Opening gambit...

OK, after the bullsh*t that was the 'group effort' on my last project, I've decided to go it alone for this final project (seeing as I'll probably do all the work by myself anyway...)

So, based on prior experience, having an online blog is very useful - sort of like emailing yourself, helps you to keep track of the production of a piece. Lets give it a go anyway....

The final project is designing a computer game using GameMaker, which I'm hoping won't be too painful to use.

The original suggested themes were either orange, death or treasure. I suggested in an email to my lecturer that I wanted to go with a Persuasive game idea re the Manly ferry situation. I do think it could be a good idea, but after having slept on it (and after checking out the Gamemaker site and getting my head around what it can achieve, and what I might hope to achieve), I've revised my idea. For now anyway, might go back there again one day.

So I'm thinking I might go with the Orange theme. I'm thinking of developing a game called 'Stink bug!' in honour of the stink bugs that used to plague my mum's orange tree. So the game at the moment involves you being a stink bug, sucking the life (energy? health?) out of the oranges on an orange tree, trying to avoid the farmer withe the pesticide and the birds trying to eat you. It takes energy to fly around and you have to balance getting the life out of the oranges with flying between trees and evading death. I'm not sure what the ultimate reward is yet. You can up the level of difficulty by adding more stink bugs to the mix (increasing competition for the orange energy) or moving onto lime trees where the fruits are smaller and have less energy in each but there are more fruits on a tree so there's more to cover in less time. Time obviously has to be a factor, or there is no tension.

Anyway, just wanted to start jotting some notes down to keep track of stuff. I especially like the name of teh game - that in itself is almost worth pursuing this idea for :-)