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1. Experiments
Madeleine Ross

2. Using shapes, I built up this alien creature.
To make it seem as though it was blinking,
I changed the colour of the eye to a
brown and then back to the original
white. I think I could probably have done
it better and coloured in each row of the
squares gradually each frame to make it
look more animated.
I then animated the mouth
and had the legs gradually
drop down, in an aim to make
them look more animated,
however I had a few framing
issues which didn't’t make it
as fluid as I wanted too.
In this screenshot, I tried to
make it appear that the
lazer was firing, and I found
this quite difficult as the
framing confused me quite
a bit and it took me some
time to get it to work.
To make it appear that the lazer had hit its
target, I changed the colour of the ball to
a green to create the illusion it had been
fired at. This was quite simple as I copied
the layer and changed the colour, hiding
the original purple ball.

3. I created a background, intended to be
wide enough to be used as a scroll
screen. I also sectioned off two spaces at
the end to remind myself that this was
the overlap so the world is endless. Here, I added in my simple character, so
it was easy for me to get my head round
the animation, and began to move them
across the path in a series of jumps and
slides.
Using the skills I had
learned from my first
trial, I fired a lazer again
at the star objects, so I
could get used to
animating things in
transit as I think I would
like to do something like
this for my final idea.
When my character jumped
onto the red ball, I made the
character change colour, and I
did this by creating a copy of the
character and changing its
colour, and hiding the original
layer. This is an interesting idea
that I might explore further.
I also made it appear as though
the character transformed into a
butterfly when they shot the star.
I then animated the butterfly to
make it look like it was flying up
like a butterfly.

4. I used and experimented on the sight
BeepBox, to create a soundtrack for my
Midnight platform game, as it has a lot of
areas that are in need of sound effects
e.g jumping, firing lazers.
The site was really easy to use, and the option to
layer multiple instruments over one and other was
really interesting and fun. In the screenshots, you
can see that I used different layered instruments in
a simple pattern, when put together, made a tune.
I used basic drums as the base, and added
synthesized sounds over the top, as midnight is set
in a space age world.
DRUMS CHOIR VOCALS SAX
Once I was happy with all the layers, I
upped the tempo slightly, as it was quite
slow, and I imagine that if the game was
real, I’d want the game to go fast and
have the music put the player under
more pressure.

5. Using the same video gameplay, I added two different
versions of the theme song, and played each individually to
see which one worked best. I decided to go with the second
theme tune, as it sounded more as though it would fit a 2D
pixel game, as there is lots of synth notes and a more
complex drum beat for tempo. I then copied the video with
the selected track, so that I
had 2 copies to experiment
with things such as sound
effects for my character
jumping and laser sound
effects.

6. Reflection
I think something I will take from these experiments, over to my final idea, would be the
use of the laser, and to have the player shooting something at an enemy. I think once I
understand how to do it really well, I can make it look clean and effective, and its quite a
simple idea, so I can focus on the bits that matter most in the game. I think I will also use
the idea of having the character be quite a simple shape, which isn’t very difficult to
animate, as in some of my other experiments, I found myself getting confused and mixed
up with the control of the layers, and making it look clean and not have really jumpy
animation.
I will definitely use the site Beep Box again for my sound effects, as it was really simple
and fun to use, and I can create many sound effects and theme tunes from it, depending
on what my final idea will be. I think however, I will make my theme tune less complex in
my future game, as in this platform game, I think it was quite overpowering, and I think if
someone is playing a game for a while, they don’t want to be annoyed by the soundtrack.
The soundtrack and effects used need to be memorable enough and helpful to the player,
and not confuse or give them a negative impression of the game.