Chris Wentz
Through this project I hope to transform the Monty Hall project into an old time favorite game, Whack-A-Mole. The game of Whack-A-Mole involves moles randomly appearing on the screen. The user then attempts to hit these moles and scores points for every mole hit. An elaborate and possible extension of this game could be to add additional points for streaks, speed, and other notable I intend to do this by using the already programmed door response code such as counting up every time a door is clicked. By making the "doors" or in this case, moles, appear in randomly chosen locations, I will be able to simulate the actual game. Through this game, I hope to expand my knowledge and the knowledge of others in both a programming aspect and a purely thinking aspect. The logic behind the changes I plan to make is simple on the surface but will probably prove to be much more complicated and complex. I hope that others can take away an idea of how to change something into something else through my project. Since modern design is never done from scratch, this is a vital skill that I will utilize in this project and hope to teach others.
| Art: |
The art that I will design for this project will be completely unlike that of the starter program. Because the subjects are completely different, I plan to start from scratch with all art. The moles will be animated to include squashed states and will have to be able to disappear and reappear. This will involve a number of different stages to be drawn. Through the art techniques that I know in Flash and Photoshop, I plan to create an accurate representation of a mole, a mallet, and dirt. Since I plan to use layering and other techniques to create my art, I hope that others can realize and learn from what I will have done. Some user interface art will have to be designed as well. For this, I plan to use the utilities provided in Flash and extend upon what we have learned. |
| Math: |
The applied math aspect of this project will mostly consist of generation then the display of random integers. If I am able to elaborate on this project, I hope to include bonuses for certain types of notable achievements in which case, a great amount of math will be used in the scoring system. Although most of the math mentioned thus far seems simple on the surface, there will be many difficulties in making it actually work. Additionally, adding a radius of discrepancy could be applied. When a user clicks near a mole but does not click on the actual mole, a boundary of leeway could be added to still count the swing as an actual hit. Whenever the mallet is swung, an animation will have to be played in order to show the swinging of the mallet. The parabola by which the mallet takes may require a math equation in order to display correctly. If that is the case, math can be used to determine the point of rotation and the amount of rotation based on where the mallet is on the board. For example, if the board is 3D and the bottom is closer than the top, math will be used in order to calculate how the animation should perform. |
| Programming: |
I expect the programming to be a substantially difficult task on this program. In order to make the mallet swing and become the user’s cursor, a code will have to be written. This code will probably be an open source code but will have to be customized for the specific application. Making the moles disappear after they have been hit or have gone back into the ground will be a difficult task as well. All programming for the scoreboards and scoring should be very easy unless the program is extended to include bonuses in which case, a more elaborate programming structure will be required. The programming for the advanced scoreboard would have to include integers or boolean values being set each pass through the steps in order to determine scenarios such as streaks or speed of hit. To extend this program even further, I hope to have an elaborate post-game report which will include statistics such as how many swings, how many hits, hit percentage, bonuses earned, and more. Since almost all objects in this project will be animated within themselves, I hope to use embedding to create one large animation made up of a number of smaller ones. |