So this blog post is most definitely overdue, but when I was thinking about a concept for my hangman game, the first thing that came to mind was music. For those of you kiddos unfamiliar with the rave scene, kandi is the word for a bracelet that someone has made and is wearing on the wrist at a show. They come in all shapes and colors, different kinds of charms, some even come as large cuffs, face masks, backpacks, necklaces, you name it! The purpose of decking yourself out with these fabulous things are so that when you make friends at a rave, whether it be dancing with a stranger, or someone buys you water or any reason at all that you want to display your appreciation for meeting them, you take one of your bracelets and perform a hand-shake in which you swap different bracelets. The concept of this trade is called PLUR, which stands for Peace Love Unity and Respect. It’s a lifestyle choice that goes beyond rave scene, as well as a wonderful way to make new friends and collect keepsakes from all the incredible people you encounter. The power of it is such a beautiful thing that making it into a game everyone can enjoy just seemed too perfect to pass up.
Basically, the game works like this: You’re given a word that in some way has to do with the electronic dance music scene. you are given a number of boxes and asked to guess letters that you think go in them. When you get it right, it will display the letters in the correct boxes; When you get it wrong, a kandi bracelet will disappear from the arm on the right of the game. If you get the word right and still have all your kandi, you get to trade! If you fail and lose all your kandi, your arm is bare and you won’t be able to trade with anybody. The stakes are high! I felt losing all your kandi was an appropriate punishment because I know that when I go to raves without any kandi to trade, it makes me absolutely miserable.
Naturally, I had some difficult challenges to overcome before I could get this game to work the way that it was meant to. One of my biggest issues came with getting the text boxes to work AFTER the first turn, as well as getting the reward and punishment conditions to work every time you play. The first time you play the game, it would go smoothly, but after you tried to play again, for some reason the boxes and the kandi arm wouldn’t reset, and sometimes it would only give you a random amount of guesses before it made you lose. After help from countless classmates as well as Dr. Delwiche, I finally corrected the code and got it working perfectly.
Also included in my game is a song to pleasure the ears while you play, a pretty little jam entitled If I Lose Myself (Alesso remix). It falls under the Electro subgenre in EDM (one of the words offered in the game!)
Even though I had the most frustrations with this assignment and I was out of commission for awhile with medical issues, I learned a lot and it felt amazing to create something that worked. I definitely felt extremely proud and encouraged in my ability to create something fun!
Games Class 