reflective essay #4

Experiences that stand out in my mind include, cutting the tree after a hurricane, the first time my team killed the lich king in wow, and the births of my daughters.  These experiences all include me and others. 

Cutting the tree after the hurricane:  in this experience, my father directed me and one of my sisters in the process of cutting a small piece of the trunk off a tree that had fallen in our yard during the storm.  We used a special saw to do this and had to work together in order to succeed.  We saved the piece of the tree for many years before it was finally lost in one of our many moves.

The first time my team killed the lich king in wow:  this was an exciting day.  The team consisted of ten people who all needed to work together to succeed.  Each of us had our specific tasks to do which related to the class of character we played.  I play a Warlock in this experience.  One task specific to my class was the maintaining of a teleport circle so if I was grabbed I could return to the fight easily when dropped, while the team focused on the lich king.  Another task that all of the team had to do was stay alive.  As we all worked together, we used Ventrilo for voice communications to let the rest of the team know what we were doing, especially if we died or were grabbed by a valkery.  We had been trying for several weeks to bring down the lich king before we succeeded.  After success we had a party in game.

The births of my daughters:  these are both memorable experiences.  While the same process was involved, there were drastic differences in the completion of the task.  With the older daughter, I was hungry and had no strength when it was time to do the real work for her to be born.  Also this labor was induced, which made it necessary to keep monitors on at all times and so I could not get up and walk about.  With the younger daughter, I had walked across the town the night before and noticed a backache in the morning.  I took a shower and then watched my clock and timed the frequency of the backache cramp.  Then I called my doctor and asked what he wanted me to do.  He requested that I come to his office so he could check things out. From his office I was sent to the hospital. This time at least I was not hungry, and was able to occasionally take a short walk.  Both daughters were born during the dark hours of the night, one just before midnight, and the other after midnight.  I was in the hospital for the three days of the week that they were born.

In all of these experiences it was necessary to work with others for success.  In the first I needed to work with my sister and father, in the second with the other nine members of my team and in the last with my doctor and the nursing staff at the hospital.  All involved communications at some level and in the second, lack of communication would cause failure.  These experiences could be used for inspiration in creating a game that demands high skills in communications.

Essay # 3

My preferred task in the video game production team is an artist.  This is primarily because I am an artist.  I enjoy doing most forms of art.  Photography is my personal favorite method of expressing art.  I can use it to create ideas for backdrops and for objects.  Creating visual references for a game would be my preferred task.

I do draw, sometimes well, sometimes quickly, and sometimes both well and quickly.  I could also make use of my skills in ceramics to help produce visual clues for a game.

collage created by code

http://www.clancrawford.us/images/codepractice2.swf

I used one of my personal websites to load the .swf file to be cause I am doing all of my work for the class on either my laptop or my home desktop computers. 

Programmatic Collage Code

package 
{
 import flash.display.MovieClip

 public class codepractice2 extends MovieClip//blue words are key words...gives directions
 {//Declare Variable here.  STEP ONE!!!!
  var itemOne:MovieClip;//create a variavle named "itemOne" of type "MovieClip"
  var itemTwo:MovieClip;
  var itemThree:MovieClip;
  public function codepractice2() //name is important...must be same for each container
  {
   // constructor code
   trace("Hello World");
   //Fill variables here.  STEP TWO!!!
   itemOne = new Kitty1; //fill variable named "itemOne" with new instance of  library symbol named "Kitty1"
   itemTwo=new Star1;
   itemThree=new Hill2;
  
   //addChild to the Stage. STEP THREE!!
   addChild(itemOne); //add the contents of the variable named "itemOne" as a child of the stage object
   addChild(itemTwo);
   addChild(itemThree);
  
   //here specify properties of the child
   itemOne.x=100
   itemOne.y=200
   itemOne.scaleX=.55
   itemOne.scaleY=.55
  
   itemTwo.x=375
   itemTwo.y=65
   itemTwo.scaleX=.75
   itemTwo.scaleY=.75
  
   itemThree.x=250
   itemThree.y=300
   itemThree.scaleX=.45
   itemThree.scaleY=.45
  }
 }

}

Reflective essay #2

The article assigned for this essay was very long. It did have a lot of info in it, some of which I remember.

One of the things I remember is that play outside is very important. The game creator the article was about told several stories about his childhood and the games he played. Many of the games were outside and made use of “imagination.”  He made use of his games and the places where he played as a child in the process of creating video games.

During my childhood I also played many games. I often played alone, though I also played with my siblings and our pets.  As my father was in the Army, we often moved and so I was able to play in many different settings, from huge fields with creeks running through them to small fenced yards to playgrounds of many sizes.

I will try to bring my childhood play memories forward and incorporate them into the projects of this class. So far I am enjoying DMF203.  Learning to use Flash and program with it is proving to bear lot of fun. Classes that are fun are more enjoyable to me.

the other four collages

collage

This was a very quickly put together collage.  I sometimes do better when I am not stressed.  Moving over the weekend created stresses which caused some work for class to be late.

visual references

this photo taken by Debra Crawford summer 2010

DMF 203 reflective essay #1

There have been many games that I have enjoyed playing over the years. A few of my favorites include Pinochle (a card game), Mastermind (a matching game), and Risk and Monopoly (board games). These games all have a couple things in common with each other.  One they require two or more people to play. Two they can teach good manners when playing games.

Pinochle is generally played by four people in two teams.  It is played using a special deck of cards and a knowledge of the rules is very important. Being able to add and multiply helps and this game will improve these skills. I liked this game because we would play it as a family. This helped us to learn to work together as a whole.

Mastermind is a matching game played between two people. For me, it helped improve my memory and matching skills. It was more fun to play when score was not kept.

Risk is a board war game and can be very intense. It can help teach strategy and again addition and multiplication knowledge helps. When I was very young my family would play the original version. About ten years ago I found a newer version that I like better.

Monopoly is a game which can be used to help teach about money. I wish it were more realistic, but it works for teaching some of the basics like bill types (5, 10, 20, 50, 100) and that it costs to own or rent properties.

I find games to be more enjoyable when they are played for fun or for learning. I get very frustrated when it appears that one person is deliberately trying to ruin the game for the rest of the group.

Symbols