On Sprites and Idiots.

Here is my sprite sheet!

The only problem is, is that I don't know if we can use tools like Flixel... Which would allow me to animate my sprites quickly. I spent a lot of time faffing around, trying to get the animations working as a movie clip, but it turns out I'm an idiot, so I lost them somehow because Flash and I are silly. And since I tried to use that method, turns out I didn't even need a sprite sheet. These are the kind of problems you have when you don't know anything about anything at all.

Thoughts about a game involving a cat with no legs jumping around.

So I've decided to make a change to my game. It's not going to be a platformer anymore, it'll be something like this: http://www2.sunflat.net/en/games/papijump.html

This particular game is a high score game - the aim is to just rack up the points by jumping from platform to platform until you fall off.

With my game, I want there to be an ending - maybe when Mr kitty reaches the top he could collect an item, which completes the level/game? But then again maybe just a high score (kind of infinate) game would be better?

I think it would be sweet to have the backgound change depending on the time of day - initially I'll just do colours, but if I have time I could add clouds and gradients. or maybe the cat could jump on clouds? I'm not entirely sure but I do need to get this sorted. Right now I've just finally got my sprite sheet put together. I made it difficult for myself by saving the original images I drew in a silly format and making the backgound not transparent, but it's all done now I hope. Now I just need to animate them in a movie clip so I can use them in my game (I realised that .gifs wouldn't really work...) >__<

Making Something Fun Like Pet Pokemans.

For our project the aim is to "conceptualise, design, and build a specific interactive experience."

The educational aims for the project are to:

• Use practical experience of applying the technologies covered last term.
• Gain experience of the significant scale and duration of a project.
• Swap knowledge between first years and second years.

As a first year I need to come up with the initial idea / concept, and use the structured development cycle within documentation. The second years need to help develop the concept into a full project, and provide the knowledge and experience to implement the ideas.

The brief for this project is to use any specific board game as inspiration to create a novel interactive experience. An interactive experience could be artwork, a game, a functional piece of software... It can be based in the real (physical?) world, online, in a virtual world, etc.

The final idea doesn't need to be a game, but it has to have a clear line leading back from the original inspiration. The aim is to take the original game to the 'next level'.

Some ideas - Pokemon cards, some kind of elaboration on the game?

AR mini Pokemon - can interact with them in the 'real world', view them through a monitor but on real surfaces. Have other items that can be recognised by the camera, like a little box of food to feed them, a little ball to play with them, etc.

Jump!

My Wiggly Kitty can now jump! Hooray! He even gives you a little wink before he lands!

Is this thing on?

Well, it's an improvement!

Step one.

I did it! It's ugly, and wrong, and totally rubbish but I did it. Walk Mr Wiggly Kitty! Walk!

Making a Game.

I've been trying to think of a game idea for ages now. I've decided on a platformer. It's going to be cute. And happy.

I started the day trying to make the game. I then realised that I had no sprites, no animated sprites, and no character ideas.

The steps at the moment are:

1. Decide on character
2. Draw standing sprite looking right.
3. Draw running sprite
4. Draw jumping sprite
5. Invert 2 and 3 so they look to the left when the left arrow key is pressed?
6. Animate them (??? Tried using Flash. Trial expired. Arrrgh.)
7. Think about attacks? Will there be enemies?
8. Actually start making the game.
9. Get the character working properly - ie make it so it runs, jumps, and faces the correct way and doesn't fall through the floor when you press jump.
10. The rest!

It's got to the point where I can't wait for an idea to come to me, I need to do the first thing that comes into my head. That's a platform game, with cute little characters, and a good story. I just need to think of them. :<