Gareth Jones

Secret Projects was commissioned by Fyza Hashim at FYHK8082. The brief was to convert Fyza’s PSD designs and choreography into a Flash website.

The site was designed for Joseph Katsaros, an accomplished music composer who has worked on a number of popular American TV programmes and Hollywood movies. The home screen displays a music composer’s desk and equipment and clicking around the navigation zooms in on the relevant areas of the room before transitioning to another screen that either displays more information or features some kind of interactivity.

The work screen displays a number of movie posters that Joey has been involved with on a billboard. The billboard displays 10 posters at a time with next and previous buttons allowing navigation between the different pages. Implementing this screen in Flash 8 was quite a challenge because for reasons known only to Adobe, Flash 8 doesn’t anti-aliase dynamically-loaded images and the randomised rotation of the images resulted in some unsightly jaggies. A potential workaround had been to take the rotation off and just play with the positioning, but Fyza felt too much of the randomness was lost with this method so instead I implemented a hack that made use of Flash’s BitmapData class and the fact that Flash can anti-aliase bitmap data quite happily. Such a procedure would have resulted in significant performance hits if the bitmaps were large, but thankfully they were small enough on this screen for the hack to deliver the desired effect without impacting performance at all.

The reel screen plays a video of all the different movies that Joey has worked on. This is an FLV that is streamed from the server.

The media screen is a music player that allows the user to not only navigate between the tracks with the controls on the bottom, but also by clicking on the keyboard’s keys. The current track is also displayed on the keyboard by way of a slight glow on the appropriate key.

The site is completely driven by XML to allow easy updating and maintenance which will allow Joseph to add new movie posters and audio tracks whenever he wants.

Screenshots removed by request.

Quak Wordsearch is an application that allows you to play a different wordsearch game every time you view it. Whenever you load the game it selects at random from a list of words that you have specified and places these words on the grid in random locations.

When specifying a list of words for the game to use, you can also specify the title and grid size for that list.

The application also allows end-users to create their own games by clicking on the Make your own button and filling in the three fields for title, grid size and words list. A new game will be generated at random with those parameters.

Once a game has been created, it can be played either online or it can be printed out and played in the traditional way with a pen and paper.

Click here to use the wordsearch.

Want this game on your website for free? Follow these 3 simple steps:

1. Post a comment below.
2. Send me a message saying you’d like the game on your website – and remember to include a link to your site!
3. If your site meets the requirements I will email the game to the email address you used in step 2 – so make sure you use a valid address!

Since April 2010 I have been working full-time on Learnalot, a high-end game-based learning maths portal. I have so far developed the website itself, 18 activities and 34 games, which is around 18-20 hours of learning content. My responsibilities include coding all of the activities and games, managing a team of six, designing the activities with the content specialists and liaising with the PR company.

The development work has consisted of Flash, PHP, MySQL, XML, HTML and CSS.

I have also set up and maintained the Learnalot blog which provides behind-the-scenes news from the company.

The resources are designed to develop thinking, reasoning and problem-solving skills by presenting the learner with real-life challenges that engage their thought processes in new ways, using topics that students can relate to in their day-to-day lives in the 21st Century in a style that they are used to from their video games.

Feedback on the portal so far includes the following:

Your resources are excellent – the best skills-based learning resources for maths I’ve seen.
- Melanie Blount, NGfL-Cymru

The look of the site has immediately caught the interest of pupils who I know love to spend time on X-Box/PlayStation at home. Harnessing an existing interest for a learning purpose is probably the Mecca of education. I would love to know if you might have plans for a KS2 version at some stage?
- Steph Ladbrooke, teacher

Great website for revision especially for me and I’m in year 11. Amazing website!
- Alex, student

Amazing for me – I like a good challenge. My favourite resource is Britain’s Got Power because it gets you thinking about science and the environment.
- Ben, student

It’s really good because the score boards show you how you’re doing against your friends and other people. It’s another way for preparing us for our SATs. Cops and Robbers is my favourite because I feel like a detective.
- James, student

The Name that Note:PRE game that I developed for Jamplay was significantly different to the original game. The graphics were completely overhauled and the game-play mechanics modified to create a game that does away with the 60-second timer and instead ramps up the difficulty as the player progresses through levels that are each made up of 8 questions. As the player progresses through these levels, the time available for each level decreases until eventually they’ll need lightning-fast reaction speeds to progress any further.

The questions themselves are selected from a bank that is defined in an external XML file, as are some other game variables like the selection of base notes, the starting level time and the level time decay rate.

At the end of the game the user’s score is posted to the Jamplay score board via a Javascript API that they kindly supplied me with, and the top 3 scores are displayed on the gaming section of the site for all to see.

Yummy Drops was commissioned by Nourish Interactive.

It’s a modified version of Santa’s Parcel Drop with customisable messages that encourage healthy eating and an active lifestyle, as well as the food pyramid that features prominently on the Nourish Interactive website.

The average age of the target audience for this game is 4-10.

Mercury is an Flash-based elearning courseware that allows for the creation of rich, bespoke elearning from XML instructions, including HTML text, images, video, audio, drag and drop, click and reveal, quizzes and assessments. It uses XML files for asset definitions and layout as well as content.

The application contains the logic required to read content and layout from XML and construct the resource in real-time, including the page structure within modules and module structure within the resource, as well as information required for the interactive assets like drag and drops, click and reveals, quizzes and assessments.

The platform is so versatile that two different content authors could develop elearning resources that are completely unique in both style and substance – and without even owning a copy of Flash.

It also features SCORM support with a local shared object (Flash cookie) backup should SCORM not be available on the delivery platform.

For more information and a demo of Mercury in action, visit www.madewithmercury.com.

Santa’s Parcel Drop is a game that has you taking control of Santa, delivering as many parcels as you can within the time limit.

His reindeer are quite angry with being replaced by an aeroplane so are out to get him, so be sure to avoid them as well as the storm-clouds.

Gain 50 points for every successful drop and lose 25 points for every miss!

Active Goal Challenge was commissioned by Nourish Interactive.

It’s a modified version of Conversion Challenge with customisable messages that encourage healthy eating and an active lifestyle. Because the target audience for this game is aged 4-10, the game-play has been simplified with the wind property removed, and the leader board no longer requires an email address for entry.

The game was developed in both English and Spanish.

Name that Note: Pitch Recognition Edition is a game that improves your note-recognition skills by asking you to name different notes as they are played. Name as many notes as you can within the time limit to achieve a high score which you can then post to a global leader-board. Choose from 3 different difficulty levels which affect the range of notes and the time you have to name each one.

Click here to play the game now!

Want this game on your website for free? Follow these 3 simple steps:

1. Post a comment below.
2. Send me a message saying you’d like the game on your website – and remember to include a link to your site!
3. If your site meets the requirements I will email the game to the email address you used in step 2 – so make sure you use a valid address!

Active Ashfield’s Conversion Challenge is a viral game commissioned by Bug Interactive for the Active Ashfield initiative to help promote the launch of their new website.

The brief was to develop a sports-themed game that featured their two food-based characters (Brocky and Peggy) which would help promote healthy eating and an active lifestyle.

The result is Active Ashfield’s Conversion Challenge, a game that tasks the user with scoring as many conversions as they can within the two minute time limit. It’s not quite as easy as it sounds though, as you have to factor dynamic wind (both in terms of direction and speed) and variable kicking power into the mix as well!

Click here to play the game!