Cosmos Chaos

Cosmos Chaos is a interactive and enjoyable educational game.  Don't stop reading due to the fact that I said "educational".  The game is targeted toward a younger audience of game players, ages 8 - 12.  The game incorporates vocabulary words into the dialogue.  The newly introduced words are highlighted and encourages the player to click the highlighted word for a definition by rewarding the player.  The game was funded by grant U203G050007 from the Department of Education to be released for the Nintendo DS by Mentor Interactive.

Difficulties & Learning Enhancements

Expecting to work on a team and ending up as an individual team is probably one of the most frustrating and rewarding experiences at the same time.  You do not have to rely on another person when making decisions, but at the same time you still have to complete the same amount of work in the same time frame.  It is enjoyable to be able to learn a skill that you had no knowledge or ability in previously.  It allows the expansion of your personal portfolio of knowledge and experiences.  Having a change in learning style is not comfortable at all times, but after some experience in the new style you may become accustomed to it, as I have in Globaloria Game Design.  This course works similarly to how the real world works.  The main reason for that is that it is self paced to an extent.  Above and beyond anything else I have learned the value of time management.  Particularly that no two things, even when related, take the same amount of time.

Presenting to the Professionals

Presenting your work to the professionals for feedback is helpful and important, regardless of what the content of the work revolves around.  I presented Shooter to the professioanls at Globaloria to receive feedback on my work.  The Globaloria professionals had productive feedback for the advancement of my game.

Finding Solutions

Having the luxury of time away from work or school is seen by many as just a time to lounge around and relax.  Which by all means is great and often well deserved and needed.  Often though it is found that a break has come and the choice stands of whether to relax or get caught up and not remain behind on work.  Shooter was the perfect example of work that needed to be completed over a break from school.  The break away from school allowed the game to have an immense amount of work completed on it.

Testing & De-Bugging

Designing a well thought out flash video game is not as simple as wanting to do so.  There is an immense amount of flash coding that goes into the game to allow certain features to opperate.  Each flash game requires its own specific coding based on the game actions.  Coding can often cause or allow for glitches to occur in a game.  In order to prevent the final player from running into these glitches it is important to test for glitches or errors.  One person can not always find where the error is located and may want to find others who would be willing to play and help correct the errors found.  In my experience you can find more mistakes in a game when you have another look it over.  In my particular game I saught help from a fellow classmate and game creator.

Action Script Tutorials

Throughout the process of designing and coding my Flash game I have used a good amount of tutorials to help create the game.  Those tutorials consisted of written tutorials and video tutorials.  Between the two types I preferred video tutorials.  A video tutorial allows the viewers to visualize the process rather than simply reading the process.  In the process of designing my game one of the most significant and helpful video tutorials was for a game called Balloon Shooter.  Balloon Shooter was fairly similar to the game I designed, Shooter.

Thanksgiving Updates

Over the week long thanksgiving break I actually took out time and worked on my team wiki page for the game Shooter.  At first I really had no intention of working or even glancing at the team page.  I scarcely glance at work that does not have an upcoming due date.  Although, if work does have an upcoming due date I will work on weekends or holidays in order to have in finished.  I happened to log into the wiki over break and saw a comment from a member of Globaloria, Denise.  She had left a comment on the wiki that I should work on my team page.  After seeing this comment I got to work and made a huge dent in the amount of work completed on my team wiki.