Resident Collision

Working with Alice on this project has been an eye opening and enjoyable experience from start to finish. Alice is a very easy to use programming tool that is used to teach programming concepts to programming beginners. It operates by allowing the user to manipulate little animations using programming structure and instructions. It is very useful to the beginner because it is not very oppressive to learn and is actually very simple to understand. The structure of the language is very close to English in its structure and is very easy to construct.

Through out the creation of my animation, I was struck with the simplicity of the programs methods and how I was able to make a cool looking video and did not have to really learn the whole syntax of a programming language to do it. I enjoyed the wide variety of characters and objects that can be put into an Alice world. The object library was quite varied and expansive and offers wide avenues for creative thought.

Coming from working with Alice for my Introduction to Computer Science course, I have a different perspective on the uses of Alice as well as some of its more advanced features. Coming into this project with this previous knowledge of Alice helped me to impprove the visual smoothness of my video as well as a better understanding of the mechanics of movement in Alice. I feel that this project helped me to realize my full potential for creative thought as well as the vast possibilities for creativity that programming gives people.

For the FSEM Gaming corporation, I would like to present a game capable of capturing the minds of game players both young and old. A game of such violence that it would make P.E.T.A. members worldwide blanch and U.F.O. enthusiasts sing Handel’s Messiah! Penguin lovers beware, as I present to you, Destroy all……Penguins!!!.

The game follows the destruction-ridden adventures of Iggy, an alien from the far reaches of space. He is very cautious when he is out traveling across the solar system and always stays within the safe confines of his robot armor suit. Iggy crash lands at the South Pole and finds that his spaceship is damaged. He is surprised to encounter the native creatures of this snow filled world known as penguins. He mistakenly interprets a penguins inquisitive tap on his robot leg as a threat and immediately blows the penguin. Now fearing that all of the penguins are hostile in nature, Iggy immediately begins to wage war against the penguin race while waiting for rescue by his alien brothers. As Iggy battles the penguins, he tries to obtain ice crystal which will help him boost the distress signal on his robot suit.

My promotional video shall open with a dramatic presentation of the game title followed by a shot of Iggy as he stands next to his damaged spaceship. A penguin will approach Iggy and lightly peck Iggy’s leg. Iggy will immediately vaporize the penguin and state that he will kill all the penguins in sight to preserve his own existence until his rescue. The groups of penguins will walk towards Iggy in a few columns and Iggy will blast them away. The penguins will then form a ring around the Iggy and the camera will then circle around Iggy giving the illusion that Iggy is surrounded. Iggy will then swivel his head and destroy the penguins that are surrounding him and then advance towards a ice crystal that is guarded by hordes of penguins. The scene will end with Iggy making a charge towards the camera as he heads off to fight the penguins for control of the ice crystal. The whole clip should be no more than a minute long.

This game will become an instant success because of its ability to give instant gratification to the player as he/she blows away seeming endless hordes of penguins to acquire the precious crystals. Destroy All….Penguins!!!!! is sure to be a enjoyable and profitable experience for all those at FSEM Gaming Corporation and the their loyal customers.

Time in games is used in many different ways. It is used build suspense and/or to give the player a sense of simulated time. In the game Medieval 2 Total War, a game in which you fight to make your faction the greatest in the world, time is used in three main ways.

The first way in which Medieval 2 uses time is in its initial world map. This world map shows a player the whole world and their units positions in the world. It also displays the positions of computer controlled units. Time in this section of the game revolves around a turn based system in which each turn of game play is equal to two “literal” years. During a players turn, the player can decide to build units and building, as well as move units to other cities or places on the map. These units and buildings are also effected by the turn based time system becasue they take a certain number of years to complete.  The time that a player takes to move his or her units around the board and to setup construction queues is done through looped or cyclical time.  the player can take as much time aas they want to make all these moves and can even leave the computer without anything happening in the game.  When the player ends his turn, the game then loops through each faction and allows then to make their moves.  After all of the factions have made their moves, the player starts a new turn ad the process starts all over again.

This cycle of time is only truly broken when a player enters a battle.  In a battle, the units that were represented on the board by large than life figures are expanded in to a realistic army setup on the battle field in set formations.  The player then enters another time period where time is infinitely looped where the player sets up his or her troops.  Once the player decides to proceed past this initial setup phase, the battle commences.  the player then enters real time, with the player having control of his or her troops in live action.

Once the battle starts a time is set to run at the bottom left o f the screen.  The duration of this time is set before a player starts a game but is allowed to be changed when starting a new game.  The default is set to 30 minutes.  This time limits the length of battles and sets the attacking team within time constraints to achieve victory.  If the attacking force is not able to destroy the defending force before the time runs out, then the defender automatically wins.  this game time also has a feature which allows you to speed up this time up to 10 times its normal speed.  After a battle the game returns to its map based cyclical time.

The time scheme in Medieval 2 is set up to allow the player to experience a wide range of game play and to interact with the game environment on many different levels.  This wide range of adds to a players enjoyment of the game and allows them to experience many different types of in game time in just one game.

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Medieval II is a board game/real-time strategy game that is based off of the Total War series. Medieval II is the second installment of the series Middle Ages setting. The premise of the game is play as the leader of a country in the Middle Ages and lead your people to conquer the world. As the leader of a country in the Middle Ages, you get to control the construction of armies, the expansion and upgrading of cites, your country’s diplomatic relations with other nations, and your relationship with the Pope in Italy.

