Evaluation

Overall I'm really happy with how my game has turned out. I think it's bright and attractive because of all the bright colours so makes the user want to play it and attracts their attention. The concept of the game is really simple so its really easy to play and doesn't need any instructions. The sounds on the game are quite funny and I've found testing it on my flatmates has been quite amusing. 

If I made improvements to it or had more time I would add some more levels to the game, and make the levels progressively harder. I could make the bubble timed so you only have a certain amount of time to get to it before it disappears. I could up the point total when you reach the bubble and maybe add some music to the game other than the popping sound. I would also try and make an outside source make an effect on the game as I could not complete this area of the brief.

I found the coding quite difficult at times and it did take me a while to get my head around it. However I did enjoy making the game and had a good time playing around with my ideas and see what I could create from what I already knew about actionscript. I used some tutorials online just to gain some ideas of how to write the code out in a logical way. But my favourite part was definitely testing out all the games at the beginning :)

Game Creation

I put my game together in various stages. First I used photoshop to create the fish and the bubble:

Then imported them to the stage, and converted them to symbols and made sure I exported the bubble to actionscript so I could delete it from the stage and call it when it was needed in the game.

I did the coding in various stages once I had all the components in the game.

I began by making the fish move using the arrow keys. This was quite tricky and took me a while to complete as I kept getting error messages up but I found a couple of websites that gave me some tips and I eventually worked out how to complete it. Looking back at the code now I can see how it would all fit together and using the websites helped me to understand the way the script works a bit better and made the rest of the coding slightly easier. 

Once I had the fish moving around the screen I decided to move onto the bubble. At the start I wasn't quite sure what I wanted to do with the bubble, whether I wanted loads to appear and the player had to go round popping them all, or whether I wanted the bubble to appear once and the player had to go and pop it then move on to wherever the next bubble appeared. I thought the second idea was better as I could incorporate a better scoring system into the game so I decided on this as the final idea. We'd done a similar idea in the tutorial in class so I used some of this code but changed it so that it worked when the fish was controlled by the arrow keys. This took some time to do and I had to play around with the code a bit before I managed to get it all working.

After this it was time to play around with the collision counter and the scoring system. We hadn't done this in class so I had a bit of trouble trying to work out how to make the counter increase in the score box when the fish hit the bubbles, but once I had worked out how to do it I realised it was really easy.

I used a dynamic text box named scoreTxt and made it so that when the fish hit the bubble the score increased by one, score++. I coded the timer as well to make sure it counted down from 30 seconds and went to the next keyframe and made sure that it displays the score properly. 

I added in the sound of a bubble popping when the fish gets the bubble to make the game a bit more appealing. 

Planning

Planning was one of the most important parts of this project as I wanted to make sure I thought of a game that I could create and used the best of my actionscript skills. It was also important that I kept to the specification that Chris had given us to ensure I fulfilled all the points.

After looking at some games on the internet I had a couple of ideas of what I wanted to do. I knew the game had to be bright and colourful, there are so many games out there available to the user that making sure mine stood out was crucial and making the more colourful also makes it more appealing to play and gives the user a better experience.

My first idea was to do a demolition derby style game or a racing game. I was put off this idea as the area of motorsport games is a very popular and competitive one and i did not want to make a game that has probably been made a thousand times before. I wanted to do something a bit different.

I finally decided on my bubble popping underwater game after having another look on the gaming websites. I thought the concept of the game was simple so users of any age would be able to play it without any practise or previous experience, the graphics would be easy to create and I could create something that was really colourful and appealing to the eye.

I began by choosing the underwater scene and the fish. I decided on my final choice because they were fun cartoons and made the game instantly look brighter and more appealing.

Computer Gaming

The world of computer gaming has always been a competitive one with thousands of sites across the internet offering users new and exciting games to test their logic. There are multiple types of games available on the internet that offer different gaming experiences, such as flash games, RPG, gambling, racing etc. Sites such as http://www.miniclip.com/games/en/ offer users thousands of games at a single click and sites like these mainly make money from advertising and the number of visitors they get to their site.

I often used sites like Miniclip when I was younger to play online games so I am familiar with the different types of games available. But now rather than playing the games, I am more interested in looking at how they were made and why they are so popular.

I went on multiple gaming websites:

http://www.miniclip.com/games/en/ : Miniclip

http://www.shockwave.com/home.jsp : Shockwave

http://www.addictinggames.com/ : Addicting Games

http://www.bigfishgames.com/online-games/index.html : Big Fish Games


The first game I tried was Hot Air. The idea of this game was to use the mouse as a fan to blow the balloon to the other side of the screen, or to where ever the final platform was.

Even I found this game a bit tricky especially using a trackpad on the computer! I imagine if this game was designed for a younger audience then even they would have a tough time playing it! I did however like the way the speed of the wind changed the way the balloon moved depending on how far away from the balloon the mouse was when you clicked it. This made the game slightly more realistic.

The graphics in this game were quite good, they were simple and had a pixelated feel to them but i think this was done in the style that the creator of the game, Nitrome, always uses and the colours were really bright and attractive to younger children.


The second game I played was simply called the sheep game. This game was very simple to use and barely needed any instructions.

The idea of this one is to heard all of the sheep into the pen using the mouse, the sheep move away from the mouse as you move it towards them so you have to carefully try and move them into the pen without them running too far away from the mouse. This game was surprisingly enjoyable and it was relatively easy to complete. The score is based on the time it takes to get the sheep into the pen and the number of sheep you catch. Again the colours are very bright and the graphics are really simple.

Miniclip have a special 5-minute game section so i thought I'd have a look on here to see if there were any games that would give me some inspiration for my own game as the idea of mine was to be quite short and easy to complete. I found a game called Traps, Mines, and a Sheep that I thought was quite fun to play. The idea of this game was to blow up all the mines and the traps whilst ensuring that the sheep doesn't stop moving.

This game is quite different to the others that I played. The graphics are very very simple and the main colours are black, white and red. It doesn't have much to attract the users but the game works and is quite  addicting after the first play, I found myself playing it a couple of time trying to beat my own score. 

I think from all the games i've played i've definitely found some inspiration for my own game. I know that I need to make it colourful and bright to instantly attract the user to play it. Having a game that stands out from all the rest is definitely important as there are thousands of games available on the internet. A catchy title always helps as well. Most of the really simple games I played had one purpose for the user, normally to complete something within a time limit, but this also made them more addictive as you always want to beat your best time.