Hello, this will be my final Genius Hour blog post so I would like to talk about my experience with it. I had lots of fun with my topic this year and I'm kind of sad that it's already coming to an end but I made the best out of it and had fun and that's all that really matters. I feel like I learned a lot from my research and creating my own version of Pong so I will continue experimenting with creating video games and hopefully it becomes something I'm very good at. I will now answer these following questions:
1. What was your favorite part of the topic you chose? My favorite part of my topic had to be creating and finishing my game because I felt very accomplished when I saw that my game actually worked properly.
2. What was your least favorite part of the topic you chose? My least favorite part was probably the time it took for all the research but I still had fun and learned a lot.
3. What do you like best about Genius Hour research? I liked that I started this topic knowing nothing about creating games and came out of it knowing tons of information about it.
4. What do you like least about Genius Hour research? The thing I liked least had to be coming to a conclusion because I was so into my research and I was learning a lot.
5. What was the most important thing you learned about yourself, how you learn, or research in general as a result of this work? I learned that I work better and research better if I have a topic that I actually like and am interested in.
This is the end of my Genius Hour so thank you for reading my blog! :)

Today I've completed creating Pong and have a better understanding on how to create games. I will explain my process of creating Pong and will attach a file of my game Pong for everyone to enjoy. The first step I had to do was create the sprites/pictures for the ball, wall, and bats so that was the easiest part. The second step I had to set the controls for both of the bats to move up and down. For the left bat I made W the control for up and S the control for down and for the right bat I just made the arrow keys the controls. The third step I had to set the balls movement and get it to bounce off of everything but the goals because I set the goals to make the ball go to the starting point. The fourth step I set up my scoreboard and got it to count the score when the ball hit the left/right goals. The fifth and kind of final step was to place everything on the room/template then test the game. I did everything right the first time so I didn't have to mess with it much after. That is basically my process but I will go more in depth during my presentation and that's all for this post. My Game ---> My Pong Game

Today I found out how to actually create a game with a program called Game Maker. I will be creating Pong for my test game and if it's sucessful I will try to make another game that will be more complex. I watched plenty of videos and read on how to use and make games in Game Maker and will be trying it out at home. Here are just some of the links I've learned off of: http://www.mashpeetech.com/web_pages/web_links/pdf_files/PONG%20TUTORIAL%20-%20GAME%20MAKER%208.pdf and www.youtube.com/watch?v=7bAmzbPVVRY

The first and most important part of creating a video game is to design the game play. You have to design the game play before you can actually start developing the game so here are the steps I will follow to design my game play:  1. Determine your goals 2. Determine your audience 3. Design for different devices 4. Consider your genre 5. Determine player agency options 6. Outline your challenges 7. Create the incentives for your player 8. Balance difficulty with playability. Once I have all of my designing finished I will make a post with all of my progress.

Hello, I will be blogging the process of creating a video game for my Genius Hour. I will be researching about the process and posting about it. I will attempt to create a small video game when I'm done with my research and if successful I will post it for everyone to enjoy.