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... :)

Paper Prototype

Making a paper prototype was hard because you have to draw everything and you have to do it perfectly, and if you don't then that's how it's going to be on the image gallery, flash, and on your projects page. I think it's better in flash because you don't have to worry about it being perfect. It helped me to solve a lot of things with my game idea, like where to hide my hidden objects and where to put my decoy objects. It also helped me solve my idea, and what my background should be.

Flash

I drew my background in flash, it was kind of easy because I get to trace it and not just do it off the back of my hand. And I also like it because you don't have to do it perfect [you can always go back later on and fix or adjust the little kinks]. It also doesn't require a lot of perfection with compared to drawing it by hand. In flash if you want to draw a strait line, there is a tool for that. And you don't have to worry about having a perfect circle, because there is a tool for that. There is pretty much a tool for everything, you don't have to do it by hand [technically]. It's just much easier doing it in flash with a mouse than drawing everything with a pencil and paper. It's also a little hard because when you have to trace something and it is too small, you have to zoom in and it doesn't clear it, like you zoom in and you can't see what your going to trace because it's so blurry. But over all it's much easier.