7-10-06 meeting

The team met to discuss the music needed for the entire game. The team agreed that we wanted each game to have it's own custom ambient music and that having Sam orchestrate upon Bob's melodies.

Pamela stated that she needs a good estimate (in minutes and seconds) of how much music we would like Sam to compose. There was a short debate on how long the loops needed to be before they sounded too repetitive within a game but we felt we could use shorter loops ( 30 sec - 1 min.) and that if created well enough the users would not notice a loop. Also shorter loops means smaller file sizes and faster downloads.

This is the music we would like to have:
1. OPENING TRAILER - This music needs to be dramatic and adventurous. It should not be a loop because it will be an animation of a defined length. For sure shorter than 30 seconds.
2. STMT - 30 second loop. Based on the melodies of the song Bob writes about making a hypothesis. Jungle sounding, maybe with monkey and other animal noises.
3. POWDER MONKEY- 30 second loop based on the song about variables; dark and spooky and appropriate for monsters, since there are two phases of the game; battling baby monsters and then battling momma monsters we might need 2 variations on the same music, the latter being more scary.
4. GHOST SHIP - 30 second loop based on the song about IV, DV and Constants; spooky maritime ghost like. This also has a second phase of racing that might need the tempo picked up.
5. HAND WASHING- 30 second loop based on the song about washing hands. Light and fun shanty.
6. ISLAND WALK AROUND - 30 second loop; a variation on the theme music but very soft and unobtrusive with an island feel.
7. BROWNBEARD BATTLE- 30 second very exciting loop, swashbuckling and adventurous, can be based on main theme - if not enough money to do this we can probably repurpose the opening music
8. END GAME VICTORY MUSIC- 15 seconds, does not need to be a loop, victorious nautical fanfare

We are looking at about 5 minutes of original music based on a variety of themes.
We understand that all of this may not be possible so we agreed that if we must scale back that we would be happy to have the opening trailer music and some walking around music. We could possible find some appropriate stock music and we would begin looking for some just in case. The music library we have access to does not have much of the music we are wanting. We would have to search for other stock music.
Pam will take our estimate to Sam and he will then propose a cost and time estimate.

Ghost Ship
• Have top of steering wheel and click to direction of ship.
Gerritt - caves
Logan – the actual ghost ship
Modeled out the ghost ship
Underwater scene

Once ghost ship raised have a racing Game – collect coins and once catch up to the ghost ship & get map. Power ups... once the ghost ship is caught you get the map piece.

July 17 Kids in lab – test out new Powder Monkey with kids.

6-30-06 meeting

Powder Monkey:
- We are trying to get kids to stop the random selection of elements (variables) and to use the history. Matt and CC will mock up a screen to test with the kids.

Game Adjustments: STMT
- Give them a lead phrase to help them in observation, research question and hypothesis.

- 1. Observation: 1, 3, 5, 6
The first time monkeys any fruit bananas, apples, grapes appear a text pop-up
"Bananas make the monkey turn"

- 2. Research Question:
• 1st smoothie occurrence:
The first time a smoothie is dragged out to the screen before the monkey eats it, add a text pop-up.
What does a monkey do when the monkey drinks a Blank, Blank smoothie?

• 3. 2nd smoothie occurrence in the next level is the HYPOTHESIS.
When a blank and a blank are put in a smoothie, the monkey will?

Teacher insight: Barb shared her thoughts on what she took away from the teacher group.

- 1. Quicktime movie for the teachers to use as a guide.

- 2. Cheat codes for teachers: solution screen shots.

- 3. Bring the teachers back in for two afternoons, along with Rachel. Goal: to work on all dialog aspects. 3 two hour blocks with the teachers. July 24th, 25th and 26th.

All dialog refine with teachers:
Parrot talk
Cabin boy dialog
Screen rewards (dialog)

Nature of the questions for the id/dv.

Barb emailed Randy to see if he is willing to come in and write up the dialog, if he does then we don't have to go with the teacher blocks.

For Pamela:
Research with teachers in the game lab 100 each a research stipend.

Opening Animations 6-30-06

Scene 1:
- starts with scene underwater - murky
- partial glimps of the sea monster's fin or tail.
- focus into wrecked ship with skeleton(s). The wrecked ship from the Ghost Ship Keys.
- a distant view of the sea monster (distant view or not a clear image of the sea monster).
- Pan up to the surface
- Brown beards ship emerging out of the darkness with stormy dark thick storm clouds and lightening in the background and waves.
Scene 2:
- Silhouettes of brown beards and cronies. eyes highlights, lightening. Brown beard is laughing (evil laugh)
Scene 3:
Scene in-between 3-4 Abstract scene (captain brown beard over, the ship of the misery (or his eyes), with lightening. Possible focus on the name of Misery on the ship.
Scene 4:
- sunset ship sailing, zoomed out shot with island in the distance
Scene 5:
- evening over the island - monkeys around the island, maybe island sounds. On the island looking at the ship coming into the bay the camera zooms back, backing into the jungle, the jungle thickens,
Scenen6:
- night time - maybe storm coming in. -- as the jungle thickens the and we get a wide shot of the surrounding you'll see the skeleton draped over a rock or in the tree.