Finished 3rd Case!

This week was a bit challenging - we learned about codes and Actionscript 3.0. It is rather complicated, and a lot of writing that I find quite illogical. During the lesson at Thursday we went through the codes that we need to be able to achieve the goal for this case, and I were able to make my character move the way it should - it glides over the screen from left to right, and back again.

But, I must say, that all I know is that I followed a recipe and the result came out right. Which means that I'm still not able to do this all on my own. But according to our teacher, these codes are just to be learnt - which obviously means that this is just the way it is, which is hard enough for me to understand since I'd like to know why all the time.

At this moment I just have to trust the teacher that it will all become clearer as we keep on working with this project.

On today's meeting we all had a presentation of our animations. It seems like everybody now knows how to work in Flash, and it will be exciting to see how the games develops.

I have got three animations: walk to right and left, jump and a resting position. I hadn't understood how to make a sprite, and the point of it, but I was able to ask today and be taught how to make one. A sprite is a practical way of collecting all the animations and to be able to switch between the different objects in an easy way.

But when I put all my different documents in to a sprite, I realized that I hadn't done everything quite right. I was made aware of a mistake I must have done in the beginning of this week - I hadn't converted all the layers into symbols before animating. It has probably no major effect on the outcome of the game - but it is very practical for me while working on this project, to have it all organized as symbols.

We also got the third case, and we will now start programming. Which means that I have to read a lot about codes to be able to understand what Thursday's lesson will be about.

So along with reading and learning about codes, I will also try to fix my mistakes (it shouldn't be too difficult, since our groupleader taught me how to fix it).

2nd Case

Everything has suddenly started to become very advanced, and this week we shall have enabled the character to move towards left and right, have a resting position and start a jump.

Luckily, on thursday we had a lesson about these different moves, and surprisingly I have managed to make my character move and make a jump. It was'nt too difficult once I got the hang of it.

But it takes time since every layer has to be moved on its own, and I have to make shure that they all follow each other, instead of going different directions.

This week we also have to focus on some keywords like key frames, timeline, symbols and tweening.

Character

This is the main character of my game - a milkmaid, and this is how she looked like the first week. There will probably be many changes during the next cases, due to animationproblems.

Her purpose in the game is to collect buckets of milk, and try not to loose them - if she does, she will loose points and when she has lost three buckets it is game over.

First Case

This first week we gathered in a group, and tried to solve some of the obvious problems in the case. But this case was quite easy without many problems. The biggest problem was understanding Flash.



Earlier I have worked in Photoshop, so luckily I new some of the function and were able to draw my character. The inspiration for my game came from this summers vacation on a farm, and I new quite quickly what my game would be. To make a "long" plot short: it will be about a girl trying to collect buckets of milk.

A part of this task is to create a blog and write about every case. Blogging is also new to me, so this week has been about trying to understand and cope with all the technical terms.

I am looking forward to see how this will develop during the weeks till Christmas.