[ICS 62] Homework Week 5 Read Me
May 5, 2013, Sunday

-Faye Jao-
#41133698
yjao@uci.edu

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*****This Read Me file contains spoiler contents that may give away the ending of the game!*****


GAME REQUIREMENTS

PVector is implemented into the x and y coordinates of the food items (even though y never changed). The acceleration is implemented through the falling of the Fat Man and the chair. The food items only move uniformly because it is logical for a conveyor belt in a rotation sushi bar to have consistent velocity. Past requirements are fulfilled in the following way:
Non-random movement: food items are constantly moving toward the right.
Responsive characters: Fat Man, food items, stacking plates, and breaking chair.
Classes: major GS (game state) class and Food class.
Objects: one GS object (game), and many duplicated Food objects added into the ArrayList Foods.
More than one type of thing with different behaviors: Fat Man's mouth opens and he falls down when game is over, food items are always moving to the right (velocity can be changed) and clicking them (or not) will change their visibility, stacking plates change colors and are uniformly stacked, and the breaking chair is animated in an interesting way.
Arrays: two major lists, ArrayList Foods, and int[] fatstack (stack of plates for Fat Man).
Transformations: many of Your and Fat Man's features are drawn using transformations, the breaking chair is also drawn using transformations.
Vectors: the Food items' position changes (affected directly by velocity), and the Fat Man and the chair when game ends (position, velocity, and acceleration).
One type of invisible thing or force: acceleration implemented on the Fat Man and the breaking chair.
Unified theme: a rotation sushi bar, related foods, and Fat Man with You, the family member, with the unified theme of eating and obesity.


WRITTEN STATEMENT (IN-TEMPLATE FORM)

1. TITLE: The title of my project is ˇ§Save the Fat Man!ˇ¨ I picked this title because the main purpose of the game is to ˇ§saveˇ¨ the Fat Man from eating too many fattening foods.
2. TOPIC: The topic of my project is obesity and its consequences if not eating healthily.
3. ARGUMENT: My main point in my project is to show that obesity is a problem and eating fattening foods on top of that could be deadly. It is important to help out a family member with obesity, if possible.
4. CHANGING THE WORLD: If this project could change the world, it would bring an awareness to the players about eating habits and also developing a responsibility in helping their family members with theirs.
5. STORY: My project has the following story, narrative or setting: (Most of it can be found in the title screen of game) You are playing as a family member of Fat Man, and your job is to take away the unhealthy foods away from him before he reaches the limit and suffers from the consequence (lose the game on purpose to see what happens).
6. GAMEPLAY: I communicate my argument and story by the following elements through Processing: An assortment of healthier and unhealthy foods will move on the conveyor belt (with workings of velocity and position vectors), and with mouse click the foods will be taken away from the Fat Man. This is a simulation symbolic to a real life situation, when family members have to physically take the bad foods away from their loved ones to help them control.
7. FUTURE DEVELOPMENT: Things that are not yet completed in my project include: graphically moving conveyor belt, "broken conveyor belt" feature (randomly accelerates sometimes), a menu selection screen to set game difficulty, and more food varieties.
 

GAME BACKGROUND

One of my family members suffered from obesity, and I remember I would often try to restrict her diet and help control her eating habits. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. This game is somewhat inspired by her, and the fact that I just went to Gatten Sushi (which they really served green tea cheesecake and fried chicken). My game matters to mostly everyone because it is important that everyone realizes the fact that it is hard for some people to fight obesity (as we know, Fat Man cannot control himself, so he needs a family member to help), and having those who they love to help them things will become easier. Like Fat Man, eating unhealthily will lead to consequences--he suffered from a stroke due to his high Cholesterol level. If we don't control ourselves or if we don't help our family, we can suffer from health consequences. While playing my game, players will develop a sense of responsibility as they try to save the Fat Man from "dying".


SPECIAL NOTES TO GAMEPLAY

The following variables can be changed upon declaration for better testing/gameplay results:
//under fat_main.pde
float globalvel = 10; //Global velocity for food moving speed and chair-breaking/Man-falling speed
float globalacc = globalvel/100; //Global acceleration for chair-breaking/Man-falling speed
//under classGS.pde
int difficulty = 0; //set how common blue plates are generated, with 0 being easiest/most common
int life = 5; //set the number of hearts, with 1 being minimum
int state = 0; //set game state, 0=title, 1=play, 2=dying, 3=lost, 4=won
int[] fatstack = new int[20]; //set number of plates of food in order to win game