What an odd trip it's been

This class has been really extraordinary, I never knew what to expect from day to day and everyday i learned something new, either about flash or wiki or about my own abilities. I enjoyed this class alot. I have created a wiki page.
I have also had to do a horribly nerve racking presentation with my partner Meghan. It's on Viddler, check it out.

From day to day I wondered if I would even make it to the end of the year because to be honest this class is beyond hard, not only did we have to do normal english work, but also design a game based on a certain topic. We chose poverty and the plight of the homeless man or woman.

I'm happy to have taken this class because I feel like I have learned alot from it, more about the web, english, and flash. I hope they keep this class at RHS for a very long time. Thank you chez for being an awesome teacher, couldn't have done it without you! Also I'd like to thank Jessica and PJ for all the help they gave us on flash. And lastly I'd like to thank my partner Meghan for putting up with me. I hope everyone has a good summer!

Other peeps games.

I visited all the teams sites and looked at their games, the ones that stood out the most was Pjs game on team page, "flash forward", and team "jessamiah".

Pjs game was quite impressive. He has almost an entire working game! He mentions his topic in the game which is drug abuse but I havnt seen it actualy in depth in the game, but I'm sure what I saw was only a glimpse of what is yet to come. Keep up the good work.

The next teams page was Jessamiah. They had a fully working game and it was exactly on topic! It was about recycling and West Virginias debt. They did a very good job, both teams did. I'm glad these two groups have figured out how action script works, maybe one of them can help me out??? lol

Poetry Conversation

It was interesting to hear how other people interpret poems from long ago. I learned a lot from this experience. Even though I doubt I even learned the true meaning to the poems, but I think we made a good attempt. It was pretty good.

West Virginia

I'm not actualy from West Virginia, I came here when I was 13 and I thought it was going to be grassy and mountainious where I was moving to, with backwards people and such. I was victim to the West Virginia sterotype. When I finally did move up here I found people that were just like the ones I left. Not everyone had only one tooth like the sterotypes say about West Virginia. For this I was glad. Technology here is the same as everywhere else I'v been from what I have seen. I realized this when I moved to Charelston. Technology helps us so much. It allows us to go from place to place, to build and grow our communities, unfortunately sometimes the negative sides of technology show up. Like when a chemical spill happens, or when a mine collapses like what recently happened, the good thing about technology is for every problem it causes it can also fix. We just have to figure out how to use it. I mean we are not as backwards as everyone thinks. I looked up on google for images of West Virginians, I found small towns and some old people, and a group hunting. Not that shocking. Yes West Virginia has these things but I don't know one state that doesn't, but i also found this picture.
Feel free to tell me how you feel about this pic because to be honest it kind of made me angry and I'm not even from here!

Animation!

Today in class we learned about keyframes and buttons and stuff like that. I made a box move accross the screen and rotate! I was so excited. Then PJ started his lesson on the button and my only error was i used the wrong {. I think I'm getting the hang of it.

Drawing in Flash and Button Making

Making a button in flash was easy, it just takes a few short clicks to set up a button. Setting up where it goes is a different story which we have not tried yet. Drawing in flash is rather difficult. I was drawing my city scape and nothing was turning out right, I got a rough drawing of it up on my team page on the wiki. I'm probably going to work on it a little more though. Keep updated people.

Learning text

Today I learned how to use the text tool, it wasn't that hard and I had already messed with it a bit already. I then uploaded my game idea onto my wiki (Check it out) which took awhile because it kept showing up as blank for some reason. Now how I feel about getting started on the game process, I am nervous and excited at the same time. I just hope I meet my own expectations of myself and do a good job and get the story that I want into the game without losing my hair.

