Making a Video Game, part four

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Yesterday, I just about threw up my hands and said, enough.

What had me in a huff was the tutorial that I was using to create a video game (I’ve been writing all week about my adventures in creating a video game using Gamemaker8 software). At first, the PDF tutorial on how to create a maze game seemed pretty straightforward. But it took a turn for the worse in a single section that I needed the most: how to program the game so that the player can move their character through the maze with the arrow functions on the keyboard.

The tutorial just jumped over about five steps and clearly, the writer thought I knew more than I knew, or that I had enough programming mojo to figure out what I should have already known. I didn’t, and I couldn’t, which is why I was using the tutorial in the first place.

So, I almost gave up, and came close to declaring that this kind of project would never work in the classroom. If I was frustrated, what would happen to my students?

So, I thought, what would my students do?

I turned to YouTube, and sure enough, I found a tutorial posted by umarshiekh2002 that walked me, silently, through the entire process of setting up a very simple maze game. (Thanks Dude!) I was pausing, playing, creating and going over it a few times in this strange silence (we expect sound from videos, don’t we?) except for me talking to myself and suddenly, I had my simple maze up and running.

Success!

It reminds me of how many resources there are out there and how powerful search engines can be. I was reminded of the recent NWP Makes! session that I took part of in Orlando, where we talked about an entire online culture of people sharing how they do things through videos and screenshots, and this video tutorial that unlocked the maze for me is certainly a prime example of that.

As to my thoughts of applicability in the classroom, I am still mixed on it. Now, I am thinking, this might be better for a summer camp for a smaller, more focused set of gamer kids. Much to mull over …

Meanwhile, I wanted to try to post my simple game to the YoYo Games site (home of Gamemaker8) and that was breeze. Wanna try my simple maze? You might need the Gamemaker plugin to launch the game.

YoYoGames

Screenshot_of_sample_maze_with_me_as_icon_2_

Mazing It
Added: 02 December 2010
By: dogtrax

I still need to learn to add roaming elements to the maze, and award points for collecting items, before I can start in real development to my game idea I am calling Running Late. But I feel as if I am on the right track (notice I was able to use my own avatar icon in the game, which means I can draw my own game pieces for my Running Late maze. Another mystery solved ..)

Peace (in the game),
Kevin

NWP Survives

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Yesterday, many of us in the National Writing Project were keeping careful tabs (no doubt, peeping into the news during the day) to follow the fate of a US Senator proposal to eliminate “earmarks” in the federal budget. The amendment by Sen. Coburn would have effectively gutted the NWP and some other educational groups whose federal funding support are considered “earmarks” attached to the federal budget. The Coburn proposal would have instituted a three year moratorium on any earmarks.

The amendment did not pass muster (see the short piece in Slate). The vote tally was 39-56, with 67 needed for passage.

But my guess is that earmarks are an endangered species in DC because, although they represent only a small portion of the budget, they are huge with political symbolism of waste and fiscal irresponsibility. How it is that NWP funding got lumped into the earmarks is something I am not privvy to nor do I really know much about the political workings of the NWP at that level.

But I think a huge push has to be made to shift NWP, Reading is Fundamental and other educational organizations out of that earmarks category, if possible. In fact, it makes me uneasy, knowing that NWP is lumped in there. If the public sees earmarks as wasteful spending, how will they view the NWP as part of that? Check out this interactive map for how earmarks are played out across the country, and it is so clear that our politicians (yep, mine, too) use the earmark process for financial gifts to their districts.

Here in Massachusetts, in fiscal year 2010, we had $176,803,000 in earmarked funds. I am sure much of those funds were put to good use (bike trails, roadway improvements, etc.), but it seems like there needs to be a better mechanism than jamming funding for projects onto whatever bill is before you (such as the Coburn Amendement itself, which was attached to a Food Safety Bill).

On a side note, both of my senators — Sen. Scott Brown (r) and Sen.  John Kerry (d) — voted against the Coburn moratorium, so I hope that means that our calls to their offices had some effect. (See how your senators did)

Is it good or bad that the moratorium was not enacted? I suppose that is for each of us voters to decide, but the push now from the Republican Senate leadership is to kill earmarks, and my guess is that this may gain momentum in the next two years.

Our NWP network has some work to do …

Peace (in the politics),
Kevin

Making a Video Game, part 3

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Video Game Running Late- Design Draft

I’ve been working on posts this week all around trying to develop a video game myself, using free software called GameMaker 8. (See my first post and my second post). I finally sat down, away from the computer, and began to draft out what my game might look like. I came up with a name – Running Late – and a story concept – a student is late for school – and a platform idea – a maze.

