Hey man, Nice Shot

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

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.

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.

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!

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

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.

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.