In an effort to report my progress with my assignment so far, listed below are the answers to the questions asked during the last lecture.

Establishing your basic ideas

• Topic for website: Attractions available along the river in Worcester.
• Target Audiences:
  • General desktop browser user (Firefox, Internet Explorer 7/8, Opera, Safari and Google Chrome Browsers)
  • Mobile phone user (Opera Mobile, Internet Explorer Mobile, iPhone and Nokia Browsers)
  • Printable pages
  • Screen reader software user (Jaws)

Planning your project

I’ve completed basic planning of the site, with a hand-drawn overview of what the different users will see with their respective browsers, but these need to be updated, polished and turned into a proper set of storyboards. I have, however, developed several prototypes to test different features for compatibility.

Building your project

The latest of the prototypes should be more than suitable for adaptation to assignment worthy work, but I’ve not yet started on a final build.

Reporting on your project

• What technologies do you intend using in your assignment and why?
  • XHTML and CSS will be used for the assignment as they’re the most robust technologies available at the moment, and the ones with which I have the most experience.
• How will your assignment satisfy the assignment criteria and at what level?
  • I’m planning on wowing the assignment markers with the quality and robustness of the build. For example, every decision taken will be justified with a view towards it’s usability and accessibility – for example, the mobile version of the site will work equally across many different hand held devices.

Sorry for the fact there hasn’t been an update for a while, but I’ve been spending the best part of the past week working on my assignment. I would love to show you what I’ve done so far, but it’s far from complete (about 60% away – or 160% based on the Pareto principle), and I’m not planning on releasing it to the public until it’s been submitted and marked.

So far I’ve built a simple game where you have to run around a dungeon collecting bags as they fall from the sky, in addition to the basic functionality of a second game, where you have to bounce people and bags, who jump out of a tower’s window, across the floor to safety. Sounds weird huh?

The last two games involve throwing items over a wall, and jumping across platforms. I might add a fifth RPG style game, but that depends on how well I get on with the rest, and if they cover the criteria I need for the assignment.

Although I can’t show you the game, I can show you it’s characters:

Created by Sofi, who is creating all the graphics I’m using for this game, they’re named, left to right, Suitman, Woman and Dude.

Anyway, the assignment is due in on the 18th May, over a month away, so I should have plenty of time to get the project finished, I just need to try and find time for my other three assignments.

UPDATE: Whoops, I almost forgot, very big thank you to Fruitloop for all the help he has been giving me.

Another day (or two), another tutorial complete.

This game is based around the idea of an Air Raid, using an anti-aircraft gun to shoot planes out of the sky as they pass over.

Air Raid

When I found this tutorial in the book, I was looking forward to completing it so I could compare it with my own efforts to build a similar game.

Shape Invaders

Vastly different as I’m sure you’ll agree. Nope, don’t expect any more large circles to appear, there is only one, once it’s gone, it’s gone.

Although basic, however, I do feel that my attempt was quite good, and had I decided to work upon it more, I could have got something far better with multiple enemies, etc. I’m glad I didn’t attempt to finish it as I’ve now discovered that I was not doing as well as I could have, and have learnt a lot about how ActionScript works thanks to the tutorial.

Next tutorial is creating a paddle game similar to Breakout – but before I do that (after a couple hours playing Alone in the Dark and chilling out), I’m going to attempt to make a ball roll. Sounds easy right? We’ll see.

Just a short post this time to show the finished edition of the memory game. This edition now features a card-flipping animation, along with sounds when the cards are flipped, and a 2 second time limit on how long two incorrectly matched cards should remain before flipping back over. I’ve also fixed a bug/feature which allowed you to flip a card back over if it was the first one selected – I could have removed this functionality, but decided to set a penalty of 5 points instead, the same penalty you get for an incorrect match.

Anyway, here it is:

It’s been a while since I posted anything on this blog – and I know that no one is reading it, so I’m not sure why I need to – but I figured it was time to post something fresh.

The next two weeks are Easter, which means no lectures, lots of chocolate eggs, and apart from two trips into Birmingham – lots of sodding work!!! The majority of this work is going to be learning ActionScript, which I’m quite looking forward to, but also a bit of database which I’d be more than happy to forget.

Anyway, to give myself a head start I’ve been reading a book on game programming in Flash by Gary Rosenzweig. It’s the book our tutor uses, so I figured it would be a good place to start. As a result of this, I’ve been able to produce a very simple memory game. I can’t claim any credit for it as I’ve just been following the tutorial, which means I also can’t share the source code with you, but as it’s part of my journey to becoming an ActionScript programmer, I figured I should post an example here now.

It’s not finished yet as I need to code in the effect of flipping the card, as well as a few other things, but I’m running out of time to work on it today, and figured this was as good a place as any to show and tell.