On Day 2, students got more immersed in their program of choice and made some great projects. We also decided that these blogs would be more engaging with real excerpts and examples of their experience. So beginning Day 3, and with this post, we will be hearing from the participants.
Please welcome Jack and Will, both grade 9 students, who will share their experiences thus far.
Jack
I learned how to code in GameMaker Studio 2. I am able to make a sprite that can move around the screen via the arrow keys. I learned how to make "bullets" fire from the sprite, and then disappear after they hit a target. I am able to make enemies that independently track the sprite, and when they come into contact with the sprite, the game restarts. Some challenges I faced would be having to code exactly where the bullets come from, and linking names of sprites in different lines of code to make everything connect. I had a lot of success with implementing my partner's designs into the game, and sizing and scaling them to fit.
Will Today in the Programming Discovery Term I designed a terrain and created objects that “PLAYER1” can use in my game. To design the terrain, I first created a flat surface on the y axis, equal to “0”. Then, I used a raise tool and made parts of the environment have a higher y value, thus giving it height and variation. Then I painted the terrain on the y=0 value blue, which represents water. Then any terrain that was higher than y=0 was colored to represent either sand or grass. This resulted in an island. Then, I added trees to make the environment more appealing for the player and to also add some more variation. Secondly, I began creating objects for the player to use. I started off with a cylinder in front of the player camera to act as a handle. I then attached a cube to that to ultimately represent a hammer. In my opinion, this process is instrumental to my game as it combines the playing experience with immersion. Tomorrow I will be working mainly on animations and the details of the tools.
