In this project, our goal was to create a game about probability to display at exhibition. I have had experience in programming before, so I was excited to get the opportunity to do it again. In this project, we were supposed to learn about how probability works, and how to determine the probability of certain events. For example, in my game, there were three possible places for the Plinko ball to land. However, one of the places was more likely than the others, because the ball had a greater situational probability of landing there.
We had several benchmarks in this project. The first one required us to find a partner and brainstorm the type of game we wanted to create. It was at this point that my partner and I settled on the idea of the game Plinko. In Benchmark 2, we proposed this game idea to our teacher. In Benchmark 5, we created the actual game. My partner and I created the game Plinko in scratch online.
How To Play Plinko
Step One
Use the arrow keys to move the ball into position
Step Two
Press the space bar to drop the ball
Step Three
Watch the ball drop into position
Use the arrow keys to move the ball into position
Step Two
Press the space bar to drop the ball
Step Three
Watch the ball drop into position
I am pretty proud of my end result in this project. With very little materials and background information, my partner and I were able to create a working game with all the elements that we wanted in it. I used two habits of mathematicians when creating this game. The first habit was "Looking for patterns". I used this to search for patterns of the code I was making, so I could duplicate it and make the game faster. The other habit I used was "Being Systematic". When it was hard to find out which block of code I needed for the game, I systematically looked through all the options until I found the correct one. If I could change one thing about our game, I would put more attention into the graphic design of it. We were going for a winter theme, but it just uses default sprites that have already been used in tons of other games. I wish I could be able to redo the way the whole game looks.