prototype & inspiration.

The theme for Mission: BandStar came from a lifelong interest I have had in Astronomy. Ever since I was a very young child, my mom and I would look at stars and other objects in the Solar System, with her telescope. (Physical science was one of her four majors in college, and to this day we often talk about how we would go out in the back yard late at night to watch for meteors during the Perseids.) Planetariums were one of my favorite “field trips” with my parents, and we frequented the one at COSI many times. I could watch the shows for hours (haha). Until I started band in 6th grade, I wanted to be an astrophysicist (alternating with teacher and veterinarian 😂) when I grew up, and now I decided to take this opportunity to integrate the things I love about a hobby into the story behind my video game.

Although this will be addressed more within the “building” section of this site, my game prototype for this class inspired me to create a component where students get to learn some simple coding and create their own gaming levels. I am linking that game here to show the basic premise of the challenges. In the easier challenges, students will be given sprites to hide in the coding that relate to the exercises they will play. In more difficult levels, students will learn to create those sprites themselves, and then need to determine how to synthesize the information into their own levels and exercises.

Here is a link to the original game I created in Scratch using pre-designed sprites, backgrounds, and coding snippets. Obviously I will create all of the elements myself as I design this game, which will be much more complex!

Link to Prototype Game on Scratch:

https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/740445517

Prototype Gameplay Screencast: