Some News

Hello

Well, I for one, think it is about time for a pretty good update on everything, ranging from the game, to the design, and from the cases to the distribution.

Well lately (three weeks ago to be approx. I think) me and Andrew finished the game , but, of course, there was a few things needed to be tweaked, but thankfully, doesn't involve much work from myself ;)

One of the main issues that myself and Andrew need to deal with is the design of the case and the manual, the colour is too bright, the text is too pushed together and the logo for 'Maths Craze' isn't very visible from the fluorescent background , all things myself and Andrew will need to fix immediately.

A list of our To-Do-List is roughly:

• Fix small problems
• Fix case
• Fix manual
• Fix Logo
• Get bank account
• Update web-site and upload some screen shots.
• Finish the installer until we are 100% happy with it.
• Upload game onto internet, which includes setting up online shop.
• Start Selling!

=======================================================

In other news, I recently gave a copy of the game to my maths teacher to beta test it and see what she thinks of it. We are waiting for a response and we are hoping for a positive response instead of negative one's , since the game is very near the last stage ; actually selling the game.

=======================================================

Returning to the subject that we raised a few weeks ago, we are still looking for people to join our development team, and we have the following vacancies :

• Programming with basic vb .NET skills (prefer. vb 2008 skills)
• Designing with Photoshop, Flash, Fireworks experience (prefer. CS3 skills)
• Person willing to learn programming/design by working alongside us and learning the skills (no experience / skills required, but basic computer skills is preferred.)

=======================================================

Well, that's all of our news that covers the past few weeks of G.A. Learning.
Keep on the lookout on our website (http://galearning.110mb.com) and this blog to stay in the know of our progress with Maths Craze and future releases.

Stay tuned,
Gavin Kenna
G.A. Learning

Game Completed and Future

Hello,

Here at G.A. Learning are proud to announce that we have finished creating Maths Craze. Maths Craze will be availble for purchase from PayPal from the 15th Of Feb onwards. This means you can buy the game at a very low price online :)

After programming, designing and testing the game, it is completed and we couldnt have been more pleased the way it turned out , and we are also very proud to have struck a partnership with P.Q. Games who will host links to the game on their forums, so check the P.Q. Forum regularly!
P.Q. Games/Projects is a personal favorite of mine because they allowed me to join their team back in early 2007 and I have had a pleasent stay. I hope to continue to create games with P.Q. Games/Projects in the future.

In other news, G.A. Learning are hoping to expand our company and hire (yes, hire, as in money) aspiring V.B. .Net Programmers and artists for upcoming games.
If our first release , Maths Craze , does well, then we will be on the look out for programmers and artists to join us on our team and create fun, educational games. If you are intrested, contact us here : galearning@gmail.com

Also, now that we have Maths Craze completed, this gives myself and Andrew breathing space to design a game in an ample working time frame to develop our next game in which we hope you will enjoy :)

Stay Tuned,

G.A. Learning.

Nearly finished!!!!

Well, it's 3/2/'09 and the N.F.T.E International finals are tomorrow!!!! And I can proudly say, we are almost finished!!!!!!!!

After days upon days of mind bogling work,we finally came up with an almost finished game!!!

The game has come from an 'Error around every corner' game to an honestly good looking game that we both feel deserves to win the competition( and we are very confident, right Gavin??!!:) )

The features of the game include:

• colourful interface
• very user friendly interface
• fun for all ages questions
• 2 minigames(X's & O's and Hangman)
• student profiles
• teacher profiles
• built in .Net framework
• stylish screens and buttons
• fully functioning question editor
• small in size
• sounds

Update

Hey,

Sorry for the lack of updates, it was caused by the recent holidays and our love of relaxing and being some-what lazy. But, we will make up for this through a very exciting update in which we hope you enjoy.

Yesterday me and Andrew got together to work on the game at a very fast rate, trying to meet our deadline for a prototype for N.F.T.E., which is unfortunately on Wednesday afternoon, four days away. After arriving at my house, I fired up my, well, seemingly ancient computer (its not how old it is that counts, it what it can achieve) , which can achieve alot of work in a short space of time due to its speed, but, it has low stamina before it crashes in a dramatic way (last time the screen got really bright before making the sound a cat makes).

