Writing games

I stumbled upon the news regarding a 4th university in Singapore which is to be established in collaboration with MIT when I was in my JC "year 3".
Back then, I was very interested in Physics and I want to be able to use my knowledge to innovate new products or create solutions.
Hence, the prospect of having an "MIT" in Singapore was exhilarating.
I can't wait to get into that varsity upon my imminent graduation.
However, the varsity was still in it's initial stages then and I had to enter NS after I graduated.
Thus, that excitement was shelved.

Fast forward 2 years later, I was in my second year of National Service and my friend invited me to one of the SUTD (the 4th university) open house.
I was hesitant, since I already had a place to do Mechanical Engineering in NTU and I was kinda dead set about going there.
The fact that I had a number of friends there(in NTU) and many others going there as well was also an influential reason.
Nonetheless, I gave it chance and went for the SUTD's open house.
BAM!
The amount of awesome stuff I saw and heard was just so overwhelming.
SUTD is exactly what I wanted, it was the university I dreamed of!
Okay, to be fair I have never attended any other open houses.
Yup, so immediately I went to apply to SUTD once I got home from the open house.
And within 2 weeks, I had forsaken my place in NTU and was accepted into SUTD.

Looking back, that was probably the best decision of my life and these amazing turn of events were just so incredible.
Having to repeat JC 2 just to be in time for the pioneer batch at SUTD, attending the SUTD open house when I was already dead set to enter NTU, getting into SUTD only 2 months before the term starts, what are the chances?
Well, they happened and I'm having the time of my life in SUTD.
Amazing friends, inspiring faculties who are like friends to us, endless opportunities to be involved in all kinds of projects and research, hostel life, and most importantly the chance to be exposed to programming/computing.
Before I start on that, let me just say I feel at home in SUTD.
I love our curriculum, I enjoy the projects, I am able to cope with the modules so much so that I am able to appreciate them and I get to be a geek!
Yes, I get to nurture and develop the geek side of me which was hidden for the most of my life.
Once I get into geek mode, which is when I start programming or working on some design, I can almost never stop.
It is like an addiction,  I do not feel like doing anything else anymore.
What I am working on has actually became fun itself where I derive endless satisfaction from, especially when I accomplish it.

Ok, so back to programming.
In SUTD, we are all required to take this module called Introduction to the Digital World in our first year.
By the way, freshmore year(year 1) is a common year for all of us.
That means that we have yet to major in anything and we all study the same subjects.
And that is just awesome!
Why?
Because Introduction to the Digital World exposed me to programming which I instantly felt a connection with and fell in love.
I have never done any formal programming before but when I was exposed to it, stuff just comes to me as though it was almost natural for me to programme.
Unfortunately, it only came in term 3 which was the last term of our freshmore year.
I can't imagine the amount of geeky stuff I would have done at the cost of everything else (like having a life, a student life) if I was exposed to it any earlier.
Hmm, so maybe it was a blessing in disguise after all.

Yup, so from there I knew what I wanted.
I am going to be a programmer, not a mechanical engineer.
I am so glad my plans changed and I didn't end up in NTU to do mechanical engineering.
I would be so so so miserable now if I did, and I would have missed out on discovering something so amazing.
Okay fast forward,a few months later I am now in Zhejiang Universty, China.
Once again, another incredible exchange programme which I will not have a chance to partake in if not for SUTD.
Zhejiang Universty(ZJU), is one of the best university in China.
It is among the top 3-5 universities in China.

In this programme, I chose to work on a Plant Factory project which I knew would be awesome despite everyone saying that it is not related to ISTD.
Oh by the way, ISTD refers to Information Systems Technology and Design.
It is the pillar that I am going to major in(or in other words, that is my major) ever since I abandoned mechanical engineering.
So right now, I am in a countryside which I call the farm (you can refer to my previous posts for more information).
The farm is amazing, I love it here.
It is actually part of ZJU anyway.
So in the farm we actually had lessons on arduino and this programming software called Processing.
Ever since these lessons started(which was like 2days ago), every night and day was spent programming.
Ardunio was fun, but not as fun as Processing.
Nonetheless, I am so glad I had a few mini formal lessons on arduino and now I can consider myself somewhat competent on it.
Arduino is an impressive processing chip which comes with a software that writes with C++.
One can do really a lot of stuff with it, just the other day I attached an InfraRed sensor to the chip and programmed it to receive and operate some LEDs with a remote control.
We also tried a light and temperature sensor, like I said the amount of stuff that can be attached to it is numerous and expanding.
However, the best has yet to come.
One day later(which was yesterday), our mentor exposed us to Processing.
Like I said, it is a programming software and it also codes in C++.
C++ is a programming language which has a different syntax from the language we learned back in SUTD, Python.
However, thanks to the logic and skill sets we had learned when we did Python, transition to C++ was not as onerous as I thought.
In fact, it was so smooth(aside from some syntax issues) I was able to write 2 games with it within 1 day.
I am so glad I was familiar with classes, functions, states and what not.

Owing to the awesomeness of Processing which allows me to export my codes into an exe file, I am able to present you:

1) Avoid the balls
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/50047252/AvoidTheBalls.jar

2) Pokeball
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/50047252/pokeball.jar

These are not viruses, these are exe files of the 2 games I wrote.
If you want to try it out, just download it to your computer and run it.
The instructions are simple (and pretty intuitive).

a) Avoid the balls
Move the block on the right with 'O' and 'K', try to avoid as many incoming balls as possible.

b) Pokeball
 Just try click on the running pokeball.

Yup, so have fun!
Scott signs off.