first person shooter
April 4, 2006 at 8:16 am | In addiction, issues, violence | 2 Commentsthe expectation is that you write at least 400 words about this video
Here are the discussion points I wrote on the board before the video:
1) Provide an outline of what the video is about
2) What would you have done if you were the parents?
3) Is it a concern that video game addiction might happen to you or someone you know. Explain.
4) In your opinion are video games addictive and dangerous. Discuss.
Some issues and further questions I raised after the video:
- Do schools students avoid difficult problems by escaping to video game playing?
- Do video games present a distorted view of what war is like – "war is a game, happiness is a digital bomb"
- How come only 3-4 players out of 1000 at the Counter Strike tournament were girls?
- Does playing violent video games make some young people violent, like the boy who looked daggers at his mum and threw the coffee table across the room when she switched off his game?
- Does the rating system stop young people playing M and MA rated gemes? Is that a worry?
- Is Lt Col David Grossman correct to say that video games trained a young American student to kill in a school yard?
- Have you heard of Aristotle and Plato? What did they say about violence in media 2000 years ago?
- If good game play is the main thing you want (not violence) then why did some students laugh at me when I suggested substituting numbers for bullets in a shooter game?
- Do video games stop students from doing homework?
- Does the older generation understand the younger generation? EXplain.
howto: code with comments
March 4, 2006 at 3:07 pm | In gamemaker, howto, problems | Leave a CommentSome students have been blogging a blow by blow description of every single thing they did to solve the problems.
This is a lot of work but also hard to read and follow because there is so much description in there.
A good alternative is to describe how the code works rather than what you did to create the code.
Here’s an example, using problem six:
A ball goes through a goal and the score goes up by one…the score does not go up if the ball misses the goal
goal miss 
goal score
After you have made your demo click the Show Information button on your most important objects to obtain the code. You can copy and paste this into your blog like I have done below.
I think it’s best to intersperse comments about the code inside the code so that you explain the code as you go along. Focus on the main important parts of your code that explains how the problem was solved. Don’t write about every single thing because then the important stuff gets lost.
Use bold and italics to make it more readable. Unfortunately we don’t seem to have colour writing in wordpress.
Information about object: objBall
Step Event:
if expression y is less than one
set the score relative to 1
destroy the instance
create instance of object objBall at position (216,192)
Comment: If the ball goes through the goals, then do all of these things: increase the score by one, destroy the ball (so the score won’t keep going up) and create a new ball in the original position
Collision Event with object objWall:
bounce not precisely against solid objects
Comment: If the ball misses the goals then bounce it back into the playing arena
Keyboard Event for Key:
set speed to 5 and direction to 45+random(90)
Comment: random(90) will output a number between 0 and 89. then add this to 45 and you get a direction between 45 and 134. So sometimes the ball will go into the goals and sometimes it will miss. Just like real life.
Other Event: Outside Room:
jump to the start position
start moving in directions 000010000 with speed set to 0
Comment: If the ball leaves the room then jump back to start ready to kick for goal again.
blogroll
February 26, 2006 at 7:05 am | In blogroll | 1 CommentI have added a blogroll. Do one yourself, if you haven’t already.
Some students have worked this out for themselves already and are adding comments to each others blogs. I’d like them to broaden out and add some comments to students they haven’t visited yet.
I’d like everyone to add at least 4 intelligent comments on other students blogs this week and then add a blog entry to your blog saying who you have added your comments to. No real names please.
Read each others blogs to get ideas for solving problems but no copying. The idea is that you help each other to learn.
making gifs
February 18, 2006 at 4:00 am | In gamemaker, sprites | 1 Comment
Students haven’t been posting their finished gifs into wordpress. After you make your animation then save it as a gif in game maker. Then I found you have to load it in GIMP and save it there, otherwise it won’t loop. Finally, upload it to wordpress as a full size image, not a thumbnail. Then you can see your animated gifs in wordpress! Remember to do a hard one (different sized frames) as well as an easy one.
problem 2:
2) Make an animation from a strip sheet of stills.
a) one where all the slides are the same size (easier)
b) another where the slides are of varying sizes (harder)
Solution:
Hint:
Sprite editor > File > Create from Strip
Sprite editor > File > Add from Strip
Hint: For slides of varying sizes start with the largest size and add the smaller sizes later and rearrange order. It can be a fiddly, tedious process!
Suitable strip sheets are astro_sheet.gif, shadow_sheet.gif, kadotsu_sheet.gif
categories
February 14, 2006 at 11:30 am | In wordpress | Leave a CommentLogin to wordpress and go into write or edit a post mode.
Look to the right and you’ll see a ‘Categories’ tab. Click on the + and add categories. I’m using categories like gamemaker, sprites, problems, wordpress, offtopic . Simple words that categorise what your posts are about.
Each time you post you tick the category boxes on the right which best describe your post.
Change your site’s look or theme
February 14, 2006 at 11:27 am | In wordpress | Leave a CommentLogin into wordpress
Dashboard > change your sites look or theme
Choose a theme that you like. That’s all you have to do.
I chose the ‘Pool’ theme.
problems and solutions
February 7, 2006 at 12:07 pm | In Uncategorized | Leave a Comment
My expectations for the GAME MAKER SKILLS CHALLENGE worksheet. What I expect you to blog about:
1) Write down the current problem, it’s easier to cuts and paste from the challenge sheet
2) Describe your solution to the problem. What were the main important things that had to be done to solved the problem. Provide some detail here.
3) Who helped you? How did they help you? Remember you can ask anyone for help!
4) Provide a screen shot which illustrates the solution to the problem. Irfanview is a simple image editor for pasting and cropping a screen shot. Ask if you’re not sure how to do it.
game making stage one
February 1, 2006 at 3:37 am | In Uncategorized | Leave a CommentThis blog is for the year 11 game making class. Here is the course outline:
Skills
- Solve a series of programming and multimedia challenges set by the teacher
- Skills test using Game Maker. Closed book. Develop a game with specified criteria without assistance in supervised setting
Folio
- Investigate and write about the issues of addiction and violence in video games
- Choose and evaluate an existing game from the Game Maker site. Teacher will provide guidelines for the game evaluation
Practical
- Design, build and document your own game using Game Maker software. Teacher will provide guidelines for documentation based on the systems development life cycle
Hello world!
January 31, 2006 at 8:59 pm | In Uncategorized | 2 CommentsWelcome to WordPress.com. This is your first post. Edit or delete it and start blogging!
Blog at WordPress.com. | Theme: Pool by Borja Fernandez.
Entries and comments feeds.