After the computers loaded, we started our work. My work was basic programming work (which looking back, seems alot more advanced than basic) which includes linking controls together, launching events and creating functions for the game. Andrews work on the other hand, was more of the visual nature which included creating stylish buttons and amazing themes for the game, which I hope to implement in the game really soon, as soon as Andrew finishes it complety and emails the images to me.

The look and feel of the game we're going for is colourfull and interactive, but not overly colourfull, we dont want to blind the children, we dont have the money to cover law suit cases (unless of course Bill Gates does give us that million that we've been asking for ;) ).

On that note (the design of the game, not the million by Bill) we hope to post up a few screenshots of the game really soon and we hope to hear some feedback :)

Stay tuned,

G.A. Learning

About the Game & Distribution

G.A. Learning is an offical branch of Team Legacy.

G.A. Learning's first release is Maths Craze, our NFTE Project, and is the reason why this blog exists. The games' target market is for children aged 8 upwards and teachers/parents with students/children who hope to mature and mainain their maths skills. The user friendly interface , colourfull images and cartoons will appeal to children, instead of the older maths' games on the market which hosts grey, drab colours which doent makes math look fun or intresting at the slightest.

Another difference between Maths Craze and other maths game is that Maths Craze has a different view on maths. Maths is basicly the solving of problems and encourage people to be more determind to reach their goals. Maths Craze believes in this and has a system of mini-games for children to play when they reach a certain number of points as a type of congratulations, thus making children more determind to get more points by completing questions and move on to the fun mini-games such as the classic Hang-Man.

The full feature list:
* Colourfull and fun interface
* Login system for children to track their progress
* Login system for teachers/parents/guardians to create/edit children and track their progress too
* Different levels for children, which is the difficulty of each question
* The questions in the game will be random
* Question editor for teachers/parents to add/edit/delete questions
* The .NET 3 Framework will be packaged in the installer
* Autosave of childs progress
* more to be added...

Distribution

Maths Craze can be purchased for cd rom or downloaded. The CD Rom will included some extra stuff like design notes, early drafts of the game and pictures of the progress but will cost €5 per game while the downloaded verson will cost €2 per game.

Both versons of the game will both have : The game, The editor for questions, .NET 3 Framework, And an updater.

The downloadable verson the game will be released by Pure Quality Projects , and a link will be supplied to purchase the game once its done. You can view the Pure Quality Projects forum here : http://z10.invisionfree.com/pqgames

NOTE : For the game you DO NOT need the internet,BUT to install updates of the .NET Framework you need the internet. Also, to recieve updates of the game and more, you will need an internet connection.

Stay Tuned,

G.A. Learning.

Editor Done! - Milestone Achieved

I am proud to announce that I have completed the Maths Craze Editor which will be used to create and edit questions for the game :) This is a huge achievement because it means we can now move onto the game and finish it by January :)

I am in the process of puttin it on disc and giving it to Andrew to add questions :)

Stay tuned,

Gavin

Xtreme Dev Work

Today was a Monday and instead of getting angry at school work, we decided to save our anger and take it out on our computers and boil underpressure for reaching the deadline.

Sweaty palms, neck collars lowered and sleeves raised to our shoulders, (well, elbows, but, I want to add some exaggeration for a nice drama effect) we began our Dev work. While Andrew was carefullly picking, mixing and changing designs for the game around, I was viciously banging commands and code into the game, crossing my fingers (one set of fingers is good; two sets is bad luck, thanks Andrew) and then stare blankly at the screen reading the text "Error", hoping that out of nowhere that Bill Gates will appear and lend a hand, complete my project for me, and hopefully chuck a few million our way ;)

After looking towards Andrew a couple of times, I noticed that he was nearing his goal : the design. Noticing this, I panic under pressure and sweat feverishly as I tap the final command into the game...press enter....click debug...and....Ta-Da! I managed to laugh (and dance inside may I add) and punch save. The game editor was completed and half of my work was done ! As I cross off what I have done, I look at what I'm to do and to my pleasure, it aint alot of work :)

After saving our progress, Andrew headed home and have planned for our next Dev Day to be tommorow after school.

Stay Tuned,

G.A. Learning