So the reason i've started to post is that my new project is an Interactive one that for me means something based in flash. The main idea with the project is to show one of the 4 aesthetic version of a graphic idea we played with in at lest 8 different modes in some kind of interactive context.

This for the most part is just "designer talk" that in this case isn't useless beacuse its hard to explain the ideas in other forms. For the 4 aesthetic versions of a graphic idea i'd decided to expand on a fairy character i'd created as part of my last project (a short illustrated book) and created her in a few different ways based on a few ideas using a few different ways of drawing but nothing to inventive.

As it was i'd had an idea for a kind of flash game based on one of the styles very different to the base illustration style. Sadly while it was interesting to portray the different 'modes' is going to be hard enough even in the more detailed styles. As one of my tutors said the game is some what secondary to the fact its place for the user to interact with the character and the character must STILL be a character. I need to be able to get across different feels from her in the game at lest along with the different 'view' of her when shes moving and the like.

So after a few lost nights to playing about with action script to see about movement and how valid some of my first ideas where i found that i was simply trying to do to much in some sense with to little. The simple style is something i will bring back maybe in a game that uses a lot of the ideas i've had to drop in a more expanded way at some point but i've had to make a choice to drop just about everything i've done and planed so far.

I've decided to do what i normally term crazy and go with using hand drawn almost everything... which is carzy, and stupid since even if flash is better at bitmaped stuff it's still not amazing with them. I'm going to try and get 4 scene done and go with a very simple 'puzzle' game, you click on different and things and try and work out how to get the fairys kite back.

Yes even fairies fly kites... a joke non of you will get but since the start of the project i've been some what obsessed with the idea of a fairy flying a kite and its been part of everything so far. So when i needed a story to go with the puzzles i deiceded that she loses her kite... i'm thinking of having it fly to the moon and as the fairy you have to work out some way to get there.

I'm some what apprehensive about all this... i've got a 'interim' deadline for Friday and nto long after that to finish the game... so far this year on every project i've pushed my self far to hard and been lucky to get things done (if finished at all)... given that making a flash game is something that put the fear of god in to me even when its something simpler that this with less animation... i'm just not a very happy person and i'm making my self stupidly stressed.

In a lot of ways i just don't think i'm very good with this stuff and the task i'm giving my self is so damn huge with some many thing that can and no doubt will go wrong that i don't think the finished piece is going to be very good in anyway what so ever.

As it is i've so far learnt some cool little bits of action script and i think i've decided on a 'engine' that shouldn't be to hard. Static scenes with click to move and click to interact. The click to move isn't really needed with this idea i don't think as i don't think 'range' will have much to do with it... as when you click on an object i think i'll have the fairy move to set place from which i can set an animation going for ever the interaction is. With static screens and click to move i should be able to do it with out to much trouble... something which i'm going to have to test today... i'm also going to have to look arrays up again if only to make the linking puzzles together easier. There's still a lot of 'maybes' in that and i could always just fall back on click to interact with out any movement but it would be nice to have things you can interact with 'glow' when the fairy got near enough maybe. Reminds me i also should write a simple partial system for fairy dust when shes moving... but that can wait really i think.

I also found out something rather neat before which every one may already know but yes you can get complex transparency from photoshop to flash if you save for web, save as .png and have transparency checked. When you import in to flash it uses the alpha channel to set up the transparency right away. Going to be stupidly useful for me as make life much easier for drawing it also means i can set up each scene as i want it in photoshop which should be nice given how much of a bitch it is to draw fore mid and back ground on paper and have it all work... not that i really need to do all that much of it but for some of it i will have to.

So plans for today, test out and built the rest of the basic AS i need to get the things working... tommrow start sorting out the first scene with at lest some interactivity and get that done for Friday along with the basic drawings for the other scenes and all the puzzels and links thought up and written down.

This is going to suck.

I'm going to keep updates on this untill i can post the rubbishy thing at the end heh