Stardoll Science 101: Gamemaking!
Click. Drag. Save.
Click. Drag. Save.
Click… drag… save.
That’s how I save my MeDoll, especially because my computer is slow. Without saving the game, my changes would be lost. Stardoll is wildly complex: just clicking on “View page source” on Google Chrome shows me lines and lines of code that all come together to make the page.
Making a simple game isn’t actually that hard. Once you learn how to code, the rest is logic. I took a computer science class called “Intro to Game Design” and actually made a few simple games for the class in a program called Stencyl. They were very simple, but also fun to play. They worked in the same way Stardoll did, except they used logic instead of code, allowing users who don’t know HTML or CSS to make games.
Once I had the images I wanted to use for characters, backgrounds, and objects, I could start programming the game. It used logic to make the game, starting with a big block that had several options. I usually picked “when updating.” The game updated constantly, and the game would then respond to the next part: the block under “when updating.” That was usually an “if” scenario: if this, then that. In my game, the code read “When updating, if the right arrow is down, move the character at x-speed to [number] set.” In other words: if I’m pressing on the right arrow, the character will move right at a certain speed I set.
The same scenario would work for Stardoll, too: “When updating, if the mouse is clicking on StarDesign Hair ‘Designed by JasmineRebeckah,’ drag hair with mouse position,” also known as “Move the hair wherever the mouse goes.” Since the game’s code is stored within the page you’re on, the game is able to update within itself and send to the server when you click “save.”
So, to recap, computers use code to work, and games are coded so the computer can understand it. Code is a fancy way of using logic to make the computer understand what you want it to do: if you click something, take you to another page, for example. The same way of programming is used in Stardoll but in a much more interconnected and complicated way. You can practice your own programming through the desktop app Stencyl and even make your own game!
Stencyl is available for a free download at http://www.stencyl.com/ and the first Crash Course tutorial can be found at http://www.stencyl.com/help/viewArticle/143. Have fun making games.