LAST DAY!

Well today was my last day as a WWWF intern! It's been a lot of fun, and I've learned a lot. I spent today making sure all of my game files were uploaded to the wiki so that the other interns could use them as they continue to develop the game. I'm definitely going to miss working on the game, and I will continue to follow the game's progress from home. The projects page is completely done! All that remains is to add all the new screens and tutorials and flash projects! - but every link is on their, every screen we have up until today is on that page. It's pretty huge hehe. 

It's been great working here, and I hope to do more work in the future!

Best to everyone, and thanks WWWF for the awesome opportunity!

~ Rebecca

HLife Projects Page

The past two days have spent designing, organizing and editing our projects page - Fix It With Food - on my HLife. We have made SO many changes it's probably best to just list a few of them:

- added research section, comments sections, links to games, links to tutorials

- uploaded all .fla's relating to our project along with the .swf's

- created a comic-like layout of our game on the wiki page

- created a gallery of food images

- added better descriptions of game files

- added analysis of title page game files - as well as old version of title page

- added version 2.0 game proposal

- added character development sections - 1.0, 2.0 and 3.0

Yesterday, Leslie, Leticia and I talked to Idit about creating an "ideal" projects page - one that can be used as an example of how designing a game is supposed to look like. Hopefully after yesterday and today's intense work, and some extra work tomorrow, we can achieve this!

Oh and tomorrow is my last day as an intern - or at least coming into the office :(. But I refuse to leave my game, and I'm sure I'll be working on it from afar!

Game Buttons and Animations

Today I watched the button tutorial and was able to add buttons to the screens I completed yesterday. Our game is finally starting to resemble a game and not just flashing pictures! It was sort of difficult at first, but now that I've created an action layer, a lot of the other animations will be easier. I spent a lot of time exploring the various tutorials on the HLife website, and watched a lot of the animation tutorials. Leslie and I also spent time finishing our paper prototype, which we then outlined in sharpie and presented in a video, which we uploaded at the end of the day. We're really focusing in on following the HLife curriculum, trying to follow their class diligently and working towards completing their class to the best of our abilities. 

Game Title Design

Today I created a game title using my new knowledge of motion guides and buttons, that I gained from watching various tutorials on flash, from the HLife wiki. It took me awhile to grasp the concept of motion guides and to use it accurately, but towards the end, I was able to use them in my title screen pretty easily. Buttons I'll have to continue working on tomorrow, although I've already begun the process today. Yesterday I only worked for 3 hours, but I was able to organize all the game screens into one giant project. Today, Jeff showed me some tricks on how to minimize the size of that project so it could be uploaded - for example, I learned how to make symbols and how to use the library. He also taught me how to create both movie symbols and graphic symbols and use them to save memory. 

Today I also got to speak to some of the Rethinkers! We had a sort of vidchat with them and they were able to ask us questions and we all viewed each others pages. I really enjoy having that connection with them, and its a lot of fun following their classwork here in New York. It's nice to hear the sounds of a classroom too, since we are doing their lessons as well!

Organizing Game Screens and Questions

Today, I started off with a few hours of nutritional research, writing down questions and answers with detailed descriptions for answer screens of our games. I've learned a lot about nutrition and I really think that after today, I could see myself having a career in nutrition and health. It was absolutely fascinating how different vitamins and minerals and other molecules could work together to not only cure many common problems but also support general health and well-being. I think the students who play our game will learn a lot from it, and even though the questions are hard, I hope the engaging game screens and actions will keep them interested. The second part of my day, I started taking all the screens and work that Emily, Leslie and I had worked on and putting them into one project. Each section starts off with Leslie's introduction pictures, followed by one of my questions, followed by either one of mine or Emily's game screens, followed by one of my answers. Leticia was a HUGE help later on in the day, when she showed us how to use motion tweens, and I started adding some of that into the final layout. I'm still not completely done with organizing the screens, but by tomorrow, I definitely will be and then I can start using the tutorials on HLife to learn about animation and action buttons. 

Game Screens for MyHLife Game

Today I spent 7 hours reworking the game screens and general idea with Leslie and Emily, joined by Leticia later. We decided that the game should be more of a scavenger hunt game: you will be asked a question at the beginning of each level - for example "What do you eat before working out in the gym to prevent cramps and gain energy?" Then you will be transported to that level - in this case, a level with a gym theme, and you will have to avoid bad foods to choose your answer amongst three healthy choices clearly visible on screen. If you come in contact with a bad food, you lose and must start over. If you come in contact with a healthy food that is not the right answer, you gain a health point, but do not beat the level. These health points can be cashed in for a special treat, such as a cookie or a scoop of ice cream at the end of the game. In the case of the gym, the screen will have apples, oranges and bananas (which are the right answer to the question), for example. So today I created the gym screen, as well as a kitchen and a school classroom screen. I also designed the figure that will be moving throughout the game. Tomorrow, I hope to watch some videos on animation and start making the interactive part of the game!

Keynote Speech, Flash Programming, Projects Pages Updates

It's been very busy these last two days! Yesterday was Idit's NECC presentation, which we got to watch here at the office via GLife. It was amazing to see slides that I and the other interns had put together displayed to thousands across the auditorium and the online community! A little nerve-wracking too. Yesterday, I developed a flash introduction to my game - but I only used one layer. I also spent a lot of time updating my projects page and creating a new one on MyHLife. Today was also flash oriented - I watched and reviewed Daniel's tutorials on Flash to see if I could follow them and then set out to create scenes for my game. I only managed to do three scenes, as I was working with multiple layers, something I had never done before. Working with multiple layers is a whole lot harder than working with just one! And it became even more complicated when I started adding new scenes. It took me awhile to get the hang of it, as programming is not my forte, but I really enjoy challenging myself to create better images. Hopefully next week I'll be able to step up the quality of the scenes I began today, and Leslie (who did some beautiful work! you should go check out her projects page!) and I talked a lot about the direction of our game. As we begin to learn our boundaries as programmers, our approach to the game shifts and often narrows. It is interesting to see how we adapt our game to our strong points (Leslie's graphic design and my animation) and how we change the focus of the game to highlight this.

KMS Wiki Analysis, Flash Design, MyHLife Games

I didn't get to post yesterday so today is a double posting! Yesterday I played 5 games on MyHLife and reviewed two, posting the reviews to my projects page, pretty much in sync with the Rethinkers' curriculum in New Orleans. I also started the excel analysis of the KMS wiki, which i finished this morning. It took me longer than my last analysis because each student had two projects pages (there were divided into small groups to collaborate on games). Today, I downloaded and began experimenting with Flash design, creating three projects (but one hasn't really been completed yet). I also brainstormed with Leslie, and later Aixsha and Leticia on ideas for health games - and we came up with a pretty coherent idea. Tomorrow, Leslie and I will probably start trying to do a proposal in flash, if we can figure it out! It's more complicated than we thought, and we spent a good deal of time playing around with it today.