Black History Month: Etta James

Her real name is Jamesetta Hawkins. She was born in January 25, 1938 in Los Angeles. She died January 20, 2012, which wasn't that long.
Etta James was an American singer. She mostly sang blues, rhythm and blues, rock n roll, soul, gospel, but most of the time, jazz was her favorite genre. Despite of her drug problems, she had won grammy award nominations for her 1973 album. By the age of 5, Etta was known for a gospel prodigy gaining her fame by singing in her church choir and singing in the radio. After the age of 12, she moved to San Francisco and there, she was already in a band. She had signed lots of contracts with what became of what she sang. She also got a grammy nomination for the genre of rock n roll and she won. She still performed good by the 1990's, which proves it because her album Blue Gardenia, rose to the tops of the Billboard Jazz. In 2003, she underwent gastric bypass surgery and lost over 200 pounds! Sadly, she had leukemia and that sort of stopped her from her great performances and talent. She died in January 20, 2012 in Riverside, California. She is still known for being one of the most dynamic singers of all time.

Website Retrieved from: http://www.biography.com/people/etta-james-9542558?page=2

Presentation of Game

Describe your learning topic for the game. What is the most important thing you want your players to learn?
My learning topic for my game is Health. My game is about choosing and eating healthy foods. This is a very important topic because we want to maintain our bodies as healthy as possible. We don't want to result in having diabetes and have a high pressure. This is something that we all know. Believe me, all of us know that eating healthy is important, but people don't care. If you eat healthy, good beneficial things will come your way. You wont have to worry to get your blood tested of how much sugar you have. You will have a very tranquilizing life, with no worries.
What kind of research did you do? What did you learn about your topic?
I did research about healthy foods. All the research that I did was finding what kinds of foods are healthy and unhealthy and why they are considered to be that. I looked up interesting facts that I didn't  know, but have heard about. Now I know what kinds of foods you should consume in your everyday life. I learned much more about facts that seem a little shocking at first, but while you are thinking about it, you learn so much!
How did your ideas change as you worked on your game?
Well, at first, I didn't want to make the unhealthy objects into a button because I thought it was going to be a lot of work. Afterwards, I thought about it and it turned out that players would love to know more about why that kind of food is unhealthy. I wanted to do a timer, but then I thought that in real life, we are not to be pressured when we are making choices. As for staying healthy, we want to make the right choices.
What Game Ingredients and Help Center resources have been most useful to you so far, and why?
Well, at first, I didn't know how to program the Magnifying Glass. In fact, I couldn't get it to have the Zoom. The only way that I got it to work was by asking my classmates. I looked at how they were doing it, and it turned out to be like kind of easy, but yet still difficult. I myself learned how to add different scenes and how to go to them directly.
Which part of making the game was most difficult for you? How did you overcome this difficulty? What features are you most proud of your game?
Like I said, getting this assignment due on time, was pretty difficult. The other thing was the Magnifying Glass, but I overcame that obstacle by getting help from my classmates. Another thing was that getting more ideas was kind of hard, but in the end I just made something more simple,so that way players will have no difficulty in understanding the goal of my game. I am most proud of the way I made my game look. I didn't do it like all professional, but I drew it in a way where you would most likely have it in a situation.

Game Ingredients

Write about a problem you overcame while working on the code for one of the game ingredients.
Well, first of all, I had problems with all three game ingredients. For the Overlay Objects, I swear that I couldn't hide the objects. I mean seriously! I tried and tried, until I was beginning to experiment the layers. The problem was resolved by making the object WHERE you wanted to hide it in. For example, I wanted to hide the whole wheat bread. I had to make the toaster first and then the bread. It was something easy when I did it! Another problem was Win, and Losing Screens. I had trouble making the background. I know, at first you are like, background?...that is so easy! It turned out that I was using the brush tool. When you use the brush tool, it can be very difficult to fill in the background with the color you want it to be. You have to go through the lines and make sure that they are all closed. I didn't exactly do that. I did the background and I made another layer where I want to be like the background that I wanted it to look like. Then I copied the background and BAM...it did work! The last problem was the Magnifying Glass. That one gave me lots of trouble. On that one, I asked people for help because honestly, I didn't know how to put the mask on and all of that stuff. The only thing that I needed help with, was to get the magnifying glass to move. I mean, it did have the Zoom, but with a little help from somebody, it did work, and I am very thankful to her. Even if you are good at programming, sometimes the ones that are advanced, can have trouble with these little mistakes.