Final Blog

We just presented our game and I am so relieved to be done. It was really fun and I learned a lot! I learned a lot about the presidential election and I hope that people who play our game will also learn a lot about the government. I also learned a ton about flash and globaloria. This was a great expierience and I am so glad I took this class!

5-28-10

We are almost done with our game. We have made a lot of progress over the last couple weeks. Our game is coming along well but now we are having some trouble with the hittest. Hopefully we get it finished because we only have one day left.

Game Progress

We had to start our game over completely. We were having each fact be on a different keyframe but Ms. Stalnaker said that it would be better if we made it a scrolling screen so we did! Now the game is moving along pretty well. The only problem we are experiencing so far is that when our guy jumps on the platform, he lands on his head not his feet. Someone is helping us with that. Other than that all we have left to do is put the facts on the platforms and make it into four different levels.

My Civic Engagement 4/23/10

What Ideals concept is the hardest to teach in your game, and why do you think it's difficult to understand? How does your game effectively teach this concept?

The hardest ideals concept for me to teach in my game is probably facts about the presidential election. People think they know so much about the presidential election but I'm sure after they play our game they will realize that they really do not. My game effectively teaches this because there are facts about the election and you have to know them to progress in the game.

My Civic Engagement 4/16/10

Researching and designing your game has shown you how many different ways the same information can be presented to an audience. Based on your Globaloria game-making experience, how do you feel about the way news and other sources might similarly manipulate information about civics? Do you have any advice for other students who want to seek out reliable media outlets? Please write 4 or more sentences.

Many internet websites change information around to make it untrue. They can manipulate you that way because you may think that it is a reliable source and it isn't. My advice for other students is to check different websites to make sure that information is correct. If you only see a set of information once, most likely it is not true. If you see information multiple times, it is probably correct.

My Civic Engagement 4/15/10

Researching and designing your game has shown you how many different ways the same information can be presented to an audience. Based on your Globaloria game-making experience, how do you feel about the way news and other sources might similarly manipulate information about civics? Do you have any advice for other students who want to seek out reliable media outlets? Please write 4 or more sentences Not all websites convey the correct information. Therefore using websites that have incorrect information can be misleading so many people consider the website manufactures manipulative. My advice for other students is when your searching the web for information, if you find one set of information that you like, go to another website or a few other websites to see if they have that same information. If no other websites have the same information or if they have information that is the complete opposite of the information you liked, then it probably is not true or not good information.

April 15, 2010

My Civic Engagement 4/9/10

The technology of the 21st century has altered civic life greatly. Do you think access to virtual collaboration and communication has an impact on civic ideals? Why or why not? How has the process of designing and researching your game helped you develop your opinion? Please provide specific links and examples.

I think that the development of internet and access to virtual collaboration and communication has had a huge impact on civic ideals. Having the internet as a resource really helped me with my game. For example, I got all of my facts from the internet and it just makes it so much easier. If I did not have the internet then I would of had to look facts up in the newspaper or in magazines and it would have been a lot more complicated because the internet has everything I need in one place.

My Civics Engagement

On the front page of www.mycivicengagement.com, you'll find links to game demo submissions of participants in the Globaloria Civics Game Competition. Play the demos in your knowledge area, then choose one (different from your choice last week) and compare the demo with the paper prototype. What developments do you see? From your own experience in game design, why do you think changes were made (if any)? What advice do you have for this team as they develop their demo into a final game?

I think that their game demo was a lot better than their paper prototype but that is expected. In my opinion the paper prototyping is basically a rough draft so things should change. With my experience in game design, I think they changed things to make their game better. Someone even could have gave them ideas to make their game better and they may have changed things after the made the paper prototype.

Adding Interaction

In adding interaction, I went to google images and I chose a picture of a turtle in the ocean. After that I had to draw a picture to put on top of that picture. The picture I drew was a turquoise fish. Next I added a code to make the fish move so when you use your arrow keys he moves across the screen on top of your picture.

Adding Sound

Adding sound was really fun and interesting. I made a cat howling at the moon. It was cool because I got to add sound and that was fun. My sound is a cat meowing. It was kind of hard because the website we used, only some of the computers allowed us to download it so I had to use a flashdrive and save it on one of the other computers but in the end it all worked out.

Adding Animation

Adding animation was really fun and interesting. The coolest thing about learning to animate was that I learned exactly how to do it so when I go to add animation to my character in my game I will know how and that's exciting. I admire animation in all games now because I realize that its challenging so I give people who had to do it props.

