Post 6: Ingress

   I have enjoyed playing Ingress for the last month or so. I am a member of the Enlightenment and have become level 5 after much work for my faction. Since I have been playing Ingress, I now try to leave early so that I can hack and attack portals on my way to class. In my time between classes and on my way back home, I also take time to recharge my portals or try to capture new ones. Basically I spend all my time at school, outside of class, playing Ingress.
   My typical path is from the North parking garage to the art building. I try to control or maintain all portals along this path. This usually results in me making 7-8 quick stops along my way.
  

 

A glimpse of my usual route. Unfortunately I'm out of town right now and all these portals are controlled by the damn Resistance!

   If anybody else plays Ingress, I'm pretty sure they would recognize what I am doing. But I wonder what non-players think about my movements. They must think that I am uncertain about where I am headed; or they must think that I am texting and that I am unable to walk and text at the same time. I also wonder what people think when they see me going back and forth between portals.

   After playing Ingress, I definitely know my way around campus much better. I have ventured around to places that I would not otherwise have gone. Because of Ingress, I walk around a lot more, and I spend time exploring the campus.   

 

Post 4: Digital Game Prototype

   For my digital game prototype, I created a game named "I Want to Sleep All Day." The concept of the game is too keep your character asleep for as long as possible. You struggle with an alarm clock, a noisy lawn mower, and count sheep which all attempt to reduce your "sleep meter" and wake you up. These challenges happen with an increasing speed and frequency until it is impossible to remain asleep.  

the various game screens

   My role in making this game was programmer/designer. Justine Pimentel was the artist/producer. Since I am a digital media arts major, I have some basic programming knowledge, but nothing akin to what a Computer Science major would know. I would have liked to have a CS major working on the programming instead of me, but I made it work the best I could. I found the GameMaker interface/language helpful in certain aspects, yet confusing and annoying in others. 

   Since it was my first time using GameMaker, I had to learn everything as I went along. This resulted in me spending more time programming the game than on game designing. Overall, I happy with how the prototype turned out given my ability. I was able to get the game to ramp up in difficulty/speed at a decent pace, which I think helps to keep the rather simple point-and-click gameplay enjoyable.

||||||MAC version ONLY|||||

sorry Windows users

Download the game here.