Hi my name is Hessvacio and I make games

So, I started my journey into coding with the purest of intentions within my youth; I wanted to make video games. Ever since I was a kid playing with my first video game console the Nintendo 64 I wanted to make amazing worlds of my own with programming. As, I have gotten older and have forgotten my dream within the relentless pursuit of a degree and job. Within college, as well, majoring in programming of computer science required one to have a mathematics and philosophy minors in order to complete all while still having to finish within four years so i did what any student would do in the situation pick another major. However, when my degree plans went due to the cost of college making a video game got me back into the pursuit and the amazement of programming again. I started coding for what I wanted to code for not anyone else and I started learning programming more due to it. Nowadays, game development is more of a side hobby as I constantly learn new things about programming from the Flatiron school. I love the fact that game development and the flatiron program lends themselves to each-other in particular portions. Like how I learn pseudo code from coding in GameSalad

or I used C# for the Tic Tac Toe Game for the pre-entry into Flatiron because I used the language to make games in Unity 3D. I can’t wait to see what Flatiron yield for my passion in making video games for me in the future as I finally learn how to program with such an amazing group.

Here is a Game I have been working on (it barrows a lot of it’s art inspiration and themes from the indie game Limbo) and here is a bit of the creative process on making a level.

So I start out by drawing out a simple draft of the level I’d like to create on a sketch pad and note some of the themes I’d like to introduce within the level.

Then with some photo editing magic I turn that concept into a level :

However this is still just a backdrop until I put some colide objects for the player to interact with.

In order to make the game work I stretch-out collision objects and place them where the floors and walls should be:

After I take the color opacity of these collision objects to 0 which make them invisible:

now after some coding within the player we can try out the level see what works and what doesn’t

Like testing out level puzzles, jumps, and many other parts of the game.

I am really excited to gain a better understand of coding to make even better games as I continue with the world of Web Development.

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Week 1 Down Gotta Pick up the pace!

So my first week at Flatiron is over and man am I exhausted!

I’ve learned so much this week and still feel as though I am behind in the class. We have gone over working with Git, GitHub, HTML, and Bash. Crazily enough this was a light week as well! I had a lot of fun working with HTML, I really enjoyed the Homework exercise in which we made a webpage for a fake real estate company; I am starting to understand Git and GitHub a little bit more, but I am not at the level I would like to be at within the subject; However, Bash and the command line is really being problematic for me. I still have trouble moving items with the “mv” functions. I find myself more than a couple of times just moving files like the pictures for our student directories website project with the computer’s GUI and saying hell no to that terminal.

Next week we are going over the Ruby programming language, this is both exciting and scary at the same time because I don’t feel as though I know as much of the programming language as I would like, but I am excited to learn… However, can I? I usually hit a pot hole in learning a programming language and after that can’t really get out of it. I mean I have been on my Metrocard collectable problem in my subway game for about a month now!

I plan on devoting myself completely this weekend to reading and code but how much could I internalize in two days?

I just wish I could meet myself from 22-weeks in the future so he could tell me everything is ok.

First Thing’s First… Have Optimism

Hello my name is Hessvacio Hassan and… what?

Thats too long for ya?

Well, then you can just call me H.

This is my first day in the Flatiron school in the Web Development program. I am really excited to start my journey into being a developer. It has been something that I wanted to become well versed in for a long time. We learned a lot about the Flatiron Web Dev fellowship and the selection process that went into picking us. This was crazy to me because out of all the applicants in New York City, I was one of the 32 students that wanted to learn coding bad enough to get into this selective fellowship. I am excited for the adventure in growing my knowledge as a Web Developer with the Flatiron school.

For Our first assignment was to read a blog post by Mr. R.S.Braythwayt, Esquire called Optimism.

Braythwayt has Bipolar disorder and is programmer which I find to be amazing because for me starting out as a coder. There are points when my code does not work and I go through fits of anger, sadness, and defeat; it must be incredibly tough to deal with such an affliction while writing something so complex as an interactive webpage. However, Braythwayt also has some tips for people getting through his life and coding pot hoes which are all really informative.

He goes into book a on Optimism by Dr. Martin Seligman which is really informative on the studies of optimistic people. I feel as through it is important to keep up such high spirits in a field of study that is riddled with such bugs and errors so understanding this could be useful in changing the way we think.

I also really resonated with his point on treating each other like children from his post. This sounds very demeaning, but from my experience in interning at Pixel Academy an After school program for kids with the desire to learn game development and other technology heavy hobbies. I remember when working with the children of Pixel Academy “prais[ing] the child and criticizing the behavior” was the best strategy with promoting learning in children with Mindcraft modding, game development, or even 3D printing. So to learning something like web development would be the same.

I really enjoy the author’s call to action as well the idea of looking at things objectively. Framing the problems as impersonal and temporary. This is a great mindset to have going into the world of code, because a lot of our problems/criticisms I believe we will have the power to fix one day.

If you would like to read the actual article the link to it is below:

http://braythwayt.com/homoiconic/2009/05/01/optimism.html