Thursday, April 17, 2014

Catch Me If You Can

Doing some simple coding in Hopscotch I came up with a game that can be both challenging and fun.
The idea of the game is to tap the characters as fast as possible to make them disappear. It develops hand-eye coordination and kinesthetic precision.

Coding:
The coding uses six main functions:
1. Random: This function is essential because it makes the movements  and turns of the characters unpredictable. I used random on the Move distance, and rotate degrees.
2. Move Distance: Makes the characters move around the ipad screen.
3. Rotate degrees: The characters rotates anything between 1 and 360 degrees. Different characters have different parameters.
4. Change pose: to improve the visual appeal of the game, it seems like the characters are moving.
5. All the above function are nested in a Repeat-End function.
6. Invisibility: Set to 100% when the player taps the character.

1-5 are under "When Play button is tapped"
6 is under "When (specific character) is tapped"

The process took some planning before starting the actual coding. Pre-planning clearly helps because you come to the application with a clear idea of what you want to achieve.

Next step:
The next step would be to add a timer, or a way of keeping track of how fast the player was able to eliminate (or disappear) all the characters. A way of keeping track would encourage players to improve their skills.
Also, the game can start with just one character and gradually add more characters, up to the point where the screen is filled with many moving characters. This will function as different levels of difficulty and challenges for the player.



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