Evaluation

My overall review of the game.

Weaknesses

My weakness on this project was definately the actionscript coding, having not used the Flash software much before I only knew small amounts of actionscript code.

At the beginning of the project we were asked to draw up a development schedule of how we would plan our work out over the coming months. Initially I came up with what I would describe as an achieveable time scale. However, I did not anticipate the length of time needed to draw and animate all the individual movie clips. I spent alot of my time sketching and planning in the beginning, I believe this to be important in the creative process of a project. However this meant I was behind on my development schedule.

What I would have done differently.

If I were to change anything about the project it would have been to management my time more effectively. Instead of leaving the actionscript coding till last I would have started the project by coding a rough draft of the game before beginning any of the drawings. As actionscript is a weak point of mine, leaving it till the very end of the project had its problems. I came up against a few issues which I needed time to learn about. If I had begun the project by coding the game first I would have been able to rectify these issues and also the game may have become a finished product.

Strengths

I believe my strengths on this project were the drawings and animation. These elements of the game took me the most time, however I learnt alot of new skills from working with the Illustrator program. I enjoyed branding the game and if I had more time I would have liked to have produced a style guide to help with the branding of the website.

My Overall Review

Overall I am pleased with the project I choose to do. I had fun drawing and animating for the game and learnt a lot of new skills in the Adobe Illustrator and Flash programs. I had a passion for the project which helped alot in motivating me, as I thoroughly enjoyed what I was producing.

As the project is unfinished and is still in a prototype stage I would like to complete the game throughout the summer to put towards my degree show.

Improvements I would of made to the game.

As the game is not completed yet there are many elements I would still like to add/improve to the game.

Instructions

I wanted the game to be easy to use and no harder than the user actually placing an item in their shopping basket online. I wanted to use simple instructions, which would pop up over certain items the user had to interact with. I used these instructions in the first scene of the game but did not get chance to implement them on other scenes. Instructions would have told the user to move the spoon over the cupcake case and to click the oven to open the oven door.

Sound

The use of sound enhances the game although my choice of sound clips could have been better and more realistic. I would have also liked to have added additional sound to the background.

Animation

I would have liked to have added some small animation to the first scene, such as clouds moving and birds tweeting. I think with this scene being static compared to the other scenes it doesnt seem visually exicting.