Status Report 10

This week our project is almost entirely working.

We have 2 songs with music, notes and a supposed score box.

However- the text doesn't seem to want to update to our score box and doesn't seem to like the general server.

Status Report 9

This week KELSEY FINISHED THE XML PARSER! IT WORKS, YAAAAAAY!

Then she added a timer and THAT WORKS, YAAAAAY! This timer will call the notes that will move down the screen etc.

This week Emily continued coding for the animations and graphics in general. It's not quite working yet but we are getting there!

Commence coding crunch!

Status Report 8

I continued to work on the XML parser, Emily worked on the gui and testing when the notes have intersected the box at the bottom. Neither of our parts are working at the moment but we are trying to figure it out. My parser will not go over the whole xml file and Emily is having issues with her hit test box.

Status Report 7

This week i continued to work on the XML parser and It is having issues getting the children's names because I'm giving it an XML list and i haven't yet figured out how to get a single node from that. Emily worked on our demo which works so when a user mouses over the bubble it moves down the screen. So we now have animations and I will continue to work on the parser this week and Emily will continue to work on the animations and GUI.

Status Report 6

We have been working on our coding and are getting to know the language of HTML better. The parsing of the HTML files is nearly complete and we scheduled a meeting time for TA hours in the lab Monday night. We have a deadline for Wednesday to demo our project. So, Monday and Tuesday will be debugging and fixing our code to get the demo to run.

Status Report 5

Last week we started coding for our game. As we went along, going through the set of code we found from another author to borrow from, we were cutting and pasting some things from each of their classes and modified for our code. However when we continued through the cutting and pasting we seemed to be needing more classes as the other programmers had. So, in talking with Audrey we determined it was easiest to use their same class structure and modify their class and functions titles to flow with our game and terminology.

So, in doing all of this we have had to change our milestone document a bit. This week we are continuing to modify the other programmer's code.

Status Report 4

This week we discussed and brainstormed what pieces of the game (broadly) we would have to create classes for: buttons, music, sound (in general), text input, interpretation of text, backgrounds and overall graphics (intro screen, difficulty settings, song choice, game screen and summary screen.)

When first creating the final version of our project we will start with Mouse Clicks and buttons that say "when I press A, that means there was a hull at that left x,y coordinate."

We thought when completed, our entire game will probably have to be scaled.

We met with Cleo and talked about game logistics and set-up. We discussed getting some camera code together that focuses on color rather than only holes and/or hulls.

We also decided we would set-up the game with 4 “buttons” corresponding to the 4 notes. If the player hits the “button” at the correct time of the note being at a certain point on the screen, the player gains a point based on how accurate or close the hit was to the note on the hitPoint.

Parts of coding we determined would be needed are: arrays that call patterns based on the note combinations in songs, a text file with patterns or an XML/TXT file, our Movie Clips won’t move but we will program them to do so, and each “screen” with be in a different frame of the timeline.

The skeleton classes we created so far are as follows:

Game Class

o Will keep track of the game/ the progress of the player in the game

o Will deal with pulling everything together

o Will hold the background/ frames/ timeline with scenes of the game

o Will have scaling code

Backgrounds/Frames

o Intro

o Difficulty

o Song choice

o Game screen

o Summary screen

Note Class

o Will control the animation and speed of the notes (we will pass down the variable we create to control the animation)

o Will create and remove the notes from the frames/ screens

o Will control the position of the notes (we need a method for this)

o Will control the BPM of the notes

Song Class

o Will play the song(s)

o Will call some methods in the class that will import song info and sort out the info (for each different song) (we will set each song so it can’t be below/ above a certain BPM)

o Will include Sound method(s)

o Will include BPM method (also take in a parameter from the text class and notes class) (This can manipulate how quick the notes travel across the screen)

Song Parcer Class

o Will input the text from XML/TXT files (this will say “Ok, I have this song… now what do I do with is…?) Whatever this method is, will be a static method

o Will interpret the text file (this will call various patterns of songs)

o Will have a parameter of the BPM method

Pattern Class

o Will add more patters of notes as needed for the different songs (a song will have a pattern [of notes] associated with it)

Note-Hit-Area Class

o Will pay attention to hulls/ colors from the player’s choice of “buttons”/ notes. (Colors will be detected with a mouse-like object the player holds)

o Will be the location for the player to choose which color dot they think corresponds to the note (will use hitTest method by putting a button on the x,y coordinates to do the hitTest)

Finally, our to-do list (in addition to the milestone for this week) includes:

- Linking the “button” symbols to flash instead of placing instances of the symbols directly on the scene ( we will program them and call them when needed)

- Design timers to be our metronome for the BPM of the songs

Status Report 3

This week we started working on the graphics and animations including the backgrounds and buttons. We also started to plan out how we were going to store the information for the buttons. We were thinking of doing it one of two ways, one way to do it would be to have a class with methods that when called would make different patterns of buttons so we would call the patterns instead of each individual button when we constructed the songs. Another way to do it would be to have separate text files with patterns like
0010
1000
0010
0000
0100
so for every 1 there would be a note and the four columns each represents a different color and we could just read off the txt file. We would control the speed of the notes by changing a beats per minute variable depending on the song. We are using stepmania as a guide to set up our game and get some of our ideas.

Milestone and Design

Milestone Duration
Project Kickoff:
Documentation outlining process, milestone schedule and key responsibilities
0 Days 2/22
How the Game Will Work:
• How the game will look
• How to store data of music for the game
• Work on the graphics for the hulls
1 week 2/22- 3/1
Fine-Tune the Logistics of the Project:
• Continue working on the graphics
• Use Google and LITS to research copyrighted music and rules
• Meet with Audrey to talk over what classes are needed for the coding in the game
1 week 3/1-3/8
Data Storage and Classes Determination:
• Use Google to research song-data storage methods
• Set up classes to begin code and game design
• Work on graphics of the project
1 week 3/8-3/15
Begin Implementation of Game Design:
• Input classes to begin code and game design
4 weeks 3/15-4/12
Debug Game and Code:
• Test game to work out bugs and code
2 weeks, 4 days 4/12-4/30
Final Project Deadline:
3/4 days 4/30-5/3

Status Report 2

This week we are working on trying to work through the questions we have with the media and images necessary for our game. Since our game borrows from others such as Rock Band, Dance-Dance Revolution and Guitar Hero we know that our images have to come down the screen...

Status Report 1

Hello Everyone!

For our CS 240 Main Project we came up with an idea for an interactive media program using music and rhythm.

The program would be mainly a rhythm game in which you hit notes to score points.

Players hit the notes by placing a hand over a colored spot.

The game will use hulls to detect when the player is hitting a note.