Project Presentation

The Customization Engine Model: Soul Calibur and Elemens: Light Surge version will (finally) be released this week for observation. A little tweaking and they should be all yours for reviewing!

Various Projects

Over the past few weeks, I have been working on the expansion of the series of writings on the Customization Engine Model, and the progression of the XNA Elemens, in addition to a few new projects I have started.

Educational Game App

The first project I have begun development of has been the construction of an educational game application for the Android platform. With this application, I intend to discover, record, and observe patterns within educational video games that prompt interest in users. The application will be intended for younger audiences and will feature a variety of different modes that are extremely similar to the Elemens games I have been developing as well.

The idea was wrought from reviewing a conversation held with Dr. Xie about the effects video games can have upon young children. By replacing video games that lack educational benefits with those that do instill knowledge into children, we can enhance their mental capacities from an earlier age. Opposed to having our video games teach children the best way to kill zombies, teaching them the best methods to perform arithmetic seems as if it could assist in enabling a "smarter" society. The challenge will be to develop a game that will be primarily educational that can compete with the un-educational video games that saturate the markets. While the app is still under heavy conceptualization, I do intend to have several game-play modes, with at least one being similar to the Elemens game I'm developing in XNA. I'm setting a time frame for approximately a month and half worth of development and then hopefully release by no later than mid-April. If successfully released to the Android app market, I plan to obtain results of the study via built in surveys that will report and record information in regards to the most commonly utilized features in the app. This study will help in determining what features make an educational most appealing to players in order to maximize effectiveness when developing educational games.

Customization Engine Model

The Customization Engine Model analysis of the Soul Calibur series is wrapping up. I am doing my best to not only make it informative with a sort of a pseudo-research paper set-up, I am also trying to make it visually appealing and as accurate based on resources as possible. In the mean time, I should release the overview of the Customization Engine Model : Introduction piece shortly. This will be a similar artistic pseudo-research paper that will introduce the criteria on which I am examining in player Customization-based video games. I would like for the documents I provide to be up to a high standard before posting them for review, and based on that I feel they may require a bit more time to become fully developed.

Elemens Update

I have still been working on modifying the Element Relation Chart that was introduced in the last update, and have been continuing to work on v. 1.1.0. I have been working on trying to solidify an art style to use in the game as well. Been looking into methods to port this into a Windows Phone as well.

You Are Smart!

In regards to the application I developed for the I-Cubed Convertigo Mobilizer App Development Challenge, I am said to say that You Are Smart! did not place among the top three apps. However, I ultimately decided I'm going to utilize this resource that I created to form another medium to conduct research with. It's purpose as of this time is unknown.

Wolfpack Football FAN app

• The newest additions and latest updates to the Wolfpack Football app consist of image insertion for players. As stated once before Graduating players, newcoming players, etc. buttons being changed to tabs above the 2011 roster is still under construction. Working on gathering information for player bio input of the players. Pictures for current prototype for player image view, player bio as well as roster tabs should be uploaded soon.

Elements in Elemens/Customization Engine Model Documents

The latest upgrades to Elemens have provided a few additions to the core setup. I've introduced in this version one of the core elements of game play. Elements will be used to add an additional flair to battles. Each Skill will possess a single Element, which will alter the damage the move does when hitting Elemens, and colliding with other Skills. The differences in damage caused will be based on the element of the Skill or Elemen. There will be a variety of Elements introduced that can be imbued to Skills in addition to the initial four that have been introduced right now. As per the latest v1.1.0 Referring to the following chart will provide a visual sense of how the mechanics will work.

An arrow represents that a Skill containing a particular Element (starting at the top going clockwise: Wind, Earth, Water, and Fire) deals a greater amount of damage to Elemens or Skills when they collide. Whenever for example a Ball, which is a basic projectile Skill that damages an Elemen, collides with another Ball of the same Element, the two should then immediately dissolve upon contact with each other. However, if a Wind Ball collides with an Earth Ball, then the Wind Ball should destroy the Earth Ball and continue on for the remaining duration of time that it had left before disappearing. If an Earth Elemen is hit with a Wind Skill, then the damage done by the Skill will be greater than normal. The exact scale of damage is not known as of yet.

In addition, I have been battling with choosing an exact damage battle system, or a system where the values of damage done are based on a set range of damages calculated by each Elemen's Statistics. By exact damage battle system, I mean that certain Skills such as Ball would always deal a constant amount of damage opposed to altering by a few points. I'm going to have to continue analyzing the benefit of this system opposed to the slight damage alteration system.

In addition, it is my desire to begin releasing the information I've gathered on the video games I have been studying and testing as part of the Customization Engine Model this week. After a few more revisions, I plan to start by releasing information obtained from analyzing the Soul Calibur and RPG Maker video game series.

You Are Smart!