Heroes then and Now

The hero in "Gilgamesh" was a great hunter who wanted to kill a creature that was servant to the gods. If I remember correctly he was trying to kill this creature for honor, but that's only from my assumptions and inferences. Well a modern day video game character to which i find similar is the man named Wanderer in "Shadow of the Colossus". A man rides out into forbidden lands to save the one he loves. He must kill giant ancient creatures to bring her back. That's the only character I can think of that is similar. Here's a link to the official site. http://www.us.playstation.com/PS2/Games/Shadow_of_the_Colossus/OGS/

Now the story "The Illiad" is about Achilles, a powerful man that is invincible to everything except getting hit in the ankle. They actually made a flash game of him on addicting games.com, I'd say visit it but you can't while in school because it is blocked. It's a game where you just use your shield and spear to decimate your enemies armies for honor and glory.
http://addictinggames.com
Now here's the thing. I've compared each story to a game. I have found that modern day characters, this is my opinion not every one's, are a lot alike with the old stories. There a lot of games based on old lore's. "God of War" for one, I don't think there was actually a guy named Kratos, but it does have a lot of the Greek mythology and how they acted. So I am thinking they are based on the old stories.

My first game.

When I first saw what we were drawing I thought to myself, this is going to be easy. Boy was I wrong. Actionsript is a pain and you have to get everything perfect or it can screw up the entire program. I was lucky to get a carrot to move accros the screen let alone set up a scoring system. I am really glad though I am taking this class because I have always wanted to learn about game design. If anyone wants to see my game it is on the projects page on my wiki. It's not great but I am proud of my work, because it was a class effort to figure out all the coding. I can't wait to start our next project!

The Ultimate Purpose of the Epic Hero

The thing that Beowulf left behind for his people was untold riches and a inspirational story of a great king. Beowulf lived and died for his people and I don't think he would have had it any other way. Kudos to Beowulf the Geat Lord.

The effects of a story

I believe the story Beowulf was used to inspire great strength and heroism in warriors about to go into combat. It was meant to inspire men to greatness and to fight until the end and to still come out on top. I would like for my games to do the same except I don't want my gamers to go out into battle. Hahahaha.

This is Beowulf

Beowulf meets the requirements of a hero in many ways, he is strong, powerful, and he slays many beasts. He would do well in a video game as well but I do not think it would be very educational. Maybe if it was like map reading or based on history. Beowulf is sort of arrogant in my opinion though. He brags about all of his accomplishments and they are great, but pride is a horrible thing. He reminds me of another character from another game. Kratos from God of War, maybe they based Kratos on the stories of Beowulf. I don't know just thinking out loud. Characteristics for a game, the character must be unique and interesting. Those are the most important characteristics I think.

Hero

The super hero I'm going to write bout is Superman, probaly because I can't think of anyone else. Superman fights evil because he wanted to use his powers for good instead of destruction. He fights galactic evil for the good of everyone. He confronts all evil for mankind. He represents the ability to wear spandex in public and still be treated with respect. I'm just kidding, he represents all that is good about the human race even though he himself is not human.

Playing to learn

The first game I played and enjoyed was September 12th. It's objective was a wierd one, when you first pull up the game it says you can do wahtever you want, it tells you what the terrorists look like and what civilians look like. Then it says you can choose to fight them or not. It doesn't matter. Well if you kill the terrorists and destroy buildings the civialians turn into terrorists and for every building you destroy another one is built or repaired. I'm thinking it is trying to show the futility of war. http://www.newsgaming.com/games/index12.htm

The second game i played was Climate Change, It was a game where you play as a European leader and you have to help the world and your country go green without going broke. It is a really clever game and I think once people get the hang of it they will truly enjoy it. http://www.bbc.co.uk/sn/hottopics/climatechange/climate_challenge/

Teen Safety On The Internet

What I learned was that with online safety is that, you pretty much do the same thing you would do offline in real life. Act responibly ( sorry if that's spelled wrong) and don't post things that can get you in trouble. Don't talk to strangers and such and be careful of what sites you go to. Just all in all don't abuse the internet.

New Blog

lol idk what to type, iv never really blogged before. so im just going to say this my blog. kthx