case 6

In this case you will continue to work on a background. You will also work on new characters and think about your idea again, but this time with the knowledge you have acquired since you started programming. In your blog you shall describe the story behind the game, the interactivity, and you must sell your concept to a fresh gamer.

It’s time to be creative again. After weeks of programming it’s time for a little ‘break’ and go nuts with the paintbrush. A welcome break from the strict logic of ActionScript which, although fun to learn, can be a bit much in the beginning.

So far I’ve expanded the ground my ghost walks upon, basically to get an idea of how to further play around with it. I’ve made some suggestions to backgrounds and background objects, such as trees/palms, sand/grass/rock and mountains in the background in all sorts of colours. I haven’t quite decided what theme to run with yet. I might end up with making it so there are three or more templates that may load at random when starting the game, just to add a bit of re-playability, but that depends on my coding skills later on.

I haven’t quite gotten to the point of creating new characters, but I have an idea or two that I don’t really want to reveal quite yet (simply because I like secrets, not because it’s a great idea or anything). It will most likely be black and red and go ‘chomp! chomp!’. Shouldn’t be too hard to figure out, really.

About the interactivity: this game is purely about me learning how to animate and program (mostly about the ActionScript) stuff, with a side dish of entertainment.

I’ve gone with my own definition of interactivity (which is pretty much exactly the same as everybody else’s definition, but it saves me referring to somewhere, which would’ve been shorter than this piece of text anyway) which is basically and kind of manipulation that results in something else reacting. Something else being the main character in this case. Simply push the left or right arrow key to make him walk about. If you want to jump, push the up arrow key (it says so in the code file, so it must be true).

But pushing keys wouldn’t be any fun unless you get a visual cue that supports what you’re expecting to happen. Enter: the animation. As you may have noticed the ghost moves about in a relatively credible manner. This thanks to still-standing animation (think of a moonwalk on the spot… sort of, only stepping forwards on the spot. It’s nothing like moonwalking really). I’ve still got to figure out how to freeze the jump animation at the end of its cycle while the character is airborne, but I don’t think it should be too hard (I suspect something about some ‘update’ function, but I’ll have to look closer later on.

In short, this game is a mixture of everyone’s favourite PacMan, or rather, one of the poor ghosts that get the short end of the stick every day at ‘work’, and something out of South Park. The girls think he’s cute, and the guys .. well, they haven’t really voiced their opinions yet, but they sure are jealous of the little rascal and his magnetism-effect on the ladies. You really can’t afford to not play the game and help the cutest anti-hero find his way back to work so he can punch out and get home to his kid in time for a bedtime story.

Can you find the parts of the portal that are scattered all over several different locations? With enemies to circumnavigate if you stick around long enough (yes, there’s a clever joke there), stunning vector graphics and a killer soundtrack (it’s to die for, really it is) there’s enough fun to keep you occupied for several minutes at a time.

DISCLAIMER: The last two paragraphs are the opinion of one slightly deranged individual and do not necessarily represent the view, attitude or opinion of the rest of the world, unless you happen to agree, in which case it does.

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