Idea:
For my midterm, I originally wanted to create an interactive artwork because I assumed it was easier. After looking at some students’ previous pieces, I concluded that neither choice was easier than the other, so I settled for an interactive game that was a combination of some of my favorite childhood games, with a theme that I’ve noticed a lot in recent years. The games I thought of were: Jetpack Joyride, Subway Surfers, and Temple Run.
These endless runner games consist of a character that keeps running (or flying) while avoiding obstacles to reach the furthest distance possible. I don’t think I have the time or knowledge to create a completely endless one, so I’ll go for one that goes “You Win!” if the user can last around 1 minute 30. I decided to make the theme revolve around social media influencers that impulsively move to New York “just because it’s New York.” I’m thinking of naming it Escape from New York as word play on Marketplace’s Escape from New York Pizzeria.
Concept:
The concept is the user plays as an influencer who severely romanticizes New York and imagines it to be the way it’s portrayed in movies, only to move there and be faced with obstacles such as rats, trash, and crackheads. Their mission is to use the arrow keys to avoid driving her into the obstacles to get her out of New York.
Design:
Above is a brief idea of what I want the actual game to look like. The user will be able to move the arrow keys up and down to move her to the road without an obstacle.
So far, I’ve only worked on setting some functions and coming up with the look of the main menu page and the tutorial. I’m facing some formatting issues that need to be worked on such as the game background image’s scroll and the tutorial going off of the canvas.
Uncertainty:
Honestly, I’m uncertain about being able to properly finish the entire game with just a little over a week left because I feel like it is way too complex and out of my capabilities, so I’ll be needing a lot of help. I snooped around other students’s project codes and got intimidated by how long their codes are. I think I’ll get the hang of it the more I work on it, as my progress and understanding from today was better than that of when I worked on it 3 days ago.
I’m kind of unsure of how I’ll make the game look as if she’s driving and the obstacles are still, rather than the obstacles are moving and she’s still. I’m also uncertain of how to make sure there’s a road without an obstacle, so that she wouldn’t be trapped like in the example design. I also found myself spending a lot of time trying to find the right images to use in the game, and even the ones I found still aren’t the right ones for the final.
I think there’s a lot of planning out and learning to do beyond what I’ve already done, so I’m kind of worried on how fast I’ll have to pace myself, which is way out of my coding comfort zone. To reduce this risk, I’ll have to dedicate a good chunk of my time to it everyday, rather than only working on it the days after I have Intro to IM class. I’ve already spent a good chunk of time finding the images for the game, so now I get to focus on the code and implementation of these images. I’ll also look at and refer to p5.js tutorials, YouTube tutorials, other students’ previous works, and of course the professor’s help to learn more on how to bring this game to life.