Making A Game With GameMaker!

You are not allowed to work in groups this assignment. For this assignment, you should start, finish, and do all the work on your own. If you have questions, please contact the instructor.

Learning Objectives:
(This is a list of the major topics that you, as students, will learn in this assignment:)

Creating A Specific Game, With GameMaker
In this assignment, you will be required to create a couple of games, using the GameMaker 7 program. The first game will be fairly specific in what you need to do, in order to make sure that you're able to do some basic game-creating things in GameMaker
Creating Your Own Game, With GameMaker
The second game will be completely up to you (within reason)

Part 1: Create A Specific GameMaker Game: DodgeTheNet!

For this part of the assignment, you'll be creating a specific game, as described here. This is being done largely to make sure that you are able to utilize the skills that have been covered in this class, so far. Unfortunately, it's not possible to give you a finished version of the game without also giving you an example solution that you can open up, so we'll have to describe it here ( NOTE: If you find a way to do this in the trial version, please let me know! Thanks! )

The game that you'll create should be named something like DodgeTheNet. In it, you will control a single bee object, and you will avoid the large number of flying net objects that are zooming around. When a net touches the bee, the game is over. Until that point, the player will accumulate more points as time goes on.

In order to get full credit for this part, your homework needs to demonstrate the following:

It needs to be a working, GameMaker game that utilizes the techniques we've looked at in class.
When I click on the green arrow, it should start, run, and end the game without problems, etc.
You need to use the bee sprite that was provided to you in lecture 1, on the course website.
1. This will be the 'hero' - the thing that the player controls
You need to use the net sprite that was provided to you in lecture 1, on the course website.
1. You will need to resize this, so that it's no more than 50% of the size of the image that's provided to you
You'll need to create a (single) room for the game
1. The room should have a background. That background should be one of the 'planets' images that was provided to you on the course website. You're free to pick any planet you want.
The player controls the bee with the four arrow keys
1. The arrows should do the obvious things - when you press up, the bee should move up. Press left, go left, etc, etc
2. You can choose whether pressing a key once will move the bee once, or whether it will cause the bee to continue moving in that direction until another key is pressed.
When the bee overlaps a net, the game is over
1. You should display a 'High Score' screen
2. Then the game should start over
There must be at least 6 nets on the screen when the game starts
When a net hits the edge of the screen, it should turn around & go back. It MUST NOT leave the screen.
Each net must start at a random speed, moving in a random direction
1. You're free to choose the speed, but make sure that it's possible to play the game for at least 5 seconds under normal conditions (i.e., keep the speed low enough that you won't instantly lose the game if a net happens to be headed towards your bee when the game starts)
At each Step, the player's score should be increased by 1 point. Thus, the longer that the player stays alive (i.e., the longer it is until the bee gets caught by a net, the higher the player's score)
You do not have to implement anything else for this game. Furthermore, you are encouraged NOT to implement anything else for this game - save your creativity for the next part! :)

Part 2: Create Your Own GameMaker Game

For this part of the assignment, you'll be creating a your own game, AND a document that briefly describes it. You need to use GameMaker7, and it needs to be something you can upload to the StudentTracker system (currently, there's a limit of 10MB per file, so putting more than 1 (shortish) .mp3 into your game will probably be too much). Feel free to do whatever you want, keeping in mind the following constraints on your game:

It has to be done by the time this assignment is due
So - go crazy, but keep an eye on the clock. You can always go back & put in more time on this later, if you want
It has to pass the 'parent test'
No obscenity, bad language, questionable content, etc, etc. Imagine that your game is going to be shown to your parents - would you be proud to show it to them?
It has to use resources (images, sounds) responsibly
Feel free to download stuff from the web, but make sure that you are legally allowed to use it in your game.

The other thing that you need to do for this part of the assignment is to produce a document that briefly describes your game, and that details where you got your resources from. Use Microsoft Word (or a text file, if you want), and keep it most of the standard settings. Make sure that the document is SINGLE-SPACED (in Word 2007, you will need to set the style for the document by doing a Select-All (Control-A), then clicking on the Normal (No Space) style.

You must have at least half a page describing what your game is. Briefly mention any games it's similar to (for example - "I decided to create my own version of hangman"), then describe how the game is played. Putting in a brief explanation about why the game is fun would be good (or, if your game isn't fun, offer an explanation about why it's not as fun as you'd like it to be, and suggest a couple of improvements that might make it more fun). This section must be at least half of a page (single-spaced, normal font & font size), and no more than 1 page.

You must also list out the resources that you use in your game. Each image, each background image, each sound, everything. For each resource, include the URL to directly download the resource, and a quick (2-3 sentence) explanation about why you know that you're allowed to use the resource in question. For example: if there's a page on the website that says anyone can use the website's images for non-commercial use, then you should say something like "At < URL >, it clearly indicates that anyone who wants to can make use of the images from the website, for non-commercial use. My game is a homework assignment (that I will not sell), therefore putting these images in my game is non-commercial use".

Group Work, Commenting:

You are not allowed to work in groups for this assignment. You should start, finish, and do all the work on your own. If you have questions, please contact the instructor.

What to turn in:

· A single electronic folder (a directory). This folder should contain:

o The two .GMK files - one for each game

o The Word .DOC file that describes the game, and explains where you got your resources from, and why you're allowed to use them.

How to electronically submit your homework:

Instructions to do this will be given in-class on the date that this assignment is due.