whether I like it or not, I'm here now and I have to do it. Regardless of how much I whine and moan; things are not going to change because of Rachel and her complexes. After sparking a small confrontation I have promised to Mrs. Daigle and also myself that I will try to look at this in an new light and abandon the rut I was stuck in. I don't have much of a choice anyway.

So today I watched the other team's paper prototypes, but with the schools lab limitations and the way they block something new every week. This has proven difficult. I can't listen to the sound on them, and just the visual part of the presentation is frankly boring and lacks any information that is relevant. I have only a glance of the concept behind their games, I will however (once I am at a computer with speakers.) look upon them futher at a latter date.

I have currently lost something very important to me personally and somewhat important to my school curiculum. I have let some very close people down and am rather upset with myself. This is not the place to vent, but it explains why I may seem out of sorts.

Oh look, no real progress.

2009-12-11T11:57:00.000-08:00

I really am beginning to despise this class. It's techniques and requirements are not only obnoxious but also rudimentary and frustrating. The other class is so much further ahead of us. They have started coding their games, we haven't even finished our research. It is inefficient, it requires to many abstracts, and it's not something I am willing to put much effort into.
I am not an abstract person, I would rather do calculus than write an essay.

We have finished our paper prototype, though my partner was forced to do it without me due to my absences. I have not even seen it. This is a prime example of my main problem with this class. I would prefer it more individualized, so I am neither left behind or held back by the person I am working with. Everyone works at their own pace, I understand that and don't condemn others for it. My pace happens to be a hell of a lot faster than the rest of the class.

I would have had the silly paper prototype done within the second week, I would have done all the assignments and be well into my game. People keep telling me to go ahead and pursue the knowledge at my own speed but I cannot because I am in a team. And being in a team means I have to do my part and to keep pace with the other member. I do not work well with others. I do not communicate, I do not hold myself back, I will gladly rise to meet the challenge of a deadline. But I will not deal with abstracts.

Lately, Ethan has been doing a lot due to my unenthused opinion of this whole process. I feel somewhat bad about that. I did however, come up with the idea behind the game, every scrap of information he produces is something I came up with. Something I came up with weeks ago. The paper prototype is the only thing that has been accomplished in not weeks but months.

That's Rachel's weekly complain-fest. I hope you enjoy reading about my perceived flaws of the program. I also hope no one takes them personally, I am generally not the type of person to do nothing but complain. I am however, not willing to put up with mediocrity.

Positivity? Surely not.

2009-12-03T11:54:00.000-08:00

Today we did research on locations for our game to occur. We ended up chosing a location in the Strait of Magellan, to emulate the Metulla spill of 1974. I found a great resource on this crash in the form of an official report I came across on google. The Strait of Magellan has all the animals we wanted to feature in the game; Seabirds such as Ganets and Gulls, Seals, and even a species of penguin that is named after the strait.

We were first considering Anarctia, then in the interest of truth and accuracy decided instead on South America to make it more educational.

Our Paper prototype will be likely done early next week, possibly even monday!

Gee wilikers!

2009-12-01T11:22:00.001-08:00

Mrs. Daigle suggested I should grab some books from the library for resources. I tried my town's library to no avail, they had nothing on the subject. The non-fiction section there is a little lacking, I will try the school's library and the lewisburg one. If that doesn't yield results I give up on this whole real world resource thing. I also watched a tape that Mrs. Daigle got on the subject of oil spills and it was fairly informative. Soon we will start the actual process of paper prototyping very soon. Possibly this class period. As much as I dislike this prep work, hopefully it will yield better results. Though part of me wants to conduct a scientific study on the topic to confirm such. I really don't feel very optimistic about our game's final quality. I doubt we will be able to create a product I will be satisfied with, me being the perfectionist I am...

Ah well, off to paper-prototyping.

Paper Prototyping. AKA more wasted time

2009-11-18T12:04:00.000-08:00

If you have not found out by now that I am a very vocal and opinionated person your about to. I hate how slow this system is, I joined this class because I wanted to learn how to use flash. Not to jump through the hoops for some guys in new york. I haven't learned anything, I've just wasted my time on "paper prototypes" and "Learning Logs" and in particular "Imagining your game"

Well I say enough prepearation. Let's do something for once.

This needless complicated, overly inflated crap is not teaching us anything. Yes we may have a better game product by the end of it, but will we be able to execute our ideas without the software knowledge? An hour and a half a day isn't as much time as you would think and with that lack of resources available to use thanks to the school's incessant filtering... 95% of us still know nothing about the program we're working with.

We've only opened the program once for any purpose. I don't know anymore than extremly basic movement commands. Not enough.

I may seem like a negative nancy, that's because I am. I'm just sick of jumping through hoops, i'd rather just take a class in flash techniques then this sort of work.

Gah.

2009-11-03T11:29:00.001-08:00

I am in a foul mood today for no particular reason but it gives me an excuse to complain about this silly class. We never seem to actually accomplish anything and it frustrates me, I feel we should be familiarizing ourselves with flash but we are still seemingly doing useless things to elaborate wheat we are doing.

