Time for the final blog!

I had a great time working on this project, and I’m glad I had the opportunity to do so. Seeing everybody else’s projects progress and develop was fascinating, as well as seeing the finished product at the presentations.

I learned a lot about coding and game design, and how difficult it can really be. The frustrating hours spent troubleshooting were well spent, as each discovery and new idea improved the game and my knowledge. I met my goal of creating a simple educational game for young kids, but there is always more to improve. Even after the project has ended, I’ll continue to work on the game, adding more content, new features, and polishing up the parts of the game that already exist.

Once again, I’m happy I was able to do this project and I hope that it continues so students next year will be able to experience it as well!

It was a lazy Saturday morning when I first started creating my game. Dressed in pajamas and with a steaming cup of coffee, I learned the basics of GameMaker (the game-making software I am using): how to create code, how to add sprites and make them into interactable objects, and I learned how difficult is really is to create a game from scratch. I had to find pictures, use editing tools to turn them into images that would work as sprites, and add them to the game. After that, I had to turn the sprites into game objects and create code that responded to the player’s actions as they interacted with each object. I spent hours trying to create something as simple as a button, but when I did it was very satisfying to see the progress I had made. With each new idea that I came up with, the game changed significantly, even though some changes were invisible on the surface. For example, instead of having objects load one by one at specific X and Y coordinates, I learned that I could create entire rooms using a much simpler tool and have the game load them as the previous room was completed. Similarly, instead of creating a sprite for every number that would be used in the game, I created sprites of the numbers 0-9, and made each of them the same size. That way, I could create any combination of numbers very easily. Even though it could be frustrating to do troubleshooting, it felt like I was making progress with each new thing I learned.