Sheng-peng Wu

I started game programming with Adobe Flash and ActionScript 3.0 in 2009. I took courses with DoIT Software Trainings for Students (STS), self-trained with lynda.com, Youtube videos, and worked with STS trainers to make Flash games from scratch. In Fall 2011, I took an awesome computer sciences course on computer game technology with Professor Michael Gleicher. In this course students with junior programming skills teamed up with Comp Sci students to build 3 digital games as the only group projects. The philosophy behind this instructional setting was to learned as much and quickly as possible from your team. Project 1 requires JavaScript and flocking for a group of 2 in 3 weeks, project 2 requires WebGL to do shaders for a group of 3 in 4 weeks, and project 3 requires a complete playable digital game to be done in 6 weeks for a group of 4, This course blew my mind because I had learn to use emacs, jQuery, WebGL, Photoshop, 3Ds Max, C++, OpenGL, github, and stack overflow to collaborate with my assigned teammates and contribute to the project. Those experiences are definitely invaluable to me for my hobby, and maybe career, as a game designer and web programmer.

Scratch is an online platform developed by MIT. It offers easy coding and graphic design environments for kids and novice programmers. My son Robert took an after-school program to learn the basics of Scratch. In order to catch up with him, I also watched some tutorial videos and created some projects with the tool. Code sharing is another feature of Scratch. Users can always "Remix" any project to discover secrets behind others' projects. Goal: Learn to play around with the tool. Tools: Scratch. Collaborator(s): None. Consultant(s): Robert Wu.

Shooter Defense was another project after the computer game technology class. It was made with plain JavaScript and simple graphics. As the size of the flock increased, the flocking system's performance decreased. The bottleneck in the system was updating the direction of the boids. Each boid compared its position with every other boid so it was quadratic in the number of boids. Goal: Create a JavaScript game with flocking feature. Tools: JavaScript. Collaborator(s): Alex Langenfeld, Josh Slauson. Consultant(s): Michael Gleicher.

Planet Wars was the third project in the computer game technology class. We spent 6 weeks together to create this strategy game with C++ and OpenGL. At this point I realized most CS students were less happy with JavaScript but more comfortable with C++ and Java. We set up a minigame and a metamap with C++ libraries for players to apply their strategies properly. I also learned to use TortoiseSVN and TortoiseGit for source control, and github as a source to host and share the codes. Goal: Create a C++ game. Tools: C++, OpenGL, TortoiseGit, github. Collaborator(s): Phil Dougherty, Ryan Behnke, and Brandon Lewis. Consultant(s): Michael Gleicher.

Dark Matters was the second project in the class. We spent 4 weeks on building this shooter game with JavaScript, 3Ds Max, Photoshop, and WebGL. JavaScript and jQuery were the backbones, and we used Photoshop and 3Ds Max to build 2D and 3D models. WebGL was assigned for making shader(s) in this project. Our milestone was to build up a FBX loader to load 3D models drawn with 3Ds Max (spaceship, asteroids, enemies, ...etc.) into JavaScript. And we had 5 levels set up in this game. Goal: Create a JavaScript + WebGL game. Tools: JavaScript, jQuery, 3Ds Max, Photoshop, WebGL and git; Collaborator(s): Nate Barr, and Jeff Carpenter. Consultant(s): Michael Gleicher.

Frog Game was my first JavaScript project. We spent 3 weeks to create this action game with JavaScript and jQuery. JavaScript was assigned as the development tool, and there must be some flocking elements incorporated in this project. So we had flocking particles as flies, and the avatar was a frog trying to stick out it tongue and grab some food. As a predator hunting for flies, the player was also a prey hunted by a roaming slithering snake. Goal: Build a JavaScript game with flocking feature. Tools: HTML 5, JavaScript, jQuery; Collaborator(s): Zack Krejci. Consultant(s): Michael Gleicher.

Butterfly was one of the small Flash games I learned to make from a Flash game design textbook. I familiarized myself with Adobe Flash and ActionScript 3.0 to create these games. The idea was to click and drag the tiny ball from the beginning to the end without hitting walls. The image, words, and phonetic symbols in the game matched the keyword(s) I wanted players to learn. Goal: Create Flash games for engagement. Tools: Adobe Flash, ActionScript 3, and Photoshop; Collaborator(s): none.

Red Bean was my first Flash game. I learned the basics of Adobe Flash from the a handbook and the internet. Goal: Learn to use Flash. Tools: Adobe Flash & ActionScript 3.0. Collaborator(s): none.