Reflection Post

This week, I worked with audio to check on the sound effects such as footsteps and background music. I also worked with a few others to plan a few trifolds to explain the class of PLTW itself as well as one for explaining the game. The PLTW trifold will show PLTW's work and progress of PLTW as a class. This will include things like our in class challenges, inventor work, CAD drawings, and more. Our other trifold will be for the game, describing the game, the story line, how to play, and more. We have our short paragraphs of explanations and our pictures printed as well as some decoration glued on and stenciled letters painted on.

Maker faire showcase design

What did you intend in your showcase design- color, size, shapes.

For my design I intended to have our tri-folds on the sides so that they are not in the center of everything where things like the game and pictures for our class will be. The center of attention will be our game itself. Diana and I were thinking of taking some tablets and showing a slideshow presentation with pictures of our class working as well as having some of us bring in some of our projects we've done in this class (blocks, kaleidoscope, etc.) which would be nice if everyone could bring some of our old projects if they have them. The orange and black on the tri-folds will represent our school colors.

What was your role in the game design team and how did you contribute to the overall development of the game? How did your role start out at the beginning of this project and how did it evolve over time?

My roles was to handle background music for level one. At first we thought we could get some audio files off the internet but it turns out we had to record it ourselves, due to copyright. After recording the music we altered it to give it our own sound. We recorded the voice of the main character as well.

How do you feel we did as a team in meeting our original Game Design project goals?

At the beginning our plan for the game was very different. We intended for the player to obtain an item within the maze as well as battle creatures and such. Our narrative team confused us though, and changed it by setting it up to just be an escape from the maze game. I was very confused at this. Also the engineering could not figure out how to make creatures to battle so we scrapped the idea.  But its going well and we should be testing the game soon.

What do you wish had gone differently throughout the game design process?

I just wish we had more time to work on it and somewhat stuck to our original idea but otherwise it was okay.

What do you feel were your greatest achievements throughout the game design process?

In this, audio had a lot of difficulty when it came to copyright on music and sounds. It was a great achievement learning a few simple things to play on a piano and then editing the sound with Craig to make it unique.

Audio Team

This week in audio, we managed to recored the narrative, voiced by Jake and Matt, as well as the 'Gama Over' by Ben. We also recorded some background music for the beginning/ending.

Progress in Audio

For this week, I've been working on background music for the game. Since we can't download songs off the internet due to copyright, we have to record our own music. I narrowed down my long list of suggestions to a few songs and I have been looking for sheet music as well as learning how to play the songs involving guitar. For an intro I'm thinking of using Lacie's melody from Pandora Hearts (of which Alvin is helping me with), Welcome to the Black Parade by My Chemical Romance afterwards, and possibly Mighty Fall by Fallout boy. We just need some recording equipment and some learning time and we should be ready soon.

7.1 DRAWINGS

Maker Fair Roles

I really don't have much experience in any of the given fields for this game but a job that would best suit me on this team would be sound. I've done some video projects for school before that required using things like sound effects so I know what to do when it comes to finding these and putting them in the game. I listen to a little bit of everything and I'm very flexible when it comes to music so it would be great for picking out background music to use for the game.

Instant challenge

For this instant challenge, we had to build something that built up potential energy and turned it into kinetic energy. Our idea was that of a propeller being turned by a rubber band. It probably would've worked with more time and other materials but we did not have those. Our project failed to cross the starting line and our rubber band snapped before we could start.