Game Review Assignment etc.

So my first assignment in my gaming concepts class is to play some games on the myglife wiki. Then I need to review two of them. This sounds like its going to be a fun assignment. The teacher talked about how his perspective changed of making games changed after he started making games. After that he advised us make a game that teaches something to the player at least in some small way even if its the most addicting thing in the world. This reminded me of two things: my incomplete visual basic version of Galaga from a programming class in High School and a flash game a friend found over the summer called Pandemic 2.

I never finished that game because of an odd glitch and now have much more respect for anyone who made any game around the time of Galaga. Pandemic 2 is a flash game that lets you try to wipe out humanity with a pandemic of your choice. It teaches you how disease spreads, what symptoms they can have, and what governments of the world will do to stop it from spreading. That is extremely addictive and fun even though killing people via disease sounds terrible. I just thought of something that I could potentially make with flash that would educate, be fun, and addictive. The subject matter does require a bit of research, but it would be worth it.

I'll post the idea later because I still have some homework to finish up for English. Also, last night one of my friends who wants to make a game with me, is in a similair program, and is in one of my classes told me about new elements he is putting in his main game. I am not so dumb as to disclose EVERYTHING about my ideas to anyone. I told him a basic outline of the story and a design element. Thats all I told him. I didn't describe weapons, vehicles, many big story details, side quest, or for that most of the last half of the tale. He stood there and told me that he ripped me off and that he considers me a best friend. I'm not a happy camper. Thank goodness I didn't tell him everything. I shouldn't even be this upset about it! What he did 'rip off' he messed up completely or at least to the point that I shouldn't be threatened by it. My story outline took forever and did circles around him (its really complex).

That last paragraph was a nice way to vent that out of my system. I really should be doing that homework, but I have another two and a half hours to kill. It just goes to show that you really should be careful what you tell others. Maybe if I post my idea for my flash game here with a nifty TIME STAMP as to when I post it, people won't rip it off so easily. My idea is a game where you are trying to escape a research facility on some planet outside our solar system. Aliens are attacking so you have a limited time to plot to choose what you want to add to your escape vehicle and plot your course. As a player you would have different propulsion systems to choose from like rockets, ions thrusters, solar sail, giant accelerator, and maybe a few more that I don't know about. Trying to balance out propulsion, food, a way to slow down, and what weapons to use will be kind of challenging. Once you're done you would play a nifty 2D side scrolling shoot the alien ship game until you either reach Earth or smack into a moon for not choosing a decent route. This would require research as to how fast the propulsion actually moves, how heavy it is, and other things. Maybe its too ambitious and should be saved for a later date, but its an idea.

I've been blogging since the end of my Gaming Concepts I class. People from the next class are coming in here. I should probably go do that homework now. Blogging seems like it won't be a huge problem for me in this class. This should be fun.