Multimedia class…. well it kind of sucks. The first issue is the teacher. She’s simultaneously one of those “children are the future!” “you can make a change in the world!” people. When we were doing CC Illustrator, she went on about how us kids should design logos for companies, and we can start our own business, and that kind of bullshit. But at the same time, she’s constantly yelling at us for small side chatter while muttering to herself about how this is a class not a babysitting service or whatever.

But I think the big issue, for me at least, was last semester, which was a fucking chore above all. The issue I’ve seen from these computer classes in middle schools is they teach the most basic fucking things. At my old school, the kids were learning how to use Word, in the sixth grade! We did photography and design, with Photoshop and Illustrator, then moved into movie making, which was actually quite fun, and then we did a god awful thing on game design. We used AgentSheets, which screams CS sophomore’s last minute idea for a hackathon. Oof.

So when second semester came along, we all began on our Spring projects, where we are supposed to use the skills we learned whether it be creating a photo calendar, making a game, etc. What’s funny is that almost 85% of the entire class is doing something that involves skills we didn’t learn in the last semester. Most kids are doing wood working, some are doing light photography (which incorporates some of our previous learned skills in the class, I guess), and this one kid and me are doing game making. But not with AgentSheets, though. Honestly, fuck that software.

The other kid is using Defold to make this space game? I don’t really know. I started off with making this game called “Red Rocket Rush,” which is your generic 8-bit indie runner, except with really bad art (I can’t draw) The “unique” mechanic to it was supposed to be where you have this rocket and you shoot zombies, and you get crystals to upgrade cosmetics, but I didn’t like the Defold engine, especially when I was absolutely mind-fucked by the level loading. It made no sense to me, whatsoever.

So I transitioned to Unity, and as a little tutorial project to get me up to speed with this new fancy engine, I made “Cargo Stacking Game.” You play as a ball that’s supposed to not get stuck from little cargo squares falling from the sky. It’s quite a Ketchapp-y game.

So the third game has been constantly pivoting, until now. (hue hue hue hue) The first idea was going to be a school building game, a 3D one. But after being baffled from Blender tutorials and completely frustrated with “PBR” materials, I decided that it would be better to do a 2d game. Then I found out about Academia, which is basically the game I wanted to create. So I thought why not a karate studio building game? You build your own karate studio and stuff. But after some thought, I found that there wouldn’t be much gameplay to it. So I thought of doing a gym building game, which showed some promise. But I think discord user Haddock (props to him) revealed to me what was wrong with these games. All three would, at their core, be Prison Architect asset flips. And who wants to make an asset flip?

So it was then, one dark night, as I lay in bed, attempting to sleep, that I hit it. Bleak Friday. A Battle Royale game, but instead of taking place on a soviet island, or on an island where everything is named with alliteration, it takes place in a supermarket. My hands are kind of tired after writing all of this, and it’s better to show instead of tell, so I’ll let this picture do the talking.

Toodaloo!