It's okay to admit, we all feel down in the dumps every now and then. You Are Smart! is a mobile app I've developed just to help alleviate those depressing feelings on our gloomiest of days! You Are Smart! was recently developed for the I-Cubed Convertigo Mobilizer App Development Challenge. I-Cubed, an innovative, Raleigh-based company that specializes in software development launched their challenge with the prospects of drawing programmers to their Convertigo Mobilizer product. The Convertigo Mobilizer is slated to be the future for mobile application development, with the same set of coding being able to be used to deploy applications for a variety of mobile operating systems, including iOS, Android, and BlackBerry OS. Built on Eclipse, the Convertigo Mobilizer IDE takes a programmer's Javascript and HTML codes and utilizes a few libraries constructed by the I-Cubed team to produce applications for different markets. The You Are Smart! app is one of the three applications currently in the running, and will be judged by the professional software engineers at I-Cubed in five days. You Are Smart! features over 50 different compliments and praises to remind you of your value and worth. Sometimes people take for granted the power of simple positive reinforcement, and it is the goal of this app to ensure that no soul is left without the potential to be positively inspired.

Wish me luck on the competition, as details can be found here, more info on I-Cubed can be found here, info on the Convertigo Mobilizer can be found here, and the page for You Are Smart! is right here! Please continue to work hard and have a very successful semester! Remember, you are smart!

Wolfpack Football (Football Fan App)

Wolfpack Football (Football Fan App)

A fan based application used primarily for team promotion giving the user information about the team such as,

• Roster info

• Coach info (coming soon..)
• Team Schedule

• Statistics

• Player Bio (coming soon..)

Throughout this applications progress and creation the user should be able to view information as well as images of the team and individual players.

Elemens Game Functionality Demo (Light Flare v1.0.0)

As I've stated numerous times before, the video game Elemens that I'm developing in Microsoft XNA as part of my research will provide the opportunity to battle miniature creatures known as Elemen while heavily modifying and upgrading your Elemen to adapt to a massive amount of battle variables. I am now releasing a stable version of what I refer to as a "Test Skeleton" of the Elemens game, with this Test Skeleton featuring nothing more than the essentials of a battle. Download the file here, and read more on the installation and the location for other releases here.

The released Version 1.0.0, codenamed Light Flare, features basic instances of the battle mechanics with dummy sprites and images used until the actual game's images are finalized. This version does not focus on the customization of the Elemens, which will be analyzed more heavily in upcoming releases. The players have the option of battling on one of two randomly selected stages while controlling two Elemen, Susie and Jams. With this release, one can test out the capability of the movements, the usage of the Skill system, and view all of an Elemen's statistics as depicted below.

Elemen Statistics

Elemens battle by utilizing their Skills to whittle down the HP of opposing Elemens. Elemens possess a variety of statistics that determine the effectiveness of their usable Skills. Providing an Elemen with Skills that correspond to its best stats with will provide ease in obtaining victories.

HP: Hit Points. Determines the vitality of an Elemen. When this is completely depleted during battle, an Elemen will no longer be able to fight.

Strength: Determines the power of physically based Skills.

Mind: Determines the strength of magically based Skills.

Soul: Determines the effectiveness of moves that have status or healing effects.

Defense: Determines the resilience of an Elemen.

Speed: Determines how swiftly an Elemen can move in battle.

Spirit: The amount of energy an Elemen has to use its Skills.

Currently, I plan to develop Elemens so that each Elemen will be initialized to have a random set of statistics, with all stats starting near predetermined model values. In addition to these statistics, an Elemental System will play a role of heavy importance in Elemens, which will be developed and tested later.

Skills

Elemens fight via utilizing an assortment of skills. It will be developed so there is a plethora of Skills available for an Elemen to select from and unlock to use in battles, each varying in power and purpose. In Light Flare, there are three specific Skills both Susie and Jams have in their arsenal.

Burst: An Elemen shoots out a burst of energy. It is a Mind-type Skill.

Punch: An Elemen lunges forward and unleashes a punch. It is a Strength-type Skill.

Shield: An Elemen produces a barrier from oncoming Skills. It is a Soul-type Skill.

By utilizing these Skills effectively, an Elemen can effectively reduce an opponents HP. Skills in upcoming versions of Elemens will all be imbued with specific Element Class. Each of the Classes such as Fire, Water, Earth, etc., will have disadvantages and advantages to other Elemental Classes, meaning certain Skills will reduce in strength or completely dissolve if colliding with a Skill with a stronger Class. Each Elemen will also become imbued with a specific Elemental Class that will maintain the same weaknesses and resistances to specific Skills.

Elemens Game Structure

Being an XNA developed game, the Elemens coding will be required to follow a particular structure. The above chart represents the five different sections of coding which XNA games must adhere to in order to function properly. The Initialize method is for the instantiation of the necessary objects and statistics for the game. Load Content is used by the XNA software to assign images and other materials to specific sprites, and musical tracks and sound effects to appropriate sound files. Unload Content is essentially used to save data acquired in game to a specified location on file. Update is used to update any necessary variables in the game. Finally, the Draw method is used to display the visual aspects of the game on screen.

The main file Game.cs is the primarily encapsulating coding, in which all other code is played. It is from this file that all coding is run. I've developed a BattleManager.cs class which contains all the information regarding a Battle. It possesses and relays information about all Elemen that are currently battling to each other, while updating information about its current stage in Stage.cs. Lastly, Elemen.cs functions as the coding that maintains each Elemen, including its personal Skills and statistics, and eventually its customized appearance and Elemental Class among other specifics.

As I continue to work on updates to Elemen, they will be released here. Continue to check this spot for the latest updates.