Scratch Game Design

Scratch Chase Game

(If it goes back to the game you're done with, move your mouse pointer)

Hey guys, so something we've been working on is Scratch. Scratch is a website where you can create your own game. It takes a lot of coding (if you make a complex game.) For my game, I've thought of penguins. Who doesn't like penguins right? So one of my characters (out of two) is a penguin and the other one is a shark. You can say that it would be a real life situation where a penguin is running or swimming away from a shark. No, it won't get eaten you'd only lose points so no death is shown. I won't say that everybody would like my game that I created, I'm only a beginner so you have to deal with it for now (not like I'd be a professional.) It's the user who'd decide on how they would be affected by my game and it's not the best, don't expect some huge explosion then the penguin pops out of nowhere then met a villain (shark) and it has to run away from it in the sea. Yeah, none of that just some simple game where you run away (so complex I know.) I'm going to be honest, for the first few codes that we've done I was like, "Oh yeah, this seems easy. I can manage this project!" and then it gets to actually making it, then I went from "Yay" to "Nay."

I'll go in depth and tell you about my game. My game contains 2 sprites as so called in Scratch. The sprites are a shark and the penguin you see above. The idea of my game is stated on my first paragraph, it's to run away from the shark until the timer goes off. I did draw my own background and penguin, I tried my best. I had a set of plans on how things are going to go, but then I had to change it because I didn't have that much time to work on my Scratch. In my opinion, not that much people in my class drew their own sprites nor background. If I compare my game to others, one feature that would stand out is that I drew my background and penguin. (The most important and outstanding thing of all *wink wink*) To be honest I really like what my game has come to, it doesn't really work that well but it works and I tried my best. It amazes me that I can make my own game and let the whole world see and play it and compliment it how bad or good it is. I've tried my best and I know I can go over and beyond on my level at the moment, but I'm having some trouble with computers (it's not working) so I don't have much time to work on it except for school.

To be honest, I didn't copy all my code from another scratcher. I've learned from my previous scratch game which is the Chase Game. I've learned how to make it jump and so on. But overall, the best code I've done would be a simple jumping. I know its simple, it's just jumping you can just add a forever code with a sensing code and motion. Not my case, the trouble I had on making my sprite jump and gliding or falling back down was very challenging. That's what makes it the best code I've done, I've figured out how to make it jump and go back down. When it touches black then it stays there and you can jump to the next platform. Yes, it does look fairly easy to do but trust me it works great. If you played my platformer game let me tell you that there is a lot of bugs that I have to fix. One of the major one is when you reach the last level and you go to the red box it makes the sprite float up. I don't know what happened but it works fine in the first level then it goes all down hill on the second level. That's the main one actually, nothing else bugs except for the last level where it floats and then you get stuck and then you go from smiling to "oh, now what?" thing. I do hope you guys like it, it's exceptional if you don't I get it. Just hoping you guys would, I know how bad I am at Scratch, younger students than me is better than me to be honest, I won't lie about that.

Invention Commercial

P3T5_Invention from Kapaa Middle School MEDIA on Vimeo.

Do you guys remember the commercial project we did? Well let me tell you more about it! My teams goal was to make the video work. Since our invention is an app and we can't make it since we have not learned to do so and we don't have that power. We made a video, not mainly showing and containing our invention because we didn't make it. It was hard not to show it so we tried our best to make the audience and the video make sense on how the Conflict Checker works. It kind of works but overall we could've done better and more entertainment. It was hard to think of an invention you can invent because these days, the things you see is very complex. It might look innocent on the outside, but the inside is a math problem.

The best team moment that me and my teammates had was when we were filming. When we film there is a lot of goofing around but we get work done so no worries! Filming is like the best part of doing a project for GT, you get to spend time with your teammates outside of school while doing your work! Doesn't that sound fun? Yes it does, we had all our fooling around time and serious and do our work time. We sometimes got off task but we got everything done even though we didn't have any film for the first few days but we worked it out and we were the 2nd team that turned their commercial in. I'm very proud of that!

Breaking it down who did who and why did they do. Let me tell you about it, Ashley filmed with me since Julie couldn't and we've done well on that. She was on the days we had to film and she was right on track. She helped a lot, she cooperated with me and Julie really well and she saved our lives when our battery died (we used Ashley's camera.) Julie mostly did the narration and the planning on what we had to do in school, she couldn't really film with us but she helps on working and filming in school for the voice-overs and narration. While I, Kyla went all out and kind of took control on how the filming will go. I mostly did the plan with the help from Julie and Ashley and when Julie couldn't attend our filming session, I changed the plan on that day. For the little time we had, me and Ashley achieved on filming every single part. I also did most of the editing in iMovie with some helps and suggestions from Julie and Ashley.

Composition Scavenger Hunt

Recently, we made a video about composition techniques with our teammates. From all the 20 techniques, we were only assigned to do 10. In those 10 techniques, the most important one I must say is Rule of Thirds. You might think, "Why Rule of Thirds? What's so interesting about it?" Well, let me tell you what Rule of Thirds is. Rule of Thirds is a major rule and well known for taking pictures or a video that includes an interview. This allows your picture to be more interesting and dynamic shots and it acts as a frame for your image.

From all 10 composition techniques, in my opinion the hardest one is Contrast in Content because a lot of things are related to each other. In that, I mean flowers, leaves, trees, grass are in one category of plants! That's the mistake we made for ours, we took a flower and put in on the grass. As we though that, that was contrast in content but Mr. Sanderl said that, that's in one category of plants. Nature is related to each other in some way, the only contrast in content I can think that would pass is a human against grass. If you think of things really thoughtfully, I guess you can come up with a lot of things than I would. There are some other hard ones, but how you plan on taking the picture takes a lot of technical thinking.

My teammates are Julie and Ashley and they are really helpful on planning things. When we think together we actually get a lot of ideas to add onto our invention. Basically, we all our in charge of planning outside of school and we've done that already. Ashley and I thought of how the scripts would go and the composition techniques and shot types. Julie was the one who planned things out and just gave moral support and thought of a lot of ideas we could do. While I, helped with the visual plan, b-roll planning and the timing. I know that we will finish all our b-roll over the weekend and even though my teammates have hula and cheer practice (while I don't play any sports so I'm literally free) we will get it done. It isn't hard if you think of it and we only have to consider the shot types and composition techniques.