Acey's Weekly Report 2/9 - 2/15

1. What was planned?
Finish the puzzles!

2. What was done?
Only 4 puzzles left to go!


3. Problems encountered?
None it went very well.


4. What did you learn this week? (esp. computer science, or anything surprising or interesting)
As I work on the puzzles I am realizing that with my original design it would be possible to get frustrated and give up. Although the puzzles do scale it would be possible to get stuck on one and never want to play again. Therefore I am going to implement a Medal system. If you can complete the puzzle within 10 extra moves of perfect you will get a Bronze. Within 5 will earn a Silver and within 3 a Gold. In addition instead of requiring the player to complete the previous puzzle to unlock the next, they will come in packs: Easy, Medium, Hard. If the player scores Bronze or better on all the Easys they will unlock Medium. Do Silver or better on all the Easy and Medium and the Hard Puzzles will become available. This should give players incentive to keep retrying and getting better and better scores.

I have also began looking at Computer Science concepts in this game. The largest one is the concept of Optimization and Complexity. Players will have to think of ways to make every move count and thus optimize the solution. Since the game will already be keeping track of the moves the player makes it can then give those actions back to the player to illustrate time and space complexity of their solution.

The other big CSC concept that will be drilled home in the game (as compared to the original tool) is iteration. These concepts are in the original tool but can be avoided if the user does not want to use the Triangle and Linear Iteration Tools. In the game the player will be forced to use them to get high scores and thus will be exposed to this key concept.

5. What's planned for next week?
Finish the last 4 puzzles and begin looking at code. Also this week I will be able to get the first feedback on the puzzles by taking some of them to an outreach event. This will help me adjust difficulty as needed.


6. Hours worked.
20