On of the main reasons that I chose this game was because of its expansive rang of choice in the running of the country that you control. It allows you to plan the unit types that your armies consist of, the number of each type of unit in you army, and the means in which you wage a battle. One of the main reasons that I so greatly like playing this game is the amount of control that you have over a unit while commanding a battle. You are actually allowed to chose their fighting style, special formations that they can take for a more strategic defense or offense. You also are allowed to control the movement and actions of your units in battle in real-time and this allows you to experiment with different strategies. The degree of micro management that is allowed in this game allows a player fine tune his strategy and try to find what will allow him to prevail against his or her enemy. The AI present in this game also allows for a challenge to the player in that the skill of the AI is based on the experience of the acting general in your army. This forces the player to also look into the commander of the enemy forces and to gauge whether or not to actually command a battle first hand.

The social aspect of this game is very different from that of other more multi-player centric games. This game does offer a multi-player battle experience that allows a player to configure an army with a set amount of points and then take on an opponent over the Internet . This side of the game is not as prevalent to the social side of the game because it is not very dynamic. I have found that the most fun that I have had playing this game is through the playing of the campaign game as a team with a group of friends. My best friend Jimmy, my brother Josh and I would sit down to a game of Medieval II were we would come to a consensus as to which country we would play as and then proceed to play the game in turns, with the two of us not currently in control acting as advisors. This would lead to a sort of diplomatic struggle out of game as well as in-game as we would argue over our strategy and who each of us was running the country. This allowed for the most enjoyable gaming experience that I have ever had with a predominantly single player game.

Events in Second Life are realtime events that a person can attend to either learn about aspects of Second Life such as scripting, sculpting, and communication or to participate in a recreational activity online. Second Life classes can also be taught on a real world subject or activity. The voice chat feature of Second Life, along with it text-based communication system, allows for classes to also encompass non-technical learning such as discussions in philosophy or religion.

The event that i choose to participate in was a recreational scavenger hunt across a Second Life mall called Promenade Mall.

In this scavenger hunt, the objective was to wander around the mall and enter vendors stalls in search of pirate treasure chests.

Inside each of these treasure chests is a free item from a vendor in Second Life. Throughout the course of my search I found two treasure chests. Both chests that I found contained a pair of designer shoes. The mall was populated with many vendors, mainly clothing stores, that were attempting to sell their wares. This event was less of a social event and more of a advertising promotional to get people to buy the store’s wares. There was little social interaction in the event due to the constant moving about to find new treasure chests. This event was fun to participate in and was also good for the stores in the mall because it gave the stores advertising.

Second Life communities can be quite extensive, from a few members to groups teaming in the thousands, covering all ranges of topics from education to Star Wars nerds. over the past couple of days, I have became a member of two groups in SL. The first of these is The Galactic Alliance, a group dedicated to the preservation of the Star Wars universe. I had an interesting experience with this group in that I wasn’t able to contact any of them. I read in the group description that they meet on a world called Dagobah. this land did not actually exist anymore so I was not able to get in contact with that group.

The second group I joined on SL was the Welfare Island group. This group occupies its time standing on little multi-colored balls and earn small amounts of Linden dollars (in game money) every ten minutes. This group has hundreds if not thousands of members and was actually one of the friendliest bunch ever. I had multiple issues with getting the welfare system running and the people around me were willing to help and even tell me a method of preventing idling and getting kicked. This was especially when camping to get money.

Me on Welfare Island!

Neither group has bombarded me with any sort of notices or e-mails. i have received a few more spam e-mails advertising with information given to the Welfare Group but nothing that has totally overwhelmed or annoyed me, the people from the Welfare group were very helpful but not very willing to tell me about themselves and were (rightfully) very guarded with their personal information. All in all the communities in SL are very informative, helpful and friendly to interact with.

Gameheadz was a video that showed how games have developed since the very first Pong game in the early 1970’s to what we know today as video games. This film was interesting in that it analyzed both the business methods that attributed to the varying companies success and the characteristics that made these games so popular.

One of the major companies that was discussed in the film was Atari, the company behind the first Pong game. It described how Atari worked to keep its employees as happy as possible so that in turn they would work hard to develop the latest and best games. I found that this strategy at corporate management was, despite how it sounds, quite effective. i also found it very amusing when they mentioned that they had a hot tub installed in the office! I also found how Atari saw the television set as a means to introduce video games in to the home as a visionary concept that helped garner Atari alot more profit than its competitors.

Pong was a national hit almost overnight. It became that way through its interaction with the players. The fact that Pong always has been a multi-player game from the start shows me the importance of the interaction not only between the player and the program but between player to player. It is for this interaction that people experienced with Pong that I think multi-player gaming has caught on as a key component in today’s video games. Gameheadz was a very informative film that helps use see how the games of yesterday have lead to the games of today and how they will in turn lead to the games that we play in the future.

….a lot of things to me. Games have been part of my life for a very long time. It has been a pastime of mine for as long as I can remember. As a child I always played games, be it a puzzle game where all the blocks must fit into the correct holes or I threw a ball back and forth with a friend. From my humble beginnings, I progressed onward to arcade games. I remember going to a local arcade in the Manassas Mall called Aladdin’s Castle with my dad. He introduced me to such games as Pac-man, Galaga, and the Claw Machine. These games were always the best until you ran out of coins!

Near the end of my elementary school days I met my current video game partner-in-crime, James Daniel Davis, a.k.a. the Leprechaun, who introduced me to the wonderful world of video games. The first games I remember playing with him were the ever famous and wonderful Age of Empires and the less-well known but amazingly addictive Jeff Wayne’s War of the Worlds. From there I was hooked to video games. When new games came out, we would play till my thumbs were sore. I learned to appreciated both the storytelling capabilities of a game as well as the interaction that was possible through multi-player gaming.

It was the pleasure of playing video games that lead me to think about how they are made and how they are loved by such a vast majority of the American population, especially the youth such as myself. It is this interest in what makes a good game and how games affect me that lead to taking this seminar course.