Finale

Today was a blast! We showed our games to everyone, and it went really well. I was amazed to see what everyone created, from Kirt's iCopter game to Patrick's shooting game. I would have never imagined what we could make with just a 3 week class! My favorite app though was probably Parker's zelda game. It is amazing what him and Patrick can do.

6th App Day

Our app is near completion! We have it working, and there are no errors. So far, we have a menu in our game and if you click the play button, the game begins. Once the game begins, you have 15 seconds to delete all the blue buttons, and if you don't, you lose. There are also red buttons, and if you click those, you lose as well. When the game is over (when you either win or lose), you are returned to the menu scene where it shows your result from the previous game.

If we have time tomorrow, we will try to make the game end if you finish before the clock stops. We will also try to add particle designer to the blue bubbles that are popped. 

I am very excited for tomorrow, since we will all be showing our games to the class. I can't wait to see what the other people have made.

5th App Day

We are almost done with our app. Today, we added a background, made the red bubbles spawn randomly throughout the screen, put limits on the amount of reds that are allowed, and we messed with the settings a little to make it look more professional. So if you open the app, after a couple seconds this is what it will look like: 

What we need to do now is add a reset button in the bottom of the screen so if they are too many bubbles on the screen or if the time runs out, you can tap it. We also need to make the game end if a red button is tapped, because right now, nothing happens. Only the blue buttons are tappable. Once we do that, if there is extra time, we will add a menu (which won't take that long) and use particle designer for when the bubbles pop.

4th App Day

Our app is coming along very well. So far, we have blue bubbles and yellow bubbles on the screen. The blue ones float around randomly and disappear when they are touched, but the yellow ones don't. They just stand still and don't disappear when tapped. This is a problem, and we will try to fix this during the first half of class tomorrow. We have also installed a timer into the game, and if you exceed 10 seconds, the words "Try Again" will appear on the screen.

This app is almost done. What we need to do now is make the yellow bubble disappear after two taps (and maybe after one tap, it will shrink to show it has already been tapped),  add a red button that will restart the game if tapped, and add a restart button. If we have time after this, we will make graphics for when you tap the bubbles, and we will add a menu in which you can click "Play" or view your previous high scores.

3rd App Day

Our app is coming out very well. We have decided that there will be three different types of bubbles to pop: a blue one, which will take one tap to kill it, a yellow, which will take two taps to kill it, and a red bubble, when if you tap it, it will explode. So far, we have 50 blue buttons on our screen moving randomly, and when you tap them they disappear. We also have a lot of yellow and red ones that move very slowly, and they do not go away when touched. This is what we will be working on Tuesday. On Tuesday morning, we will also put a timer and a menu into our game.

Our only questions so far our how do we put the timer and menu in, but we will be doing that Tuesday morning. After we do that, we will work on making the other colors disappear, adding a reset button, and then adding high scores when we are done with everything.

2nd App Day

Today we made a lot of progress. We started off by figuring out exactly what our game was going to be like. We will have three different colored circles floating around the screen. The blue circle will only have to be tapped once in order for it to disappear, the yellow circle will have tapped twice, and the red circle will have to be sliced, kind of like Fruit Ninja. I am not sure exactly how we will make the double tap and the slice work, but I am hoping that Mr. Howe will blog about how this can happen.

So far, we have finished our short synopsis of our app and we are almost done with the diagram. We have also started working a little bit with the app itself. For instance, we have worked with Zwoptex and we have imported a plist and png into the resources, with the different colored circles. We have even added them into our app. Our next step will be to make a .h and .m file for both the red and yellow circles (since we already have a blue one). After this, we will work on the double tap and the slice, then we will finally work on the randomness and different levels. If we have time at the end, we will try to add a background to the app.

I am having a great time doing this. It's much harder than working with the class, but it is a lot of fun putting everything that you have learned into your own app and seeing what you get. I am very appreciative that Mr. Howe is putting up all the information on a blog, because without this, it would be insanely hard.

First App Day

Today was the first day that we worked in a group on our own project. I am working with Dylan, and we decided that we will be making an app like the Tribble game. When you open the app, you will have a menu where you can either click play or look at your high scores. We are not sure exactly what we will do, but here are some ideas. The first idea is that we will have 5 different levels, and as you progress, the tribbles multiply faster and have more offspring. If you end up having more than 100 tribbles on the screen, you lose. We will change the icon to a little smiley face and we will make our own noises. The difficult part about that is that we have to make a new scene to show the menu. Our second idea is that we will make a game like the Tribble game but instead of deleting them, you have to make them all be the same color. Some will start off as yellow, and some as blue, and you have to tap them all to make them change to be blue. We will set a timer for this and as the levels get harder, you have to finish it quicker.

