screenshots to print off

These are just screenshots of the making of my game, they show diferent stages in the making of the game and some coding of how things work, I will use some of these within my design book.

Colouring pages research

Here i found a site which whole purpose is for children to print out colouring pages which they can just colour in, they have a variety of different pictures you could colour in, here i found a whole sheet of different pages for the three little pigs; In my recent post was a test for a printing idea i had, and this actually worked really well, so I'm going to create this and i think it will add a unique addition to the game.

Children game research

Here is a game on the website Cbeebies which is for young children.
The games on here are really simply drawn, and the games are very basic, which is why i think my gamew ould be good to aim for young children, it will also be better to aim for one age group instead of trying to provide for all age ranges, although i think with more advanced games that my game would be good for a phone app like games such as angry birds.

On the top left you can see a print button, which lets the player print off the screen, which i think kids would really like to do if they feel they've achieved somethign in the game; I think it would be a good idea to have printable things with my game, it'll also add more for children to do.

The music and sounds in the games for children allways seem really loud and over exagerated, they also compliment the inviting graphics and oclours, which I think would entertain children well. They usually have people talking over the top of the game instructing what to do, i think this is a good idea because alot of children wouldnt be able to read yet.

3 games finished update.

In this update of my game I have finished all three games to a decent standard, i think they're all decent games, but I could improve on them and make them more challenging and engaging, but with the games, especially the egg falling one, the coding was quite complicated and I havnt been able to find the coding i would like to use to improve the game(adding different falling eggs). I'm now going to move onto finishing off the game, maybe adding more buttons if i can, such as a pause screen, although in a previous blog entry i found coding for this, I tried it out and it didn't seem to work for me. I'm also going to try and add a bit of sound, this will make the game more engaging and entertaining; especially if i direct this game towards a young age group; I will research on the types of sound and music that are included in childrens games, and also what games they prefer. I was thinking also to add comic strips for each story, and also a print out and colouring in picture, which i think would be a really good idea because I've seen games before from research where they have printoffs, which children enjoy colouring in.

Menu Research

Here are different menus that I found when researchign them for my own game, these menus are called rubber menus, because when you click on each button it stretches the images so theyre still attached with the other ones, I really like these menus because they look proffesional, theyre unique and also more interactive then stationary buttons.

I think this type of menu would look good with my game If i made it more cartoony and colourfull.

Helpful code research

Heres some coding that I have found whilst at home on the internet, trying to find ideas that could help me with my own game.
I've had the idea to add a pause screen to my game which would be really handy, and I have found a bit of coding which looks really simple and I think it would do exactly what I want it too;

here is the website:
http://www.isaackeyet.com/2007/flash-movie-controls-playpause-button/

The only coding it really uses is:
on (release) {
gotoAndStop(2);
_parent.stop();
}

And:on (release) {
gotoAndStop(1);
_parent.play();
}

What this coding basically does is when you release the button, It will stop everything in the parent frame, which should be the main timeline. I hope this works, but because I have some quite complicated coding for my game, i'm hoping that it pauses everything on my egg falling game, because it would have to stop the eggs spawning and falling, and stop the timer.


I would also like to find a back button which works in my game, i already know how to make a simple one, but I havnt been able to work out how to stop the eggs spawning and teh character to dissapear, but i'll hopefully find help with this.

Making new minigame

 

Here I am starting to make a new mini game for my puppet kingdom game, which will be based about the 3 little pigs. The way that I am going to try to make it, which i don't know how well it will work; is to basically make a world first with 3 different houses on it with scenery, and then after the person has clicked the screen so many times it will destroy the house and the world will rotate.

I think the way i'm trying to make it will be faster than moving and rotating each object by hand to make them lok as though the persons moving.

Research into game interfaces

Loading Screen
The loading page actually does all the downloading of salary data from the U.S. Department of Labor. A progress bar is provided with some context around the actual data being downloaded. Once the data is downloaded, the app automatically starts a new game.

Load Error Screen
This is the unable to download error page. You should never see this page, so it's included here so someone actually gets a chance to see it.

Play Screen
The main game play screen is where all the action takes place. The player is presented with a salary and they need to guess whether it is the average salary for a male or female.



These are screenshots for an imformation game i found whilst researching into game interfaces, I wanted to find out how other apps layout buttons throughout the game/app, and how they make them look. I came across this app which on the site it shows the different screens of the app and explains what they are and what the person does on the screen.
This may also help with my own walkthrough of my game, Ive allready designed the layouts and how the game looks, but i think it will be good to; after my games finished, show each screen and what you do on there, this will also be good to include if i was to present my app to someone proffesional to make the game.

Research for a new level

3 Little pigs

"Little pig, little pig, let me come in."
"No, no, not by the hair on my chinny chin chin."
"Then I'll huff, and I'll puff, and I'll blow your house in."


I have thought up a game that could be good for the 3 little pigs, where you play as the wolf and all you have to do for the game is press the screen.
Itll have your character on the left who would be a puppet dressed as a wolf, then there will be a hill with a house ontop it; Each house you blow down will give you a point, but each house will increasingly get harder to destroy. instead of just the original 3 houses the houses will come until you run out of time.
when you blow down the house itll collapse, then the hill will rotate anti clockwise then the next house will come up, as though you are running.

More level research

I started thinking of another game where you climb somethign and you have to dodge things on the way up, first i thought of climbing a beanstalk, but after researching fairy tales rapunzel seemed like a better idea.

