Overdue Updates and Explanations

In March I purchased the Adesso CyberTablet M14 drawing tablet and a copy of flash CS4 for my personal computer at home. Both of these had major updates requiring 12 computer restarts. Afterward I fooled around with the sensitivity for my pen and remapped the two pen keys multiple times before deciding I just prefer to use the keyboard for controls. Much to my surprise 4 different programs completely alien to me like Adobe Photoshop Elements 5, an office note taking program, and a program that lets me turn my screen into a drawing board.

Flash CS4 is a very flashy version of something useful. It greatly improves on animating by letting the user be rid of tweens once and for all with the bone tool. This bone tool lets one click various points on a character or drawing they made. The first point is the pivotal point that lets one move the drawing in circles if they wish. Other points act like joints with lines connecting to other points. I don't feel I am doing this feature justice in my explanation, but I'll continue. Anyway each object with bones has its own 'armature' layer. All that is needed is to click on any frame on the timeline and drag one of the points in the skeleton of the object to make it move to that. No tweens or motion guides are required. Poses can even be saved for later use. The 3D tool just lets one angle a 2D object to make it appear 3D much the same way sone would turn a piece of paper in an angle up close to the camera. I haven't tried a number of other features, but these are all available in actionscript 3.0. Patrick told me that I could remake the game I have so far in ActionScript 3.0 so long as I heed his warning that he knows nothing about it and there are no resources on the Globaloria Wiki for that as of yet so I would have to trouble shoot on my own. I've decided to go ahead and stay with 2.0.

In the first half of the semester myself and other students have fooled around with the tutorials Patrick has exposed us to this semester. The two Jeremy's in my mighty four person class made me afraid of lacking content. Jeremy White had most of one level coded out with some problems remaining, Jeremy Ross appeared to be far by proudly displaying armies of downloaded free use sprites, and I had my character mapped to the keys sans the vacuum. My idea for my enemies at first was to have a bully that punches the vacuum. My bullies looked terrible because I am horrible when it comes to drawing children. Instead of generating content and coding maniacly like the other students I experimented with a ninja drawing at home with CS4 and my tablet. This experience actually helped me learn what I could and could not do with drawing in flash. Until this I couldn't have drawn half a character and detailed him to perfection with copy/paste symetry. The line tool was rendered obsolete and the pencil became my favorite item in flash. For some idiotic reason I didn't even think of using 'close bleh-sized gaps' when I drew things. I had a hard time trying to get this ninja look proportionally correct, have his limbs not touch, keep color in him body parts, and move on his own. Patrick and I experimented with the bone tool only to have his parts flailing around the bone in circles when the skeleton moved.

While I was essentially goofing off here I asked myself some serious questions that made me panic. Until the semester is over with I have NO reason to stay calm, but at least I am further ahead of where I was. Anyway these questions essentially annihilated any good impressions I had of my game concept at the time. What was the purpose of this? If the bullies only punch the vacuum my character has then what is the main threat here in this game if the player of my game has a long ranged weapon? Why even bother with the skateboard function being in my game if I can pick enemies off instantly with the space bar? Isn't it a bit odd that in my game the mayor only manages to hire one kid to clean up the neighborhood? Why are bullies being put into a game about recycling--in some way to bring up that as a social issue? Is a tin can really going to stop anyone from attacking someone else? Shouldn't there be bosses in a game carrying this style of gameplay?

My questions only grew with time. I procrastinated by doing other assignments, relaxing (stress relief over a glacier of issues silly and hypothetical when compared to things in the world-o-academia), and reporting for my internship. During spring break Patrick cracked the whip via email. I grabbed my digital trumpet and sounded the call to arms for posting content to the other students who were either deaf or occupied. AIM, phone calls, texts, and email had no impact here. Thinking back I think its better I focus on my concerns. If the life raft is full keep rowing.

Its odd that I chose to answer questions raised two paragraphs above right here, but this will work. Video games can be fun, fantastic, enslaving addictions, a learning experience, realistic, critical question raisers about social issues, and are allowed to do goofy things that can only be done with video games. I decided to be rid of my bully and throw the ninjas in along with other enemies. Why stop with a wacky 'guild' of garbage ninjas? Video games need to stray away from realism in some cases! The old premise is that a boy who went to a recycling assembly in grade school where a mayor was hiring kids to clean up the neighborhood (the kid or player being the only one who seems interested). Having just moved here the kid needs to deal with bullies while moving garbage into the correct receptacles (receptacle is a word I can't say without sounding like a complete dork by the way). I answered any questions raised previously with my new concept as well as introducing a variety of enemies to keep the experience fresh throughout the levels. The shady mayor of Huc City stole a mystical vacuum that was crafted by a mad scientist, magically imbued by ninjas, and was going to be given to space pirates in attempt attack aliens who are parked in the earth's atmosphere waiting for humans to pollute earth because these aliens can only survive in the byproduct of human's filthy ways. Ralph takes on the job of cleaning up the city with the Garbage Gourger suspiciously by himself. The vacuum is now lead by a targeting reticle although this change has yet to be implemented. Power ups for the vacuum are still purchased at Ray's Shack, but accessories have been cut. Information sources are linked on my browser at home, but the information won't be put in until I have the heart of the game fleshed out. After content creation comes code finishing and fine detailing like the info or pause buttons. About my content creation.....

First I started drawing the objects: battery for the vacuum health, empty glass bottles of Easter Island Champaign, plastic soda bottles of Sleeze Cola (feel the sleeze), Dr. Ham aluminum cans, Huc Gazette newspaper, and a number of trash bins. My trash golem was destroyed by accidentally not saving twice. It still hasn't been remade due to a genuine fear of coding boss battle enemies plus the animation I have in my head for their introduction looks beyond what I can do now. I'll suck that fear up soon. Jim the Mad Scientist, Bill the Mayor, and Ray of Ray's Shack each look better drawn than Ralph. My skills in drawing kids scare me plus Ralph is supposed to be completely different from everyone in Huc. I have a recurring joke about everyone having 3 letter names in Huc City but Ralph being some kind of conspiracy in case you're curious there. Ralph will question obvious things between levels that answer Bill's questions therefor infuriating Bill to exclaim "don't question it!" My feelings are that this would be a nice touch for the game seeing as how I am doing everything I can to make the style destinct from other games of the 2D side scrolling genre.

I drew the street, buildings, moving clouds with environment, cutscenes, and 2 robot enemies for level 1. I actually forgot about the assembly scene, but this has been posted here: http://www.myglife.org/usa/wv/mctcwiki/index.ph/Image:SnordObjectsBackgroundsLVL1.fla . I made no attempt to code stop for any frames so I highly recommend anyone who is interested in viewing this in CS3 or CS4 instead of churning it into an SWF file. My work load has been skewed a bit between my pc and my V drive at Marshall. I have level with tweeked animations, hit tested enemies, and touched up drawings for builings/textures/Jim all on my V drive at Marshall. Level 2 isn't finished due to some more crazy procrastining ways, but I will upload this on Tuesday.