Here is what I have so far for my game design:

Name of the Game: Running Late

Object of the Game:

You are a student who has missed the morning bus and you are now running late for school. You must run your way through the neighborhood, collecting points along the way in order to earn a “Late Pass” for the principal. You must earn at least 100 points by collecting such items as pencils, a good report card and bus passes. But look out for the bad dog on the loose – he wants to take away points from you and he will chase you down. And avoid the temptation of the candy bar. That will cost you points, too.

How To Move Your Player:

  • Mouse Cursor: indicates direction.

  • Left Mouse Click: moves you forward one grid

  • Right Mouse Click: allows you to jump three grids, but randomly

Items on the Board

  • The Good Stuff

  • Pick up the Pencil: 10 points

  • Catch the Bus: 10 points

  • Get a good Report Card: 20 points

  • The Bad Stuff

  • Suffer a dog bite: lose 10 points

  • Eat a candy bar: lose 10 points

How You Win the Game:

Make your way to school with 100 points and get your butt to class. You’re late!

Now, I begin the journey to actually make the game. Stay tuned for future reflections! And hopefully, a chance to turn any game I make over to you as a player for feedback.

Peace (in the maze),

Kevin

At LEARN NC: Online Reading Comprehension

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I wrote a piece that just got published in LEARN NC (which also ran in Instructify, its companion site where I write regularly about tools for learning) in which I sought to provide a framework for considering reading skills when students are online.

I was inspired to write the piece after working this past summer with folks in the New Literacies Collaborative, including Don Leu (whom I will see next week as we are co-presenting a bit around New Literacies to Massachusetts superintendents, curriculum coordinators and such). Their presentations around this topic had me thinking and wondering, and processing what happens to my students when they go online to read.

You can read the piece  — Strategies for Online Reading Comprehension — here.

The chart in the piece that compares traditional reading with online reading was actually created in Google Docs as a cloud-sourcing experiment. I put a call out on Twitter and more than a dozen people went in and added ideas to the chart (which was later edited down a bit).

This is the fourth long article I have written for LEARN NC, but you can still access the other ones, which are on topics of online postering sites (such as Glogster), how teachers can collaborate as writers on the web, and an overview of blended learning. I am now working on another piece about gaming in the classroom.

Peace (on the web),
Kevin

Making a Video Game, part 2

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Maze sample

Yesterday, I wrote about my latest endeavor to create a video game that uses some free software and which incorporates some element of “story” as its backdrop. My aim is to have fun and also, to consider the possibilities for the classroom.

It turns out I lost my Internet access on Sunday, which gave me some space and time to sit down with paper and pencils and really think through what my game might look like and how it might be played. I can’t say enough about how valuable it was to be off the computer for some old fashioned “paper thinking,” and I already see some revisions and iterations of my game design beginning to formulate in my head. I’ll share more of the particulars of my game in tomorrow’s post.

I spent a good chunk of time with GameMaker on my own (no tutorials, thanks to lack of Internet access) in an attempt to create a simple maze game and I floundered a bit, I must confess. I constructed a maze, but I had a lot of difficulty designating what I wanted things to do and I never did figure out how to make the click of the mouse designate a move on the board, which will be a central act for the user of my game. I am sure this is easy to do, but I could not figure it out, not for the life of me. And I am not sure if I can even create my own icons (sorry, sprites, but I have my own ideas for players and pieces in my game).

I ended up just diving into the program as far as I could go, just as I imagine that many students do when they encounter a new game or a new console or a new program. I would have liked some hand-holding directions (honest, I would have) but there is something to be said to full immersion into software without a life preserver. I suspect that when I make my way back to Gamemaker (with tutorials in hand — now downloaded onto my computer directly), I will be farther along with understanding its architecture than I think am.

Yesterday, Cindy left the suggestion that perhaps this exploration of developing a game could be done with my entire class, together as a collaborative activity, which is something I had not really considered: a whole-class exploration. But I wonder how that would look, given that so much of this is trial and error. I’d have to train myself to really “think aloud” and turn over the production to the class. It’s interesting, and carving out time for it would be difficult, but not impossible. More to think about …

Peace (in the maze),
Kevin

TTT: The NWP Digital Is Site

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A few weeks ago, I had the good fortune of being invited onto Teachers Teaching Teachers webcast to talk about the official launch of the National Writing Project’s Digital Is website, which is home to many interesting projects that push the possibilities of technology and learning. I have contributed some content and added some conversations to the Digital Is site (you should, too!)

Here is the TTT podcast from the TTT site. Thanks to Paul Allison and Susan Ettenheim for continuing to create interesting weekly discussions around topics that have value for me as a teacher.

Peace (in the discussions),
Kevin

Making a Video Game, part 1

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gamemaker test

I will never to be accused to being a “gamer,” which is not to say that I don’t appreciate the world of video gaming. I spent many (perhaps too many) hours of my childhood and teen age years, playing Atari and Nintendo and other game systems that I was pretty decent at. I kicked butt at Pong, and was a master at Donkey Kong, and I could discover many hidden Easter Eggs in other platform games whose names have since escaped me (Legend of Zelda seems to be one that stays with me).

