Snacman – Video Game Design in MicroWorlds EX
Executive Summary:
1. The problem:
Create a version of the Snacman game based on the instructional videos provided as an example.
2. Discussion of relevance/meaning:
This Learning Adventure expanded on the initial learning from the creation of the simple quilting program in MicroWorlds EX that was accomplished in LA #6. It was a particularly good way to get a first-hand understanding of the concept of “bricolage” that Seymour Papert shares in the book, The Children’s Machine and in his article with Sherry Turkle, Epistemological Pluralism and the Revaluation of the Concrete.
“For planners, mistakes are missteps; bricoleurs use a navigation of midcourse corrections. For planners, a program is an instrument for premeditated control; bricoleurs have goals but set out to realize them in the spirit of a collaborative venture with the machine.” (Papert and Turkle 1992)
I truly see myself working through my programming challenges with a goal in mind, but learning by my missteps, which sometimes lead to a whole new way of approaching my original goal, or a new goal altogether. There have been many funny missteps along the way that have guided my process – for example I shared Anne’s experience of my snacman eating my original control turtles as well!
This quote from the article also reminded me of my approach to the snacman game: “Bricoleurs construct theories by arranging and rearranging, by negotiating and renegotiating with a set of well-known materials.” (Papert and Turkle 1992)
The materials may not be extremely “well known” to me, but as I learned the function of each snippet of programming I find myself moving parts of the program around to see how they work in different places. For example, removing a procedure from within a turtle’s backpack and working with it at the project level. Or, simply changing the order of commands to see which gets a more favorable result… should the turtle disappear, then burp when eaten, or burp and then disappear…
3. Possible conclusions/solution:
My conclusion to this project is that it provide me with a first-hand understanding of what we have read in Papert’s The Children’s Machine as I worked through the challenges of learning to program in MicroWorlds EX. Working on the project with a goal in mind, but no set requirements for how that goal should look when complete was a great example of how to provide learners with a challenge and not be restrictive.
It is clear to me that providing tools such as MicroWorlds EX and the Logo programming language to children is an instrumental method of allowing them to experience the world of mathematical and scientific discovery. This is done in a highly experiential way that is self-directed by the learner.
As with the children Papert worked with that we read about, I saw myself building a much more advanced program than I first imagined. This was accomplished through both the tinkering I did with the program and through social interaction with others and the work of others in the form of artifacts.
Through the process of working on this project I discovered that I am a bricoleur programmer. I built something quickly that worked, then kept stepping back from my digital artwork and thinking, you know if I added this it would be cool… and there went another hour!
4. Supporting evidence – may include links, graphics, references, supportive arguments:
Use the links below to see examples of my MicroWorlds EX Snacman game:
Please note: In order to see the example program run you will need to have a copy of MicroWorlds EX installed, or download the demo version to test these programs. While there is a browser plug-in available to play the programs within the web browser this process was not functioning correctly.
More info about MicroWorlds EX is avaialble here: MicroWorlds EX
Dan’s Snacman Game (Right-click / control click on Mac to download the file.)
Reflection on the Process:
The process of creating the Snacman video game was extremely challenging and rewarding. A good example of what we often call “hard fun” in OMET. There were many times when I am sure that I was in what Csikszentmihalyi refers to as “flow.” I would become so engaged in building the program that literally hours would pass in what seemed like moments.
As I reflect on the process I am reminded of my basic programming class that I took in high school. In thinking about it that program felt much more restrictively structured when compared to the Snacman project. Perhaps it was a product of the environment and grading system? I do recall that we were graded on accomplishing very specific results with our programs, although we were able to create our own program. Maybe the basic language was not as flexible as Logo.
Overall this was an amazing process for me as I think back on building the Snacman game. Just about everything that I wanted to accomplish I was able to include in my project. From a learning perspective I saw myself learning in a variety of ways, including interactions with a small Learning Circle.
I am thankful for the examples that others have shared that allowed me to see new ways of approaching problems with my own program. I am also happy that I was able to share my program and learning with others to help them in their process. Without this interaction my program would not have been nearly as refined as it ended up being.
Below are some of my daily notes on the process as I worked through the project:
10/28 – I watched some of Gary’s ‘how to’ videos and learned some new ways to work with Microworlds EX – they are nice instructional videos. It cracked me up when all of the sounds were going off in the program – Bang – tweet! I can see right away that this will be a fun project.
10/30 – It is time to get into the snackman mode!!! I’m going to watch the rest of the tutorials and see how far I can get with my game tonight.
I enjoyed making the snacman game, until my snacman ate one of the controller turtles!!! Oops! 🙂
“Video game designer” – I like the sound of that in the tutorial video Gary created. It was a very fun, engaging, and inspiring tutorial and start to my game. I can’t wait to start customizing my basic game!
10/31 – Halloween – after discovering that I could eat my controlling turtles where I had them placed on the map, I decided to set up my snacman to work with the keyboard. It was fun to take the example included in the software and customize it using Gary’s example of how to change the turtle costume to match the direction. This is getting to be a fairly realistic representation of the game. I am now going to see about some ghosts… perfect for Halloween!
11/1 – I worked with an informal Learning Circle (LC) this morning and was able to share what I have learned with others. I also learned about a new link with info on using keyboard commands from one of the members of the LC. I worked more on my ghost interaction and had some luck in getting him to follow snacman, but I am still struggling with how to get the ghost to ‘attack’ snacman appropriately without interacting with the rest of the turtles on the page.
Challenging to get the ghost to change both color and behavior when snacman eats the snack…. I can get the ghost to chase snacman, but correct behavior for the ghost eating snacman if he is red, or snacman eating the ghost if he [the ghost] is pink, is turning out to be hard….
11/2 – The most challenging thing for me to this point was getting the ghost to change behavior from attacking the snacman to being vulnerable to being eaten by the snacman. This may have been a case of over-thinking the problem… once I relaxed my mind a little I was able to come up with a solution based on an outside variable, rather than directly related to the ghost. It feels great to have this problem solved with my project!