Monday, April 2, 2012

Elemens | Pure Modness | Football Fan

Elemens

The Elemens mainframe has been mostly upgraded to v. 1.2 Codename (Light Surge). As detailed in my REU Log, this change includes the following updates:
  • Concrete Graphical Style updated. Inspired by simplistic subtlety, (Windows 8)
  • Inclusion of Four Elemental Types
  • Work on Customize Elemen Portion
  • Converting Elemen class for better customization usage
  • Ability to remove data from Screen
  • Addition of Beam Attack
  • Addition of Mirror Attack

Pure Modness



Pure Modness is the educational video game being developed for the Android Platform which I previously introduced. The idea from Pure Modness stems from my earliest personal experiences attempting to learn the capabilities of the modulo (%) function and mastering it's uses and concepts. This game attempts to encapsulate educational lessons on the mod function in a variety of intriguing and captivating mini games. As of now, I have conceptualized two different games that can be used to both provide an entertaining challenge, and reinforce rules of the modulo function. It will feature a softer, geometrical-based aesthetic that correlates to both the mathematically based concepts that will be taught and the servitude as an educational game. The aesthetic will also be impacted by the Mod subculture that was large in the UK during the 50's and 60's.

Concept One: Basic Operations against Clock

- Race against the clock to solve a series of randomly generated modulus function operations with a specified difficulty setting. Intended to have a low level of complexity to serve as a lesson to players of the ways the modulo function works. Player attempts to gain a high number of solved problems to serve as a high score.

Concept Two: Cog Game

- This concept is not the most concrete, however I feel it is one that could have a substantial influence on the players' mental interpretation of the mod function. The game will feature cogs with differing number of spokes that are intertwined. I intend to feature these cogs to represent the way that the modulus functions work. This site in addition to this site feature an implementation similar to what I intend to include, with the first more accurately representing what it will eventually look like. I will bring more information when concrete designs become available. This game is also to serve as an introduction to the Modulus function.


The modulo function is one which I have reason to believe is not challenging, but a bit more difficult to initially master than other arithmetic operations. My hypothesis is that it is generally taught at an age where other basic arithmetic operations are concretely impounded into our mathematical brains, and as such, any potential addition serves as a threat to the basic functions which we rely on heavily in daily life. As creatures of comfort, we might become used to utilizing functions of addition, subtraction, division, and multiplication too frequently to attempt to use another tool that can serve with an abstract purpose. Thus, in order to protect our understanding of these tools, we don't allow the risk of conversion of these policies in our minds based on the addition of newer concepts. This isn't a formal hypothesis, but perhaps an additional study should be in order. I'll be sending out a survey to determine what the general population feels on this issue by polling NCSU students to see whether Pure Modness could be considered a relevant research game.

Football Fan

Upon Dr. Xie's request, Football Fan will be released to the Android Market for testing of people's perception. Prior to this, there are a few changes that must be implemented to ensure premium product quality.
  • Potential switch to front-end XML-based parsing instead of manual updating
  • Graphical Update
  • Features Update
  • Addition of Email Developer feature
After these things are complete, Football Fan should be ready to release. This will be collaboratively worked on with Jonathan and Khendr'a.