VoiceBox.

EL200 Final groupwork project

Here's a link to the pages I made for the New Media Journalism site.

I'm very pleased with the outcome. Although ideally this was going to be a Flash presentation, I feel it's effective. I accomplished everything I originally intended to.

Feedback is welcome!

EL405: FInal Project- Interactive Fiction...the meaning of life

My project is finally complete, and I'm super excited about the things I've added.

I'm not sure how many words, rooms, or things the game previously had...but this is what the final product reads:

I previously stated I would like to add more objects and fix some of the coding in Leslie's game. I fixed the coding with the berries so they can be given to a character later in the game. I also moved a few objects and characters around in the game. When gameplay starts, you see smoke coming from a clearing, but the smoke never materialized into anything. I added a burning pile of timber, which can be seen in that screen shot. It's an object in the game that allows players to interact with the herd of elephants I also added to the game.

Other things I added were a nest (the main character is an owl) which serves as a clue to the game's end, and a piece of paper floating in the river (won't give away what that does).

I don't think there are any coding errors in the game. I tried very hard to fix my common errors. I made sure I fixed things in place, removed things from play when the intended actions with the objects were completed, and made the game understand multiple words for many actions.

I didn't make instances of Catholic social teaching skills more obvious like I originally wanted to, because as I was coding, I realized that was part of what was special about her game. I simply added more opportunities for the Owlie the owl to help people in need.

Here's the code, you need Inform7 to play. It's free to download.

A Night Out with Owlie (CTS) code

EL405 Final 'folio

Writing for the Internet was my favorite course at Seton Hill. Was.

This semester has been full of challenges and fast-paced learning in New Media Projects, and I loved it. Inform 7 and Hammer were my favorite programs, with Blender in a close tie for second. I had a bit of trouble with The Games Factory two, and Flash, but I still learned some basics and accquired new skills.

This course was also somewhat of an expiriment for Dr. Jerz as well, and I'd say it's been a great success. The only program I would have liked to spend more time in was Flash. I'm sad to see this course end since it was enriched with learning and fun; we had a blast as a class learning from one another and playing each other's games.

Here is my final collection of blog entries:

Project II, second guesses: Leslie and I decided for our final project we would expand each others Catholic Social Teaching games. The end result is a success for both of us.

Blender3d and the Village People: My reflection on working with the free design software, Blender3d. As a class we maniplulated a character to dance the YMCA. Mine even sung along.

You'll never hit your thumb with this hammer: My reflection on working with Hammer, Valve Software's 3D room design tool for Half-Life 2. This entry sparked a discussion about The Sims.

Playing with frustration: My attempt to help Lori fix the coding in her final project. As always, Dr. Jerz pulled through.

EL405: Project II Final: My re-vamped version of Leslie's CTS game, A Night Out with Owlie.

Discussion

All of my entries above sparked a discussion. I've been blogging in a more timely manner this semester, and for fun as well. I check the blogosphere at least once a day now. Sometimes I find myself logging on to the main page with intentions of logging into my blog, and wind up reading instead of writing. Then I click out of the main page and say, "Wait! I wanted to blog something myself."

Here are some comments I left to my peers...

Leslie on her project II progress.

I was the first to leave a comment on Amanda's progress with her Flash CTS presentation.

Wildcards:

Intership advice from my family experts.

TGI'm not working on Black Friday.

playing with frustration.

Last night after the Setonian/EyeContact Christmas party, Lori came to my house to visit. We began discussing final projects, and being that we are in EL405 together, and she is also taking EL236, Interactive FIction was sure to come up.

She asked me to send her coding on how to kill characters, but she had another problem. She wants a character in a room, but that character to not be visible in the room until you complete an action. Usually, characters in a room are visible upon entering.

I needed to be in Inform to figure this out. So we sat down at the computer for what she says is a half hour, haha. It seemed like five minutes to me. I can usually figure out my own coding problems, but this one has me stumped.

I'm sure it's something simple that I'm missing. Anyways, here's a screenshot of my frustration, right before I closed the program.

I tried everything I could think of.

you'll never hit your thumb with this hammer

Last Thursday in New Media Projects, we finally began working with Hammer, Vavle Software's map creation program.

We're using the software to create levels in Half-Life 2, a first person shooter for PC. I've been looking forward to this all semester because I love designing archiechture. I'm a huge fan of The Sims, and building the houses and designing the interior is my favorite part of the game. Only a few people know that I'm dying to go to school for interior design. Granted, desinging rooms for Half-Life isn't exactly glamorous, but it's got endless possibilities.

Desinging levels appeals to many of my hobbies: video games, interior design, architechtual design, and graphic art. I've found Hammer very user-friendly. I like the fact that it runs on a grid system. It's simple to make walls that are the same thickness and appropriate demensions. Hammer is the type of software that most video game addicts could figure out just by playing around. There's no guessing what a button does or confusing coding.

Leslie and I were able to breeze through the tutorials working on one computer, I had to loan my game out since some of our classmates didn't purchase the game. I'm excited to continue working with Hammer, and I hope to begin placing more objects in the room and really getting into customization.

Blender3d and The Village People

I've been meaning to blog about my experience with Blender, a free, three-demensional design tool. Dr. Jerz animated a pre-fab character, Ludwig, to tap his foot to the beat of the YMCA. Our task was to make Ludwig actually make the Y, M, C, and A with his arms- oh no, I thought. I didn't have much experience with Blender because I missed one of the workshops due to not being able to log on to the school's system.

I was so pleased with the results I had. Not only did Ludwig dance a peppy YMCA, but I animated his mouth, and eyes as well. When I was through with him, Ludwig mouthed "YMCA" to the song and his eyes followed the motion of his arms.

I was surprised how quickly I caught on to the essential skills of moving and rotating the "bones" of the object. After about 5 tries of animating the Y position, the other letters were easy to animate. I had slight frustration at first, then class seemed to fly by once I had the hang of Blender.

I'll finally have high speed internet next Thursday, and Blender is the first thing I'm going to download. I reccommend everybody give it a try: the turorials Dr. Jerz assigned were easy to follow. This semester I've discovered that learning new software may be intimidating, but the more you practice, the more sense it makes. Learning multiple types of software has also helped my learning curve. I'm very proud of what I've accomplished, as Im sure my classmates are.

Watching my own progress has granted me several, "mommy look what I can do!" moments. Even though I have yet to show my mom what I can do exactly, since I don't live with her. I did have her play the IF game Leslie and I created, and she was fascinated as well as humored. Out of all the programs we've learned this semester, Inform 7 is definitely my favorite, but Blender3d is a close second.