Sample Pirate Interface

The sample interface for the Super Tiki Monkey Temple is now available for team members to play with and give feedback on.

Please note that it may change throughout the day(s) as I work on adding features to the game; I push out new versions to this page as I make progress.

Pirates Meeting: 3.27.06

Version 3 - revision of script: NOTES:

Use "hypothesis" sparingly, very casual, as if you are just conversing about it, not making direct reference to it.

After each level:
Last level info and between level, and set up for the next level.

Give as little game play instruction as possible: throughout the script/game. Game should be as intuitive as possible on its own through game play.

Make sure to reference entire game play idea: Get the monkey from the start to the end.

CC:
Working game, by next meeting, even if it has placeholder graphics and text.

Katie:
1. Abbreviate stone wall instruction further, without pirate talk. Maybe come up with some.

2. Opening screen (movie intro) for the project (script): The pirates are miserable, cursed, captains evil, get our treasure back, how do we get rid of the curse, who will save our ship. Set the scene for a pirate adventure. Good story line, use the ship as the setting. Serious narration, and a version with comedic approach.

Retreat:
IV, DV Game
Confirm Snooby drink
Revisit experiment
Post experiment game

Pirates Meeting: 3.20.06

Review of the script:

For Katie:
It was a great script overall. It is a bit wordy and we are concerned about too much pirate talk throwing off the kids. We need the pirate talk toned down and shorten the script a bit.

The pirate references and talk will be used throughout the development of all activities (games) and so we don't need to incorporate all the references into this particular game.

For Matt:
1. finish monkey walk cycle.
2. parrot, (256 x 256) move/fly cycle, talk box (cartoon bubble)
3. Will revise the pirates and we will get into a school or schedule a time for LGLab.
4. We need additional dialog boxes. 512 x 256 dialog boxes will be bamboo style (flash files)

CC needs: trash can, blender, and smoothie combinations, various buttons (go button), front and back of the coin they want built (texture for the edge of the coin), map (shockwave flash file) and gems. Matt already has quite a bit of this stuff done.

For Adrian:
Opening and Closing screens: (Adrian will give it a go)
Second scene: Inside Super TMT scene.
The entrance to the temples, arched door ways sort of a fly-through, in lightwave. Matt will work with Adrian on this.

For Pamela:
Will check on royalty rights for the game sounds. I will work with Tomilee on internet/game usage. Pam sent out an email during the meeting.

For Barb maybe: Side notes on music
How do we translate the music digitally. Is Bob familiar with digital music production? We will check with Greg and Steve on GarageBand experience to help Bob out.

CC suggests if Bob can write a melody then we could use it as a base in GarageBand. This might be good a good approach, or one for each concept.

Eli will now start joining the meetings to help me follow production now that Karen is gone.

Response from TT:
Yes, internet is listed as a permissable use of the music; however, I would like you to read the agreement for yourself.

Super Tiki Monkey Temple

We (CC, Adrian, and I) met with Katie yesterday to discuss the script for the Tiki Monkey Game. To help her out a bit we began by showing her the prototype game and talked about how we saw it developing and the dialog we thought it needed. We also discussed the main objective of the game and how we wanted the game to refer to the song at some point. We then walked through the game from beginning to end and identified the times when dialog would be needed.

Entrance:
We see then entrance to the temple and the parrot tells the player what they are looking at and what will happen if the go in there. Some basic back story on the game. This then leads to the instructions screen. The parrot states how the game is played and maybe poses some questions to keep in mind while playing. Then the player is instructed to proceed.

Level 1: Meet the Bananas
Parrot explains interface and what to do in this screen. Again, restates question to make the player think about observing monkey behavior. Parrot will make a comment if the player fails to get the monkey moving properly and is also available for help if clicked on a any point. When player gets through first level they are congratulated and then get a "statistics" screen which tells them how well they did and prompts them to the next screen.

Level 2 : Bananas into Practice
" Now you know what bananas do ..." Hints, Statistics screen, The end of this level has a fruit explosion and congrats on reaching the new level which has unlocked apples and what they do. Reminder on observing. next level

Level 3 : Apple Awesomeness!

Level 4: Apples and bananas into practice

Level 5 : meet the grapes

Level 6: all three fruits into practice

Level 7: push pineapple shake the tree

Level 8 : 4 fruit fantasy

Level 9 : Blender is added
This needs to be explained

Level 10: 2nd blend level
Reach the end of this level and we are satisfied and player gets a chorus of the hypothesis song

2 or 3 more levels until reach the exit and get the great golden monkey helmet of pirate island and prompts to get back to the main game.

I think the exercise was very helpful for her, and us, it helped solidify the game a little more. She stated that she had a much clearer idea of what she needed to do and would begin working immediately.

New Interface Sketch

Here is the new sketch for the tiki monkey temple.

IV DV Game instead of a Cause and Effect Game

Randy has reflected that teachers still have such a difficult time identifying IV and DV. He suggests a game where they practice that over and over and over.

Hypothesis Phrases
- Not just a guess
- Based on what you already know
- involves predicting
- hard to spell
- plural is hypotheses (that isn't a mispelling of hypothesis)

Other songs include
- the variable song (the are what change in an experiemnt, there are two types)
- the constant song (it is important to isolate one thing at a time)
- control song (hold one thing constant, it is a comparison group, how do we know if there is an effect, without something to compare to, you don't know what you've got until you have soemthing to compare it to)
- experiment song (your experiment is a test)

Tasks and Decisions

Monkey Fruit is now called: Super Tiki Monkey Temple
- Self Standing Game
- watch movie for details on game aspects

Overall Game Decisions
- don't see a cabin boy until you've passed at least one entrance
- don't see last cabin boy until you've passed entrances to all activities
- cabin boy delivers exposition that: 1) not a curse, 2) science can solve problem, 3) experiment can indicate problem, and 4) experiment design must include hypothesis, IV, DV and what is constant.

To do this week
- Matt is going to storyboard and work on interface
- CC is going to build remianing tiles and get it programmed
- Karen is going to post movie that reviews game play on monkey fruit
- Katie will re-write introduction, level blurbs, and hints
- Barb will talk to bob about the song

Graphics Update - pt.3 - monkey fruit

We have fruit!







Just need to create a blender ...

Graphics Update - pt.2 - obstacles

Here are just a few of the sample obstacles from Gerritt that will be part of the first level:





They have been modeled out completely and textured. They will be exported as LightWave objects for CC to incorporate into his game engine. Adrian has created a statue that is also ready. I still need to define the wall tiles, stairs, and other columns. Other than creating a few new textures for variety we should have almost enough level material for the basic grids.

more to come on the monkey and the fruit.

Graphics Update - pt. 1 - The tile set

The majority of the graphics work being done is on the " Monkey Fruit" game. We have been developing 3D models and using Flash to create bitmap textures for the first level of the game. The basic set of tiles has been defined. They look like this:





We are also working on a variety of obstacles for the level; including, pits, columns, statues, various debris. I will upload images on the next post.