New Year's Resolutions for Globaloria

Happy New Year everyone!

author's note: The inspiration for this post came from Mr. Bill Dorsey of Capital High School who has a great post on New Year's Resolutions.

As we conclude the first semester of Globaloria we have a great opportunity to look back on the successes we've had so far. At Greenbrier East we are half way through our year long curriculum, while other schools are finished or getting ready to complete their semester long class.

I am amazed at the accomplishments I have seen in my class to this point. We have had great mini-game projects, active blogs, creative wiki pages, and we have tackled some big chunks of actionscript! Our team game projects are on track and have potential to produce some nice final games. Check out some of our class' work:

Here is Tyler's first complete mini game!

And some nice Title Screen/Button work by Team Tangerine (Silas & Casey)!

Of course all you have to do is check out some of the blogs from our classes blog roll to see the progress that we have made there.

However, with all the success we have had so far, now is not the time to rest on our proverbial laurels. Instead, we should all take advantage of the knowledge we have gained and build on it as we move forward. We all can take the opportunity that "New Year's Resolutions" offer to make progress in our Globaloria endeavors.

Here are my personal resolutions as a Globaloria educator:

1. Continue to build my personal Flash skills in order to demonstrate best practice for my students.

2. Keep up the Main Page of the GEHS wiki so that it is an exciting and dynamic website for students and visitors. I would like to do this with regularly updated tutorials and links to insightful blogs and game examples. I would also like to get Mr. Warfield and Mrs. Daigle involved in this process.

3. Allow my blog experience to evolve as I find new ways to utilize the medium. To do this, I must keep an open mind and a fluid perspective as I observe other blogs and consider my needs and those of my students.

Now, I want to pass on the challenge that Mr. Dorsey of Capital H.S. first proposed.

What are your New Year's Resolutions for Globaloria? Write your own blogpost where you consider your past successes and list the resolutions that you have for 2010 in your Globaloria experience!

Snowed-in Tutorial: Top Down classic RPG

So, we've had a little bit of an extended break, and how have I cured my cabin fever? By trying to get a leg up on my game design skills. Since several of our teams are planning to make old school style, top down RPGs I thought I would hunt for a good tutorial.

I found this great AS2 RPG tutorial on a blog called Tagify. While this tutorial is loaded with great info, it does have its drawbacks for our purposes.

First of all, the script is not written in an "Actions" layer the way we write it, but rather it is encoded on the movie clip it refers to. Therefore you will see some unfamiliar scripts. For instance, you will see "onClipEvent" instead of "onEnterFrame". Another difference is the use of "this" or "_root.MovieClipName" in place of the instance name of a particular movie clip.

I have made the necessary adjustments (and some additions) in my version.

Here is a link to the fla. I have included descriptions of what each chunk of code does.

For those of you planning a top down RPG, this will be of great help. And of course there is more we can do and explore in class.

Good Luck - I'll see everyone soon!

Pre-Break Checklist!!!

Attention Globaloria Class - Here is your checklist of things to accomplish prior to break next week.

1. Create a Flash file with the following assets: A title scene, a directons or about scene, and a rudimentary first level for your game.

2. Use the buttons and the timeline with r create navigation between your scenes.

3. Upload and embed any assets that you individually create on your Personal Projects Page on the Wiki. This allows me to see what you have created and give you credit for it.

4. Upload and embed any assets that you create for your game on r Team Projects Page on the Wiki. This way your team progress can be seen along the way.

5. Make sure to embed the SWF files and add a link to the FLA files. If you are unsure of how to do any of this, ask when we have free time.

6. Update your learning log for each day. Specify what you accomplished.

7. Find a Globaloria student in another school and leave a message for them on their wiki.

8. Create a new blog post in which you reflect on the entire year to this point in Globaloria. Comment on number 7 above in this blogpost.

Good Luck!