Right now we are working on making a plan for the game. We are using a google document, and we will finish it tomorrow in the first part of class then we will continue with the diagram.

My Own App

Today I am not blogging about what we did in class (which, by the way, was totally awesome), but instead about the app I want to make. I have been thinking about it for a while, but I have narrowed it down to a couple of things. My first idea is that I would do something like the Tribble game. Obviously, I would switch out the icon and change the noise, but it seems like fun. I could do different things like make levels, where as you get to higher levels, the icons reproduce faster. I could also have a timer, and you could try and beat your high score. I don't know if this is possible, but after the game is built, I could try and set up a thing where you could compare your scores online against others, like Openfeint or Scorecenter. My second idea is to make a game just like the penguin one, where you have to get to a certain location within a time frame. I could design different levels, each getting harder as they go on. Please comment if you have any other ideas.

6th Class Day

Today was another great class day. The first thing we did was make a score label for our game, because a game would not be a game without something keeping the score, right? After installing the score label, there was a problem. Every time we killed a enemy, the score would still stay at zero! We fixed it so that the score would change, then we built and ran the app again. There was still an error after this! As soon as we started the app, the score would start increasing from zero to infinity, and there was no way we could stop it. We adjusted a couple of things, and tried it one last time. It worked perfectly! Every time a enemy died, we would get one hundred points! And finally, our game was finished! Now it was time for some finishing touches. Mr. Howe showed us this really cool application called Particle Designer, in which we could create a mini effect when the enemy died. I decided to make a little explosion, and then I added it to my app. It was awesome! Every time I killed an enemy, there would be a small explosion that looked realistic! After everyone's app was finished off, the bell rang and we went off to lunch.

After lunch, we returned to the lab. Mr. Howe first talked to us about planning. He said every good app had to have some planning done, and he showed us what we needed to do for our own planning purposes. He showed us a diagram, and said that each group must make one of these for their project. After talking about planning, we learned about tile maps. We then opened the Tile Map application and made a map of our own! We played with it for ten minutes then added it to our game. Shortly after, the bell rang and the day was over.

Particle designer was probably my favorite thing we have done so far. It was really fun messing with the different settings and it was a great way finish off our shooter project. I am eagerly anticipating this Wednesday when we get into groups and make our own apps! I am still not sure what I am going to make, but probably something related to the Tribbles but more complex and with levels and timers.

5th Class Day

This class is just getting better and better. Today we started off by making the bullet shoot from the plane, instead of it just starting off from the middle of the screen. We encountered a problem when doing this though, which was if you held down the button, it would then look as if the bullet had a black tail attached to it. We therefore added intervals in between the bullets so that the tail would go away. The last thing we did before the bell rang was we made our enemy float around the screen randomly. Finally, we had a moving target to aim at, and it made it more difficult to kill than just a monster not moving in the middle of the screen. After this, we found a new problem: if the bullet hit the enemy, it would go right through and the enemy would not die. We were going to fix this problem as soon as we got back from lunch.

We got back from lunch and went straight to work. We started off by multiplying the enemies, and some went a little crazy with it (like me). I found that you can get around 3000 enemies on the screen without the frame rate dropping below zero! We then put in some funky code, and after clicking the build and run button, the enemies would disappear after being hit with the bullet! We had a game! Then to have a little fun with it, we made the plane's tale animate turning from dark to light every second. Then the bell rang and the day was over. It was very productive and we learned a ton. At the end of class, I installed the app on my iphone so that I could impress my friends and watch their jaws drop!

This class is going very well and I am having a great time learning about how apps are made. It was difficult starting off, but after lots of practice I am finally getting the hang of it.

4th Class Day

Today was another great day. We started off by learning about what layers were. Mr. Howe explained that they were like a cake, where you have screens on top of one another, each one having its own use. He said that a lot of the games now-a-day have layers, including Angry Birds and Bejeweled. So, after learning about them, can you guess what we did next? We added layers to our new game! First, we started with a D-Pad that would control our plane, and luckily Mr. Howe let us copy and paste a very difficult set of rules so it was much easier. Amazingly, I did not have any errors, and it worked perfectly. We could adjust the speed of our plane and make it go in all directions. I tried increasing the speed by 5000 times, and when I tapped barely to the right of the center of the D-Pad, the plane just took off and it was long gone! That was the next thing that we were going to work on: boundaries for our plane. But that was to come after lunch.

We came back ready to work. We first made a left boundary, but then decided to add a shooting button for the plane. We again used a code that Mr. Howe had set aside for us, and there we had it, a shooting button. The button was clickable, but it did not shoot anything. We then made a bullet and made it move! The slight problem was that it was not coming from the plane, it just started moving in the middle of the screen, and Mr. Howe said that since class was almost over, we would fix this problem tomorrow.

I am starting to understand what is going on much more in class, and I am keeping up with the work, rarely falling behind. I am excited about tomorrow because I am almost positive we will have a shooting plane that can kill monsters! It is also very cool because this is a legitimate app that people would buy (if there weren't copyright issues), and all my friends will think it is the coolest thing ever.

3rd Class Day

Today was another fun day in the iphone programming class. We started off by continuing our Tribble project. The first thing we did was make the little tribbles disappear when we touched them. All of a sudden, everyone started playing games against each other to see who could delete them the quickest. When we started playing the game though, the Tribbles were multiplying way too quickly, so the frame rate dropped tremendously and we could not play the game. We fixed a couple of things and the Tribbles stopped reproducing as quickly. Finally, we were finished with the Tribble project. It was my favorite one so far, I had a great time doing it, and the end product was amazing. I am even going to go in tomorrow morning and have Mr. Howe put it on my phone for me so I can show it to my friends! For the last 5 minutes of the first period, Mr. Howe gave us a new assignment: we have to work by ourselves to make our own app with a spaceship, a bullet, and a monster! I started off by importing them into XCode, then the bell rang and I was off to lunch.
We went back to class and continued where we had left off. It was hard for me because there were so many specific details that we needed to input, but since we had to try to work by ourselves, I was not sure if I was doing it right. After I thought I was ready with the plane in the app, I test ran it and was astonished with what I saw. I had 9 errors! I went back and fixed up the errors (which took a while) and the app ran! All I had though was a plane on the left side of my screen, and there were 5 minutes left in the class. Right then, Mr. Howe said that he would help everyone out by getting everyone up to date with whats going on tomorrow, which relieved me of my stress. I was happy I was not going to be behind anymore, and grateful for what Mr. Howe said.
The class is going very well and I am having a great time learning about apps. I am a little bit confused though on why we need so many .h and .m files, instead of just having one hello world thing?

2nd Class Day

Today was a very exciting day. We started off by looking at a photo of the cocos 2d icon on the board, and we were questioned on what it look liked. I had no clue, but Mr. Howe said that to him it resembled a Tribble. Since very few people in the class knew what a Tribble was, he showed us five clips from Star Trek. We learned that a Tribble was a little furry creature that loved to reproduce. Also, it looked just like the icon, so we created a new project called Tribbles! We first downloaded the icon into our new project then placed it in the middle of our screens. We were pondering on what we could do to the creature when someone suggested that we make it bounce off the walls. So Mr. Howe let his senior assistant, Mr. Rabey, help us set this up. We first set it up where it would bounce off the side walls, and right before we got to the walls on the top and bottom, the bell rang. It was time to go to lunch.
After we finished up eating, we returned to the class room and continued where we had left off, and we weren't planning on slowing down. We finished up making the Tribble bounce off all four sides, and then we made it multiply. I put 20000 on my screen, but that didn't work too well because the frames per second lowered a ton. Mr. Howe then decided that it would be fun to add sound to the critter if we touched it. He got a purring sound and placed in the shared folder. This sound was funny, but became very annoying quickly as everyone in the classroom started playing it on full volume! And there we had it, a Tribble that purred! Then the bell rang and class was over. The second day was done.
This day was crazy, everyone learning so much in a short amount of time, but it was useful and we all had a great deal of fun. We learned how to give sound to things, make stuff bounce off the walls, and so much more. My favorite part though was watching Star Trek and learning about Tribbles.

Heres a photo of a Tribble:

http://images.visualeditors.com/apple/wp-content/uploads/2007/08/tribble.jpg

First Class Day

Today was my first day going to the iphone app programming class during interim term. The first part of class was an introduction to the app programming/developing and to the program on our computers. We used an application on the computer which simulates the iphone (or ipad), and it shows what is going on in our apps. I learned how to import icons into the app, like a smiley face and a falcon, and I was able to make the smiley face rotate in circles forever. This seems easy but it took a good 30 minutes!
After the first period, we took a break for lunch then returned for the second session. This one was much more challenging but also very fun. Mr. Howe gave us time to play with our apps and try new stuff, like make things fly off the screen and enlarge them. Then, he taught us how to make the falcon icon follow the touch of your finger. So if I touched the screen in the top left corner, the icon would follow.
So far this class has been very exciting and fun. I have learned a lot in a short amount of time and I hope to keep up the progress.