These days, though, I mostly watch from afar as my own boys play on the Wii or their iPod Touch or on the computer. We limit their time in the gaming world and put the brakes on some games that we deem inappropriate, but still, it is fascinating to see how far gaming has come and to wonder about where it is heading, and to consider what value gaming might have in the classroom.

I am in the midst of writing an article about gaming in the classroom, with the emphasis on how it might be used for learning. Critical thinking, collaboration, design principles and more are all at the heart of good gaming architecture. One of the focus points of the article is the emergence of tools for users of games to create their own, and it only seemed logical that I should go through the process myself. In other words, I need to come up with a concept and try to develop and publish a simple game as if I were a student.

This post is the first bit of reflection on how that project is slowly developing.

My criteria for finding a good game creation platform was not all that scientific. I wanted something free (that could potentially translate into a no-cost project for my classroom), easy to use (this being relative, of course); and the ability to publish my game at some time in the future, if I wanted. The platform I decided upon, after some research, is GameMaker 8. I downloaded the software on Saturday morning and opened it up, with my older sons looking over my shoulder. They’re interested, too, particularly with the possibility of creating a game for their iPod (I need my Mac and a program called GameSalad – that’s for another day).

GameMaker 8 begins with a handy tutorial on making a simple game, involving moving fruit and the user collecting points by mouse clicking on the fruit (harder than it sounds). The tutorial was easy enough to follow, although the software is bit more complex than I thought it would be. I realized quickly that this is a whole new world for me, so the various elements and vocabulary that might be common in gaming systems for regular users are somewhat foreign to me. Still, the tutorial, with screenshots, was made for beginners like me. I made my simple game with bouncing fruit (and wondered, why fruit? When does fruit ever run away from us? I remember fruit being elements of some of the original video games that I played as a kid, too. Odd.)

At one point, I added a sound to the apples when they are clicked by the player – nothing fancy, just a little zing to indicate success — and my older son asked, “Why did you do that?” to which I answered, “Because I could,” and realized that I was echoing an answer often made by one of my students when they come across something cool. I kept the sound on the apple but realized I would have to try to be more thoughtful. A game that is overloaded with media and options is not very playable.

Ok, so I made my fruit game. What’s next?

What I really want to do is create a game with some sort of narrative backdrop. Again, one of the elements of my article is how “story” has infused a lot of the innovative gaming (Think of Spore, with its story of evolution, for example). I can’t get too complex because my knowledge of GameMaker is limited, and the software has limits, too (although an upgrade for $25 suggests more possibilities for game design).

So, here is my “story” of my future game: a student has woken up late, missed the bus, and must rush to get to school. Along the way, the student encounters obstacles, including a dog chasing them, nipping at their heels. The student gains speed by gathering things (what? I don’t know. Pencils, computer mice, erasers, etc.) along the way. So, this is a Maze Game, I realized, and I think it is doable for someone of my skills. I’m not all that certain the “story” will be evident, but it will at least guide me along as the developer.

Looking at the GameMaker site, I realized there are tutorials on creating maze games, so that is my next step. I’m going to spend some time with the tutorials and begin the task of making a basic maze game, with my own story concept lurking in the background. And I would probably benefit from drafting a paper version of the game, too, to help keep my focus. I also had this vision of writing a story of this running-late student (Running Late – possible name of game), with the game yet another element of the storytelling (and maybe a Google Search Story, too?) so that the story itself becomes multi-modal and engaging for the reader, who also becomes a player in the story.

Now, how would you pull all that off in the classroom?

Peace (in the sharing),
Kevin

More with Cinchcast: poetry podcasting

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The more I use Cinchcast, the more I like it. This morning, I was writing some poems and thought I might try to podcast them. I was considering using my phone and Cinchcast, but then I remembered a red “record now” button at the site. I figured I would give it a try with my Blue Snowball microphone and it worked like a charm.

And I can embed the audio, or download it. And my Cinch site is connected to Twitter. And it’s free.

The poems I wrote:

Dog Days
Today, I figure, is the day
our dog is one day older than
our son.
Tomorrow, it will be
seven days.
Next week? A month or maybe two.
The wet muzzle and playful eyes gaze
up at me as if to say,
your time will come, too, old man …
as he grows older right before my eyes
and then bounds off into the woods.

I’m Not That Poet
I find it particularly difficult
to be one of those
poets
whose eyes see every … little …moment
like a time-lapse camera.
They stand in front of the larger-than-life mural
and notice the face of the one lonely
boy in the back or they pay attention to
the joyful girl with flowers on her dress.
Me?
I notice the tacks on the corners of the canvas and wonder
why the whole thing doesn’t just tumble right down to the Earth,
spilling out humanity on the ground.
I’d be ready to stuff that boy
and that girl
and all the rest of those people right into my pocket
so that I could carry them around with me
like history etched beneath our skin.
That’s the kind of poet
I am.