"When Dame Gothel is gone, he bids Rapunzel let her hair down. When she does so, he climbs up, makes her acquaintance, and eventually asks her to marry him."

I thought it would be good to have knots in her hair which you need to avoid if you want to reach the top, Ive also exagerated in the game, making the tower really tall and there is alot more hair than can actually be possible, and once you reach the top its going to show the hair being attached to another small puppet, who then kisses the prince at the top.
aswell as this i wanted to have a stage like on jack & the beanstalk, where the which would make it harder or add a different variable in the game so its not the same all the way through, which i think would make these games more interesting and playable.



I think its also good that there was a recent film out about rapunzel, this makes the game alot more current and children would want to paly things related to stuff they like.
I have a cousin whos daughter is really in to fairytales, especially rapunzel, and I can deifnitely imagine her wanting to play it.

Research for minigame ideas

I thought about alot of different ideas for what to base my games on and i came up with fairy tailes,
I think that its a good idea to have some cohesion between everything so that the game makes more sence and a better feel to it.
With fairy tales almost everyone knows each story, or if they dont they have heard of it and know the idea that its about, it also makes it have more of a unique selling point because they games aren't just random games, they each have a story behind them.

Before i really got into what i was going to do, I started on playing around with flash, testing things which i wanted to do; i knew i wanted to make a puppet game and i had a random diea of him catching apples falling from a tree. But at home I brain stormed and asked people for ideas to make my game better, and I came up with the fairy tale theme. So from there i thought of jack and the beanstalk as the game where you move left and right catching the falling objects.



"Jack steals a bag of gold coins as he makes his escape down the beanstalk. Jack repeats his journey up the beanstalk two more times, each time he is helped by the increasingly suspicious wife of the ogre and narrowly escapes with one of the ogre's treasures. The second time he steals a hen which laid golden eggs and the third time a magical harp that played by itself."

I use the opening screen to the game as a general reminder of what the outline of the story is, on this one i showed the beans being thrown out the window and a beanstalk growing.
I read up about each fairy tale, taking ideas from the stories to use in my game.
I planned to make the games really advanced but ive found it hard to research everything i need, spending awhile just trying to make objects fall and being able to be caught.
Although it was hard, ive been able to make golden eggs fall from the sky which goes back to the story of him having a chicken which lays golden eggs, i wanted to add harps that rarely fall which when collected spead teh game up and played music. I also thought it would be good to have some stage where you have to dodge things instead and you hear the quoute
"

Fee-fi-fo-fum!

I smell the blood of an Englishman.

Be he live, or be he dead,

I'll grind his bones to make my bread.'"

Puppet games research

Here is a game with a puppet theme where you have to direct all these puppets to the right destination, In the same with this game is, i want my game to all be based around puppets; with this game they have even added a comic strip which shows you what the game is and the story line behind it.

I think it would be a really good idea with each of my games to add a funny comic strip which tells the base story behind each fairytail, which i think would be good if younger people were playign it, it would also be funny because itll bedone all in puppets.

Iphone game app research

Here is a game called Tap the frog,
its a game that can be brought as a phone app, on both iphone and android.
What i like about this game is how addictive and basic it is, and game is one of the things that inspired me with my final project game. I like how you can play different mini games within the one game and each of them are really fun.







Here in this picture shows a game which is like the rapunzel one i am working on at the moment, you have to move between the 3 rows, dodging cones and getting speed boosts; you basically have to ride for as long as you possibly can.  I can imagine that the way they make their game is by having randomly spawning objects on each row, whereas with mine im not as advanced in the coding, so with each of  the objects on my stage i have added myself and animated/coded myself.

I also really like the cartoony stlyle on the game because it creates more of a fun feel to it, also navigating through this app is really easy and works well.

Newest update

Here i am starting on making my new game, if you travel to the right after the jack & the beanstalk game, you'll see the select screen for rapunzel.
i'm currently trying out ideas on how to make my game, currently ive made the character, and now working on the background.
I also think i will add information before each game on how to play, and a button in the game which allows you to stop and go back.

update of my game

Here is my game after i've sorted out the mechanics with collecting eggs, this took a few hours because i had to get all the coding correct and i changed chunks of the coding which i didnt like, such as the coding for making the player move left and right; i didn't like this much and i knew better coding, but it was hard to try and fit that coding with the new coding, because they used different languages.
This isnt a finished version of that game, i will need to change some of the variables,
at the moment im trying to fix the buttons so when you go back to prevous frames it still lets you move the guy left and right along the bottom.

REference

http://www.swinburne.edu.au/design/tutorials/P-flash/T-Flash-games-Basic-catch-game/ID-42/

This is just a reference for what i have been using to try make my falling eggs game work,
i'm still stuck on it at the moment but hopefully if i look through it i will find what the problem is.

My Final game so far

Here is the progress of my final game so far, at the moment im working on the machanics of the first game, its taken me awhile to work out how to make random egg fall, but now i am struggling to find coding to make you able to catch the eggs with the puppet.

I'm really happy with my game so far, I think ive improved alot with flash; with this game so far ive made each graphic on a different layer, which helps alot when animating and editing.
I've used angry birds as a big inspiration with my game, ive taken the same sort of style to help with making mine look proffesional and entertaining.

Plan

Here are brief ideas that i scanned in from my sketchbook, it was for deciding what themes and ideas to use for my game, and deciding one what i thought would be the best place to start.
i can imagine if this game got big, i could bring out different themes for the game to expand the franchise.