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LTEC 5240 - Developing Version 1

Write a reflection about your personal reactions to moving into your first development efforts in both Scratch and Portal 2. Which environment are you excited to work in - 2D or 3D? What is the draw of your preference? Which role do anticipate being more challenging - level design or programmer? What aspect of this area do you feel will require the greatest effort and why? What study disciplines might use this technology?
Your response should be at least 300 words. Delve deep and reference examples and resources where possible.
I am excited to create a game for this class.  While I think it would be fun to develop for portal 2, for this shortened maymester class, we are just developing for the scratch platform only.  As a software developer, I created a Pacman game I have made for the coding bootcamp I took this summer in just HTML, CSS, and Javascript.  It seems like scratch would greatly simplify the process giving me more time to think about design and less for code.  I have a bit of a disorganized mind, so the level design is the part of development I need to focus most on.
From what I can see, the scratch platform tutorial will be a lot of fun.   When programming on my own, I am far more likely to see the program crash with “stack overflows.”  The visual nature of the scratch programming platform is perfect for learning how to program. I am more accustomed to typing code, so it will probably seem slow for me at the moment.  The most challenging part of programming in scratch for me seems to be its unusual syntax. While I am used to for loops, and if.. else statements, scratch uses terms like “repeat.”
Brainstorming, and implementing game design plan is the hardest part of game development for me. That discipline seems difficult for me even as someone who does stuff like this for a living.  It is far easier to let my mind wander and then come up with a million good ideas. It is hard to pick one.  Games are never truly “finished”.  Even when the game is in a finished state, it is tempting to keep refining it.   Hitting clear lesson objects and learning targets are also tricky. It is tempting to say as a former teacher, that I would be good at planning lessons. However, when you teach the same thing over and over for six years, you get a little lazy with planning. I knew exactly what students struggled with in the previous school year.  I am looking forward to improving my planning skills when creating this game.

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