Peace (in the poems),
Kevin


The Imaginary World of Musical Island

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musical island
After Thanksgiving break, my students will be handing in their Imaginary Peaceful Land Travel Brochures. They’ve had plenty of class time to work on the project, and there are some pretty neat lands out there.  I had created my own, too, to share with them. I used Glogster and I think the future, I might have it as an option for my students, too. But I do like having them use cardstock paper for a brochure — that feels right. But with Glogster, they could add audio and video, etc.

Anyway, here is your invitation to Musical Island:

Peace (in the

Book Review: What Technology Wants

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What Technology Wants - Kevin Kelly

I finished What Technology Wants a few weeks ago and I am still trying to sort out all that writer Kevin Kelly postulates in this interesting book which takes a step back from technology and tries to articulate a larger understanding of the world around us and the future ahead of us. What technology wants, according to Kelly, is a symbiotic relationship of sorts, with us, in that we keep developing new ways of using technology as technology advances in order to provide us with new ways of using technology.

That’s the simplified version, in my own words, and Kelly makes it clear that technology– or the technium, as he refers to the “greater, global, massively interconnected system of technology vibrating around us (p.11).” — is not alive in a living, breathing sense. But by examining trends of technological advancements, in relationship to advancements in other biological fields, Kelly argues that there is a logical and somewhat predictable pattern to technology, even though we don’t know what is coming next or how that will affect us. Like living creatures that push forward over time, the technium is also on the same course, according to Kelly. In fact, one of the hallmarks of the technium is that new devices or tools that have significant impact on our lives are hardly ever used for what they were designed for. This unknown adaptability is key to the technium.

Kelly writes, “The technium gains its immense power not only from its scale but from its self-amplifying nature. One breakthrough invention, such as the alphabet, the steam pump, or electricity, can lead to further breakthrough inventions, such as books, coal mines and telephones. These advances in turn led to other breakthrough inventions, such as libraries, power generators and the internet. Each step adds further powers while retaining most of the virtues of the previous inventions (p. 38).”

The meaning behind the phrase of  “what technology wants” is that it wants to keep moving forward, according to Kelly, by providing us humans with the tools for adapting technology for our own needs. There’s a certain circular pattern to this argument, which Kelly admits to. He cites Moore’s Law (of smaller, more powerful, technology) and other data models to show how the trends of technology is marching ahead on a mathematical curve. But, Kelly notes, this whole notion of technology being on par with biological trends is complicated — this idea of technology wanting something — and he sees three forces at work:

  • The concept of preordained development — that technology is designed to always improve itself and become more advances, and more ubiquitous;
  • The influence of technology’s history — that what has come before it is what shapes the present and lays the groundwork for the future
  • The free will of us, the people — our choices in how we use the technology is critical is what technology becomes.

Kelly does not always view technology through rose-colored glasses. In fact, he profiles a number of examples of how people can and should step back from technology in their lives, if only to gain some perspective on how it shaping what we do and how we think. He uses examples such as the Amish, who resist the lure of technology for cultural reasons and yet, they are adaptable to using what suits them (as long as it is mostly “off the grid” technology).There is a whole chapter about Amish Hackers that is interesting to read, and shows how complicated the lives of the Amish can be in the modern world. And, it shows how our (my) perception of the Amish stuck in time is not even remotely accurate.

In the more controversial section of the book, Kelly also showcases The Unibomber’s manifesto as an articulate examination of the ways that technology is influencing our lives and the reasons for resisting the technium by shaping its progress ourselves. Kelly condemns the violent nature of The Unibomber, of course, but he says that some of what Ted Kacyznski wrote makes sense in terms of retaining some of our humanity as technology’s influence in our lives takes hold and expands. Kelly acknowledges, and then refutes, this view that technology “robs us of our humanity and steals our children’s future (p. 213).”

Kelly ends on a positive note, arguing that our relationship with the technium opens up new possibilities for our lives and for our ability to be creative, and expressive. “The technium expands life’s fundamental traits, and in so doing it expands life’s fundamental goodness … Technology amplifies the mind’s urge towards the unity of all thought, it accelerates the connections among people, and it will populate the world with all conceivable ways of comprehending the infinite (p. 359).”

Is that a bit much? Perhaps. But Kelly has always looked ahead at the bigger picture (first with Whole Earth, and then with Wired, and now with his various books) and while I sometimes found myself shaking my head at what he was writing, I was always thinking, always pondering. What Technology Wants will sure get you to step back and reflect on where technology is and where it is going, even if the path is uncertain.

Peace (in the reflective thought),
Kevin