Wednesday, November 5, 2008

Table Pong (Week 9)

Flash Assignment

Artist Statement
My concept was to create an interactive ping pong game involving in some capacity tennis. Tennis has been one of my hobbies for the past ten years; as a result I have created an interactive game. My goal is to attract a large audience into playing my interactive flash video game. The flash game is called Table Pong, incorporating Ping Pong, Table Tennis and Tennis. I wanted to create a game that stands out, captures the audience’s attention and persuades them to play. The rules of the game are simple, score ten points before your opponent does and be crowned Table Pong Champion.
The target market for my interactive flash video game is children between five to twelve years of age. It was quite easy deciding what age group to target however, the approach and the way I would format buttons and images was at first difficult. Before I started with the project I planed everything and did a rough sketch on paper so that I had an idea of what I was going to do. The interactive flash game “Table Pong” is geared towards young children who enjoy the high replay value of this game.
Based on my limited experience with Adobe Flash, I decided to find some tutorials on the web in order to help me further establish my plan on creating a cool and interesting ping pong/table tennis game. The first aspect that needed to be considered was the layout. I had many ideas however did not know how to transpire them. I had a general idea to create a ping pong game, however with the love of tennis I decided to incorporate ping pong, table tennis and tennis. I decided to create a bird’s eye view of a tennis court that I would use as my background. The tennis court was created on Abode Photoshop and exported to Flash. Next I started creating my main menu which incorporated a basic title, three basic buttons and my symbol which is two table tennis paddles in a form of an X with a ping pong ball in between. I took a photo of a paddle and flipped them over to create the X with a ping ball in the middle. I decided to use the Stencil Std type font as it gives the game a more children-like feel and with the black background, an appropriate appearance. For the instructions, I used the Impact font to give it a clean and professional look.
There were many challenges and obstacles that were encountered while creating my interactive flash videogame. One major challenge was the action script function. With my brief knowledge of flash I decided that additional research was necessary in order to create a captivating and interesting game. I did some research on the internet and with the help of some online tutorials I was able to further my knowledge on the action scripts. The action scripts are the most important part of my interactive flash videogame and as a result the bulk of my research focused on it.
The finished product was one that I was very pleased with. I spent a lot of time on the interactive flash game and it was very rewarding to find out what someone can learn by experimenting with different features. I learned a lot about the various types of fonts, symbols and action scripts. During this assignment I also learned how to convert pictures and use them as either a motion clip, button or graphic. My piece surpassed my envisioned goal, and looks like a videogame that children would actually enjoy playing. Although there are a few minor bugs in the game, the game is still playable and enjoyable. I am very pleased and excited about my accomplishments.

In Class Critique
My animation was viewed in my lab class which allowed for constructive criticism. However, my fellow peers and Professor really enjoyed my flash interactive game. I was privileged to watch the work of my peers. I was truly amazed of how exceptional all students work was. They applied all skills used in our tutorial but to a higher level. It was amazing how everyone had a different idea to work with. It simply shows the range of creativity in our class and it truly was impressive.

No comments: