Special Video Blogging Assignment

Big Idea : What is the MOST important concept you want your players to learn ?

The most important concept we want our players to learn is to conserve water. Since we are doing our game towards a young audience , we will try our best to show them how to conserve water. 

Making Decisions as a Team : How did your individual ideas from "Imagining Your Game" come together for your team game topic ?

Our individuals ideas came together based on the interest we all had in the same subject. We noticed that we all had the same interest in common , so we narrowed it down to the top one that was the best and we chose it. 

Roles & Responsibilities : Describe your specific roles and how you work together .. ,

Our team is called "4Green" and it consists of :

Salvador "Chava" - Programmer \ QA Tester

Paige "Peaches" - Artist\Designer 

Estefanie "Bacon <3 'er" - Writer\Producer

Robert "Gandhi" - Writer\Design Helper

We all work together by dividing up the work and making sure each and one of us is doing our part and doing the work that needs to be done. We work really well by just being focused and concentrated on what needs to be done , and making sure we help out one another.

Research : What kind of research went into the way you will express the game topic ? What sources are you using and how do you know they are reliable ?

We as a team found some pretty good websites that had the information we needed and we did our best to gain knowledge about it. In those websites it had really good info that we could use to express what we are trying to teach in our game. We knew that these websites were really helpful because they were actually blogged by actual people who care about the conservation of water.
That was a really helpful advantage we had that could really help us.

Impact : Could the messages in the game concept or images in your game demo offend anyone ? If so , how can you avoid this ?

As a team we certainly did not in any way portray something offensive to our viewers. Our message consists of a positive message to the audience and nothing else. We hope that we don't in any way offend anybody by our message or pictures. If so , that is to happen we will definitely take it into consideration and look over it and decide upon the situation. We won't have to worry about it because we are certain that our messages and pictures will not offend anybody in any way.

The User Experience : What actions does the player take in the game ? Has this changed since you first started planning your game ? Why ?

Our game has about 3 different levels , so there are 3 different things it needs to do in each level. For example in one of the levels , it's called "Patching Pipes" in this game the player will have to jump some platforms to collect pieces of a broken water pipe and put them back in the pipe and fix it. This level and others were not the  main ones that we were going to do , we had planned other levels. We first decided to do a game about a migrating bird that would go around everywhere and try to help out others to conserve water but based upon the feedback we got from our charity we changed it and now we have our game planned and ready to start on it.

Mastering Flash : What Flash resources have been most helpful in your learning so far , and why ? How did you locate these resources ?

I think that the resource that has been helping our learning so far would have to be the programming. I mean without the programming a game wouldn't be able to work at all. With programming we get to learn to do many things at a time , like for example it has taught us to do the certain codes for the things we want to do. It sort of gives us the chance to prepare, look over the codes we are going to do and try to study them very well. We also have the chance to use the rest of the tools on flash that I know will definitely help our game work amazing.

Overcoming Challenges : What curriculum has been most difficult for you this far ? How did you overcome this difficulty ?

I think that Planning the game scene for our game would have to be the most difficult curriculum we've done. Basically , in the beginning we had our ideas mapped out and everything but then we had to change it because of our charity's feedback. I would say that we didn't have such a hard time on it but we did have our problems. Since everything was already planned , and we had to change it - it took us a while to restore everything and start thinking again. Now it's good that we figured out what to do , by the help of each and everyone on our team we made it possible to work and we can't wait to finish our game successfully . :)

Reflection on Game Idea

Who are you designing your game for ?

We are designing our game for younger kids , ages 6-14. We feel that the youngest kids are the ones who mostly waste water while brushing it's teeth or maybe washing it's hands so they don't really care about it. We wanted to target that age range because the kids don't really know about water conservation and that's what we want to target for them to learn. Our game will definitely not hurt or offend anyone group of people in any way. This game is meant for a younger audience but that doesn't mean an adult can't help out a kid playing it. It might be a different age range but our game will definitely teach something valuable. 

What will the your game teach the player about your topic ?

Our game will teach the younger audience to give an effort to not waste water. I mean , I know that they are little kids and don't know much about conserving water but we are going to do our best to try and show them how to save it. We will also teach them specifically the many ways that they can learn how to save water. Like for example , not leaving the water sink on or something else. We hope that our message gets to the audience clearly.

Where does your game happen ?

Our game happens in a house , outside pond and other places. In the house , the player (salamander) will go around showing others what not to do and why. The player will learn the many ways that it can save water in the house and the pond. The settings will definitely have an effect in the learning process because the player will understand it in a less complex way.

How does your game world teach the player about your topic ?

Our game world will basically show a clearer picture of what's going on and what the player needs to do. Like I said before , the setting around will be understandable to the player by the way the things are drawn. It is intended for a younger audience , so the things that we will teach will be in a easier way to understand rather than using big words . The setting will definitely won't be too complex for the player to not understand.

Choosing Team Game Topic

My Team (4 Green) decided to work on Environmental Issues around everywhere. We all agreed to work on this topic because we all had the same interest for it. At first we had to choose 3 different organizations on our own , that we would like to work with. When we got put into a team , we noticed that among our chosen organizations we had some of the same ones. Since we all were interested on the same topic , we narrowed our websites down to the one that we liked the most and looked very interesting. The chosen organization was Environment Texas and Research Policy . We all agreed on this website because we thought that it was the organization that focused on the environment issues around , I mean it wasn't the only one but to us it had more research and interest in it. We really liked how it focused on many issues but also works with one at a time. I think that Me and my team (4 Green , Salvador, Paige, & Robert ) really nailed it at working with this topic. We hope to make an extraordinary game that teaches others about the environment issues around that need to be taken care of but also to have a little fun with it. :)