This is nice to a degree of course, you need to know what your doing before your doing it but it's rather tiresome after a whole semester of nothing but preparation. I'm just sick of all this paper proto-typing and choosing a topic, I am under the impression everything would be a lot more creative and less tedious and nerve-wracking. Honestly this class feels like "fart around on the computer time" not any sort of class work.

I'm frustrated with everything right now, I have a burn blister on my lip so I can't play, my "subordinates" have surpassed me, I haven't had a social encounter with anyone throughout most of the day and I'm in the middle of a rather blah day.

Regardless I'll mess with flash some, likely get angry and throw something, then stomp off and again have accomplished nothing.

It is dark. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.

2009-10-30T12:09:00.000-07:00

The game is already taking on a good form conceptually, nothing is coded of course, but we have some drawings. Other than that, we accomplish nothing as we lack the knowledge to start the game making process. Next class I plan to bring in my graphic tablet so I can actually draw some stuff. Though we may keep thing simple and stick figurish. Depends on how much initative I have for it.

LEMME GO ONNNNN LIKE I BLISTER IN THE SUN.

Anyway.
I'm in a goofy mood.

SODS and you.

2009-10-28T11:36:00.000-07:00

Me and my team, (namely Ethan), have officially come to the conclusion that our game is going to focus on a group of superheros known as SUPER OIL DISASTER SQUAD!!! Otherwise known as S.O.D.S. To achieve an educational aspect as well as an entertaining the game will focus on these super SODS will take care of the disaster one step at a time.

One hero will focus on getting the oil out of the water, soaking it up and skimming it off the top of the water. Another will help the marine life recover (and likely be a ripoff of that lame-o Aquaman, except better and less gay.) They will have a penguin sidekick who will spout bits of random trivia about Oil spills. He likely will just pop up and say things like "SQUAWK! OIL BOATS ARE BIG." he'll probably just be annoying in all reality.

Now that's all I really have to say about that, Ethan's started to do some preliminary drawings. We have a pretty cool Oil Ship already.

Now I bid you adu with this...
PICCO-POKE.
*flee*

Harder...better...stronger...faster...

2009-10-09T11:36:00.000-07:00

Daft Punk! WHOOPAH!!

Anyway, right now in globaloria we are deciding on our game topics. This is a lot harder then you would think. Yet anyhow, there's a few ideas floating around in me and Ethan have thrown around. One of our ideas was to have a game about an Oil Spill.

My idea is that the player would be controling a team of enviromentalists trying to save animals from an oil spill off the coast of Alaska or somewhere else where oil spills are frequent. The player would have a team of people responsible for saving the animals like fish, penguins, and more penguins. That's all for now though...

BUNNY POWER

2009-10-01T12:07:00.000-07:00

During globaloria friday we FINALLY started flash! I feel as if I made a good deal of progress as I made a mini game today with the help of Saraellen. There was much frustration and confusion with the coding to make the bunny move, and I'm glad I had someone to help out. After some swearing and kicking and yelling at the program we got the bunny to move around.

He doesn't do anything else, but it's all I can do. However, progress has been made and that is definitely something to cheer for! HUZZAH! Now attempting to duplicate those effects will certainly be interesting.

Halt Civilian!

2009-09-25T11:57:00.000-07:00

I think this picture aptly describes my fascination with building the most useless crap. It's so silly. I actually have a catapult that me and my mom built. We use it to amuse the dog. This is relevant because I relate it to building a game in an obscure way.

Apparently our game is supposed to be about the wonderful world of civics. I was hoping we'd have a topic that would be more flexible and easily expanded. Yet I think I will manage. We divided into groups and Ethan is my partner.

I'm trying to do something other than complain on this blog. Obviously I'm having trouble, we've had a lot of technological issues. Sometimes we get into the lab and the internet won't work for a few people. Me and Matt seem to have the most issues. It's not productive.

I'll try to keep this updated as much as possible.

Blamo!

2009-09-21T12:07:00.000-07:00

Hello globaloria blog! How were you while I was "busy."
In all reality I still feel as if this class is trudging along at a snail's pace. Though trying to keep a positive outlook I fail to see the reasoning behind all this "Playing to learn" and review this, review that. We have yet to install flash on the computers, so I'm kind of wondering when we finally get to work on something.

From my little experience at animating in the past. I have found it a tedious process that takes long periods of time of drawing the same thing over and over again. Since it's such a time-consuming thing to do, I am afraid we may waste to much time and not be able to get anything done.

Here's hoping that Flash gets installed soon and we start using it quickly. For now, I twiddle my thumbs as I wait for something solid and less superfluous to do.

Interrobang?!

2009-09-09T11:47:00.000-07:00

After days of both frustration and idiocy most of the class finally has their globaloria accounts up and in order. So far this process seems to be more trouble then it is worth, since google has rules allowing only so many people to create their gmail accounts at a time. As a voice of reason in the chaos it seems I am the one who has to run down to Allder yelling "Help!"

After going home and registering the account on my own computer, finding a penguin with a mohawk to respent me on a deeply spiritual level, and being threatening to eat any child with a similar hairstyle. I have accomplished this arduous task called account creation.

Since the class is directly after Band (E block) I am often bouncing of the walls and giggling like an idiot throughout the class period.

And now I must leave you internet!
Forsooth noble companion, I knew ye well!