Week 7. End of the final class.

This week is the end of class, and the end of the project. So far a lot has been done with the project to finish it up as well as make it easier to work with. Before it was a hassle to work with the project because it had nine different maps and flash UI's, but we changed it to one persistent map and nine flash UI's. It made working with the map much easier, but it took some time to get it fully working again with all the flash material. The only reason we didn't do the same to flash is it would have taken much longer to condense all the functionality down to one flash file plus mistakes would have been harder to track.

There was also some changes in flash code due to camera switching being an issue before we had a persistent level. I had to remove the code that disabled and enabled buttons and switch it over to the map kismet. With the code in the kismet, we were able to make wait times always work correctly. Before the player might end up at their destination and have to wait for the buttons to enable, or they would enable too quickly and break the simulation.

We also started finishing all the parts of the project this week to be ready for presentation Tuesday. There's been some crunch time for everyone. It is starting to be difficult to get any last minute bugs or inconsistencies fixed, but so far map and UI have basically been completed. But because the client wants kinect controls, there might be a last minute additions that need to be added to UI. I'm not looking forward to that as I'm not sure how it'll be dealt with, but we'll figure out something.

Week 4. Midway to complete.

This is the halfway mark for the senior project. So far it is coming along well. I just recently dealt with issues from our presentation last session. One issue was with the intro having a word that was wrong and another with a word that might be to difficult for our clientele. Both of which were dealt with fairly quickly.

After dealing with that, I moved on to making some progress in improving the game by making it random. It is fairly simple because it just uses flashes random(#) function to get a number from 0 - #. By using this function I can set a random shelf for when the player has to go to a shelf. This allows the game to be slightly more challenging by keeping the player from memorizing the game. It also is fairly realistic because you can't tell what shelf you will need. Sometimes its a new shelf, sometimes its old.

I also looked at some recent reviews we got from other students. Most of the issues they ran into we knew about and may have already fixed. But there was an idea that someone presented about telling the player what they are carrying. While testing I found that it would be a good idea as well. So with that, I will be adding a simple HUD display icon on the top right of the screen to tell the player what they are carrying.

Week 7. A good review.

This week was the final presentation for this half of the project. So far everything has been going well and we didn't have any big flaws pointed out. So now we just need to keep up this work and finish up the project. All that's left is finalizing some things, polishing, and possibly adding Kinect depending on client feedback.

So far what I see ahead for what I need to do is fix up the intro a bit more to deal with small inconsistencies I didn't see, and ensure that there is very little to no way to break the game through the UI. Right now I know of a possible way to at least kind of break it. It should be a fairly easy fix, which only needs some small code change and\or a kismet addition.

Week 6. A slow week.

This week most of my work for this session is done. All that's left for me at this time is making sure that the HUD is fully complete for the presentation. Which mostly involves small touch ups. I may also add in small details that would make the simulation better, but they will not likely be added this session.

Week 5. My main work begins.

This week is big on the HUD. I have to make sue that the code behind the pallet button works with the code the map has set up now. I also have to build new clipboard icons because the clipboard with objective we are using for some reason was done with pictures rather than movie clips and dynamic text. Quite an odd way to build the program seeing as how it is very inefficient. After new clipboard icons are done I also have to add in new buttons to deal with making a new icon for getting an empty box.

The final step after getting all the icons and the quick reference change fixed is adding the new code for the program. The code needs to be set up three different times for the three different difficulties. But because we have the difficulties planned, it shouldn't be that bad.

Week 4. Starting work on the UI.

This week I've started looking into new images for the UI. We need to have a pallet image for the new section we are adding. I'll also need to modify the image so that it has a transparent background and uses the same effects as the other UI buttons.

The flash UI has a different code method than I use normally. It mostly seems like its coded with movie clips instead of buttons and has all its code on the frames. The code on the frame makes the clips act like buttons. Its an interesting way to do it when buttons are one of the types you can pick over a movie clip. Perhaps they found something more effective in coding it this way.

It also seems that kismet shouldn't be much of a problem with integration because kismet has fscommands, which is something that is used a lot in the flash code and is very easy to combine.

Week 3. A new program and a simple solution.

This week we started using a new program called TortoiseSVN. I have never used this program, but it will be used to work together as a group on building the project. It seems like it might be similar to Dropbox with how it syncs files and folders. That would definitely make the group work better with each other. So long as files don't get replaced by one another during edit.

Another thing that was brought up this week was the projects manager and his dialog. While I wasn't at class this week, it would seem one of the things added to our list was to get the manager to not tell people how to play when they are in advanced modes. This turns out quite simple because it can be disabled in kismet.

Toggle Cinematic Mode just has to send out past opening the dialog swf and past the Close GFx Movie part. What that does is skips the basic intro. Because this code is the same on all map difficulties, this works just fine. The next swf it goes to is the talking to the manager to get your first task.