Team Game Concept

I think that Drayton and I will be able to accomplish all that we attempt to do in our team game. Drayton has big plans for our team game, and he is a very determined young man. We will work hard together in our team game to complete it. He has already said that he wants to make the game with ten levels. I don't know if we can get these all completed, but we certainly will do our best. I do know that we will both work our hardest to make it the best game possible. We are both GOOD soldiers.

Awaiting a Harvest

It is time for Game Design II to begin in the eighth grade Globaloria class, and it's exciting to see the students make their teams and talk about their topics for the games. They have come so far since the beginning of the year in their development of coding and their drawing ability in Flash and in their overall Flash skill. I am very proud of the class. It will be fun to see what they decide to do with their game ideas and how much they are able to do this last month of school with the coding expertise that they have in making their games. Of course, with a team member it makes it so much easier to develop a better and more complicated game than it does alone. As the old saying goes, "Two heads are better than one." We'll see how that plays out in class. We have some pretty amazing students and some very creative young people in the class. Some of the games created so far have impressed me so given time and collaboration, we ought to see some good material being produced. I am anxious to see the results, but the process is equally important as the students work and through trial and error and come through the difficulties of working with others and seeing their games develop from abstract ideas to final polished playable games. It is an exciting adventure and it is never predictable even after having witnessed several games over the last few years. Cultivate the soil, plant the seed, water the plant, watch it grow, and enjoy the fruit. Come and be a part of our adventure and our harvest of creative minds at work. But, don't be afraid to get your hands dirty. It is hard work but is worth the effort. And, yes, it all happens in Globaloria!

Time for a Break

Spring break has been long in coming it seems, but it has finally arrived. It will be a nice week away from school and classes for students and staff alike. We may even see snow next week according to the weather forecast but somehow that doesn't seem surprising considering the kind of weather we've had this past winter and even into the spring. The Game Design classes at Tygarts Valley are well on their way to completing some of their games. The eighth grade class is almost ready to present their action games and we want to do the team games if we can find the time to complete them at the end of this year and we do hope to do that. We have had nineteen snow days this year and seven two-hour delays to slow our efforts down in Randolph County, and it has indeed slowed us down, but we have made every effort to achieve our goals even with the delays and obstacles that have been in our path. Game Design II and III in the high school class finished their mobile unit and published their games. They had an interesting collection of games in this class, and we've moved on to the 3-D unit now. It has its own challenges and obstacles built into the course. It's new to each and every one of the students and to the instructor as well. But, we learn from each other and assist each other as the class goes through the lessons. It certainly is interesting and different from the game design that we knew from the past. We'll see how it turns out as we finish out the year.