The End...

I am very happy with my game and how it turned out in the end. I am surprised that I could have made this game after only approximately half a semester of learning actionscript and animation and the Flash program in general.

Although I had to sacrifice some of my ideas, such as having a memory-game aspect in (when picking off the rainbow petals in the right order {ROYGBIV}), I think that this was an important lesson to learn for the future (set high goals, but sacrifice them when necessary).

I would have also liked to include sound effects, but we didn't actually learn anything related to it in class, so this seems rather impossible. I'm hoping that we can learn how to do this next year!

Now, finally, time to relax and get back to my xbox!

xxx

Actionscript!!

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, the single best feeling in the world is having completed the actionscript and thereby having completed the game!!!

I found this very challenging and rewarding, and I look forward to learning a lot more and being able to therefore make more complicated games.

I have included comments all throughout my actionscript on my Flash file, to outline what each section of code does, so I will not go into it again here.

The hardest bit of actionscript was at the end, linking the end-screen with the "the end" screen and the start of the game again. I found a lot of errors here, but luckily got it all worked out.

I am very proud of my game and how it turned out.

Introduction/instructions box and the end-game box

Now that I was almost ready to do my actionscript, I only had one other thing to do... create an introduction/instructions page/box or whatever it's called to be displayed at the start of the game to tell the player what they need to do, and an end-of-game/you've-completed-the-game page/box which is to be displayed when the player has completed the game.

This is the intro screen. It gives the player a little information about the circumstances of Murtagh's planet, and his cause - but not a lot. I am assuming that players have seen my planet design and character design, which outlines this history much more. For the sake of not boring players before they begin the game, I kept this short. Here Murtagh gives the player their objective, and with the click of the button at the bottom, the game begins!

This is the end-of-game screen. It tells the player that they have completed the game objective and gives the player the option to restart the game or finish it for good.

Setting up the Flash Stage...

By far, most difficult part of the project was setting up the stage, with all the animations, all the objects, the actionscript and labels.

I spent a couple of weeks trying to work it out, but nothing seemed to work.

At first, I put everything on different layers/movieclips, and inside these movieclips I had the appropriate animations and actionscript:

As you can see, everything is on frame 1.

The 5 layers that have a red cross next to it are the movieclips containing animations. All other layers are just images of objects.

This is an example of what is inside the movieclips shown above. There is a still on the first frame, and the rest contain animations.

This way of organising the stage didn't work for me - it was much too complicated and difficult to access.

Then, after some help, I set the stage up like this:

This is how I made my game in the end.

I have the different animations all on frames that I could call in my actionscript. There are also layers here with still object images on them, but all animations can easily be accessed here.

Animations - FINALLY done!!!

After a few days of solid, non-stop animating and lack of sleep, I have completed each of the 22 little animations for my game!

Here are a few screenshots which show some of the animations:

In this animation, Murtagh gets angry.

This should happen when you click on him once.

His shoulders hunch up, his head moves down, giving the impression that he's crouching. It's kind of a warning position, like "hey, you're annoying me. Stop it now or else you will get hurt!"

Murtagh is angry in this animation. He is crouching even lower, looks even more menacing. his teeth are bared in warning.

This animation should play after you've clicked on the character twice.

In this animation, Murtagh has been completely annoyed and shoots a laser out of his eye at you.

His mouth scrunches up, like he has completely lost all self-control.

This is what happens if you've clicked him 3 times.

After this animation, the actionscript should reset his animations and the next click will go back to frame 1 - which is Murtagh 'annoyed'.

This is one animation that has been created for each of the 7 pink petals. You click on the petal and it falls off while another one re-grows in its place.

Clicking these petals and playing these animations won't get the player closer to achieving the objective (making the flower release a seed), but it adds something else that is interesting for the player to discover.

Similarly, if the player clicks on the leaves, they will move, but this doesn't help to achieve the objective.

This animation is vital to the game. Once the player has clicked on the golden watering can, it will move over the flower and drop a single pink droplet onto it. After this has happened, the watering can stops being clickable, but the flower's petals turn rainbow.

This moves the player onto the next "stage" of the game, and brings them one step closer to the end.

This is part of the above animation, when the water has been absorbed and the petals suddenly become rainbow.

Once the flower has rainbow petals, the player can again click on each of the 7 petals, but these will fall off and stay at the bottom of the screen - they won't re-grow.

I had previously wanted this to have a memory game aspect, where the player would have to click off the petals in the right order to get the seed to pop out, but this was way too hard.

Instead, I decided that they could click them off in any order and that the seed would pop out once all the petals had been removed.

In this animation, all the petals have been removed from the flower and the seed is popping out of the flower bud.

This tells the player that they are close to achieving their goal. All they have to do now is to plant the seed in the green pot and the game will be over.

In this screenshot, you can see the tiny yellow dot (the seed) in the green pot, and a little pink flower stem starting to grow out of it.

This is the final animation of the game - the game is done!

Now, I have to set up the stage in Flash and begin my actionscript!

Animations - 22 to go!

Now that the stage has been set up, the objects all on separate layers and all made into symbols, I am ready to start animating!

Here is the list of animations that I need to do for my project:

1. Click on Murtagh once, he becomes annoyed.

2. Click on Murtagh twice, he becomes angry.

3. Click on Murtagh three times, he shoots at you with his laser eye.

4. Click on the left leaf, it will rustle.

5. Click on the right leaf, it will rustle.

6. Click on each of the seven petals, they will fall off and re-grow (this will be a total of 7 animations!)

7. Click on the watering can, it will water the plant, and the petals will change colours.

8. Click on each of the seven petals in the right order and they will fall off (total of 7 animations).

9. If the right order of petals have been clicked and have fallen off, a seed will pop out of the flower's bud and will fall on the table.

10. Click on the seed, it will be placed in the little empty pot where it will begin to grow.

This is a total of 22 animations... if I'm counting correctly... OH MY!

Preparation#4 - Putting It All Together

Here is the completed stage - all the elements are finally in place.

I'm very happy with this. I think everything is very clear and nothing takes too much away from anything else.

Murtagh is completely visible, only part of his arm and back covered by the plant. I think the placement is all done very well and creates an interesting and inviting scene for the player.

The only thing I'm not sure about is the "lab. 1" sign on the wall. I think that perhaps this looks a little too much like a button. I will redraw this a little later to make it more subtle.

Other than that, I feel very confident with the project so far and will now start doing the animations!