Plan Team Game

We are designing our game for children between the ages of 7-14 because I feel if the children are too young they won't know what we were trying to say, they would just be playing the game. Our game is not going to be hurtful to any specific group of people by not specifying any particular group. My game will teach the player about animal welfare & how to identify animal abuse & bad environments for animals. We are making a social issue game, we will show multiple perspectives by creating different levels with diverse perspectives. Our game [with many levels] will happen in a park, a backyard, etc. The world we will design for our game will be a game were there are people who abuse animals and you have to stop them. This setting will add to the learning experience by helping the player understand the environment of animal welfare. The game world teaches the player about my topic by helping him/her experience it, but not being so cruel [because you cannot show a child such cruelty to a child at a young age]. Animal Welfare happens in the world, and this helps the player learn about the social issues in our society now a days. The player uses what they learn to save the animals in the game. A game is a better way of understanding our topic than a quiz because you can't give someone the right answer to everything, they need to learn it with what they think is right. It isn't a matter of knowing that hitting animals is bad, it is the knowledge and kindness of people that identifies what is bad and what isn't. That is my team game plan.

Choose Team Game Topic

My team chose this topic because I believe we all have a great passion for animals. Together we worked, to decide that we were going to make a game that helps the Austin Humane Society & something that will help groups of all ages that it is important that someone stands up to helps animal be herd [because they can't do it for themselves]. Animal abuse is everywhere & some people can't see that. People don't realize that animal abuse isn't just animals being hit too hard or left outside, its when owners don't pay attention to them, or they don't think its necessary to take them a bath, or they think their "pet" is the ticket to getting themselves rich. It's not, its much more than that, animals have it bad sometimes & usually we don't see it, maybe we just see a dog sitting there on a short chain, but its much more than that, & I don't think most people see that, whether your a kid, adult, adolescent, or an elderly person, everyone needs to realize it. Animals are very very similar to a baby, whether they are 10 years old [70 in dog years], or they are barely 2 months old, a dog needs love & they need to be saved from this cruelty that we have in this world. In my team, we all have pets, & it is hard for us to know that people do this to their animals when we cry just loking at our animals & thinking about it. This is just the few things I have to say about the topic my team is making a game about. Thanks for reading! :)

First Game Idea

This week i have been researching various nonprofit organizations in Austin. Of the five organizations I've researched, the one I would like to work with the most is Austin Humane Society. I think I like this one the most because it works with animals & I think I can make a good game with this. :) Some game ideas that I have are to have something like you have to save animals & you have to get them to the Austin Humane Society but there will be other animal shelters but in those they would kill them in less than a week. There will be a timer for 1 minute on each level & if you choose the wrong animal shelter, they will be killed because they have no owner. Maybe there will be a map & you have to choose where you want to go. In the beginning there will be some questions that you have to answer right before you play the game. That is pretty much most of what I can think of [off the top of my head] right now. So that is the organization that I would most like to work with [right now].

Austin Nonprofits

These are some organisations I am interested in & a little summary of them:

Austin Community College Foundation

This organisation was started in 1991 to expand education throughout Austin. It was made to develop a community that supports college & success. The Foundation was in its final year of a 4 year $1 million scholarship campaign to provide 400 new scholarships by 2011. Over $850,000 has been raised. This will support even more students for the future.

The Yellow Bike Project

Their motto is "Human-powered transportation through community participation".They promote bicycle transportation because it is cheap, accessible, quiet, clean, & healthy. Cars are destroying our city! They provide free training, bike repair, & donate bikes to schools and shelters for the homeless & abused, restore inexpensive bikes for sale. They are all very kind, and I know because I have been there before, I got one of their broken down bikes & fixed it & now I know how to fix my bike encase it brakes later. That is the organisation of the Yellow Bike Project. :)

Keep Austin Beautiful

This organisation provides resources & education to inspire the Austin community towards greater environmental stewardship. KAB programs clean, beautify, restore & protect the Austin environment through physical improvements & education.

Austin Dog Alliance

Austin Dog Alliance improves the health and well being of individuals and families through programs incorporating the powerful connection between dogs and humans. To achieve their mission they:

• Promote the valuable role of pet therapy in their community
• Implement animal assisted programs in nursing homes, hospitals and rehabilitation centers
• Enhance student reading skills by utilizing Bow Wow Reading Dog pet therapy teams at schools and libraries
• Provide a variety of fun and educational programs designed to build self-esteem and teach children to love and respect dogs
• Provide programs for children and their families who are affected by Autism Spectrum Disorder and other special learning needs
• Provide professional and positive dog training classes
• Carefully place rescued dogs into forever homes

Austin Humane Society

The Austin Humane Society (AHS) offers comprehensive, humane, life-saving animal services, transforming the lives of animals and those who love them. Because they believe homeless animals deserve a chance to thrive in a loving environment, they offer innovative, nationally recognized programs that save the lives of thousands of dogs and cats each year. AHS’ approach to addressing animal homelessness encompasses both finding animals homes through adoption as well as preventing future homelessness through spay/neuter programs.

My Experience of Making This Game

My Big Idea

My learning topic for this game is trying to teach people about the endangered animals in Costa Rica. The most important thing I want the players to learn is that there are endangered animals in the world and some people know they are causing it and don't care, and there are some people that are trying to help but they have no power over it! :( 

Research

I did a lot of research, I researched what species are being endangered in Costa Rica and what types of habitats they live in. I also researched things like what caused these species to be endangered and if they were caused by humans or if it was caused by natural causes. I learned that there are a lot of animals that are endangered and some people are trying to help and there are some people that just don't care, but they don't realize that if an animal goes extinct, it can mess up the entire food chain and can damage things permanently! People might think that it won't affect us because we don't have a use for them or something but it does. Like for example, if anteaters go extinct, there will be too many ants in the world because even if there are other animals that eat ants, anteaters eat only ants so they are the ants biggest predator. Not only will the ants be overpopulated, they will have an effect on us, we will be getting bitten by some deadly ones [and even if they're not deadly there are people that are allergic to them]. 

Making Decisions

As I worked on my game, my ideas changed. They changed in a way that I didn't think they would. At first I was only doing it because it was for a grade, but then I actually found it very interesting. :) I thought it was interesting that people think a whole lot different way than I do. And that some don't care even the people that know that it could affect human society. It changed my point of view on the way I was going to present my game. I thought that if I just put in facts out of nowhere that people wouldn't like it or wouldn't care for it, so I put it so when people play my game, they would get facts on it while playing.

Mastering Programming

The most helpful resources so far have been the wiki tips and the game ingredients on the side bar of the wiki. These have been the most helpful so far because on the page, there are videos and codes for flash and it tells you directions from step to step.

Overcoming Challenges

The most difficult part of making the game [for me] was having to put in detail for the drawings. Other than that it was pretty easy for me, I thought the codes were easy. :) I couldn't really overcome this challenge because I had to draw the animals but I liked it in the end, it was worth it. I am most proud of the message box feature and the scoring, I didn't know how to do that last year so that's why I'm proud of it! :D

Choosing Learning Topic

I like this topic [endangered animals]  for my Hidden Object game because I like animals and it's good to show people what is going on in the world. We have to show people that there are problems and we need to fix them. Why sit there when you could be telling someone about everything that is going on in our world and how it affects not only the animals but us as well. There are some people that know that this is happening and they aren't doing anything about it. And yet there are people who want to do something about it and aren't doing anything. I would like to be that person to inform people about this topic. That is why I chose this topic. :)

Add Hidden Objects

This isn't my first time programming in flash. I worked in 

flash for the last three years. Next I would like to add the

decoy objects, then the scoring action. That is pretty much 

everything... :)