Adding Navigation

I thought adding navigation was fun because our game is finally starting to come together. It was really interesting to see what our game will eventually look like and that was exciting. It was also extremely challenging. Flash confuses me and Ms. Stalnaker had to come help me and I eventually had to start all over because my thing was just messed up.

Drawing In Flash

In drawing in flash I learned about certain new things in flash. It was really fun because we got to start making our game and that was exciting. It went well and I really think our game is going to be a success. I am actually starting to understand flash and how to use it which is very good because it will be very important to know because that's the program I will be using to make my game.

Paper Prototype

We worked on paper prototyping at our house on the snow days because we missed so much school. When we finally came back to school we had to video ourselves talking about the paper prototype. Cody videoed me talking and explaining the paper prototype. It was very productive and it helped us a lot with the beginning of our game.

Understanding of US Ideals

How well do you believe the average American citizen understands US Ideals and how they are applied in government? Why does it matter?


I think the majority of American citizens don't understand US Ideals or they don't know what they are at all. For example, I did not completely understand until I did this blog entry. It is extremely important for every citizen of the United States to not only know what these are but for them to understand them. This matters because when people don't know what they are it is difficult for them to understand things that happen in our government.

Planning Your Game

Me and Cody are just taking turns doing whatever needs to be done for the game. But to start things off, my first task is to design the welcome/main screen. I was assigned this task because it is the first thing that needs to be done for our game. We did not have any disagreements. We get along good and we agreed on everything. I am mostly looking forward to the end result of our game. I am excited to play it and see other people's reactions towards our game. There really was no inspiration we were just trying to think of ideas that were educational and Cody mentioned this and I liked it.

Presntations

The presentations on Friday went really well. The globaloria staff was really easy to talk to and they had some really good ideas for our game. The best one was instead of just doing random facts about the constitution, they told us we should do facts about the election since that is what the game is about which makes sense. If we have to do any more webcam presentations, I won't be nervous because this time it wasn't bad at all.

Playing to Learn

I really enjoyed doing the topic playing to learn because I wasn't just playing a game just to play it. I was learning about how to make my game and giving me ideas of how to make my game better!

Participation Guidelines

This topic was interesting to me because I am new to globaloria. In this topic I learned the rules and guidelines for globaloria. It was nice to have this on here because without it I would be confused and not know what was restricted and what wasn't.

Ideals

My game, Jumping for President, falls under the ideals category. It is in this category because the facts included in our game are about the government of the United States. This is also what the ideals category is about. Some of the facts in our game will also be about individual rights and the constitution. The possibilities are endless!

Imagining Your Game

It was fun and interesting doing this topic. It was cool because I learned the basics of using flash and that will help me when I'm making my game. Flash is complicated but if I keep using it, I think things will get easier. I am excited about making my game because it will be fun but also a challenge. I think the final result of my game will be good because I already know exactly what I want my game to be like and what I want it to consist of so I think it should have a positive outcome!

Team Game Design with Captain Cody Gainer

The character is jumping from platform to platform. Each platform has a fact on it and you have to choose the correct fact to keep going. If your character jumps on the incorrect fact, the platform dissolves and the character falls through instantly ending the game. If the character chooses the correct fact, you move on the the next level.

Game Ideas with Cody and Brandon

-The president is the main character and he is jumping up the platforms of government trying not to miss a platform or get hit by the monsters which end the game instantly.

-The character is trying to climb the tree of government and he lands on different branches along the way ( executive, legislative, judicial). He tries to answer questions correctly to make his way up the tree.

Civic Ideas

I went to the globaloria civics track site and used the three different topics to find things to search for. I used google as a search engine. The different ideas I used for the topic ideals were government systems and majority and minority rule. For the topic function, I used the three branches of government and for the topic citizenship I used voting and other common roles of citizens. The two types of games I would create would be a game with platforms and you jump from platform to platform without falling off and the other type would be a game about life teaching teens about making good decisions.

Expectations for Game Design

In the Globaloria course, I hope to learn about making games and learn a lot about this specific technology. I want to make a game that is fun and enjoyable for people of all ages. I am not sure yet what exactly the game will do or what it's objective will be but I know that it will be fun! I am excited to play the game once it is completely finished because then it won't be like I'm playing some random game, it will be my game. I'm just worried about all the complications that will arise when I am working on my game. I'm sure there will be many but I will work through them and hopefully my game will still come out as a success.