EL405: Flash Faux Politics

The majority of my Flash dealings over the past week have been putting together my Dodge Intrepid campaign page. While not necessarily adhering to the assigned tasks at hand, this experience has allowed me to delve deeper into Flash and learn things on my own to fit my own needs. Of course, now I am buckling down on developing my Project 1, alot of what I learned with the campaign page will translate directly to the project.

One of the issues I encountered with this design is the sound. I felt that the sound files were too large and obtuse to actually bring in to Flash. So I modeled the program off of a design that we use to actually run the sound effects for the show. The files reside in a folder and are called up by Flash. The code uses the following process (in laments terms): "Create a new sound>the new sound is equal to 'file name'>On release of 'button' play sound."

The one thing I think my current program could use is a preloader. It doesn't for two main reasons: I didn't have enough time, and I don't think it will work with loading external sound files. This Flash app was on a tight deadline, since it needed to go live online by today (since it applies mainly to the live show coming up on Nov 4th). Had I more time to develop it, I think there could be many more features implemented into the design, like a slide show, talking points, and maybe even a voter ballot. (I may try and make the online voting ballot in Flash...) But the big reason I don't have a preloader is because I don't think it will work.

The preloaders described in the Flash Journalism book deal with loading video and sound embedded in Flash. As the program works now, the internet browser downloads all of the sound files individually in the background of the program. So you see the interface, but all of the buttons may not work right away until the sound is done downloading. Dr. Jerz and I talked about having a "preview" sound clip play to tide over the viewer, but since I didn't have any graphic representation of a loading or buffering action, I thought that would be more confusing than helpful. So just for time's sake, I added a little disclaimer at the bottom telling everyone to be patient.

The development of Project 1 is coming along nicely, though. I still don't know what the "story" or "moral" is of the game... but I'm really starting to figure out how it's going to play. The game will be half "Choose Your Own Adventure" and have "Myst-click-fest." The story will play out through text in various frames (possibly with narration... or pictures with narration...) and then you will hit road blocks in which you must look for clues and uncover plot points by searching rooms. It will be a detective story teaching one of the lessons of Catholic Social Teaching.