Here are my thoughts for the final project …

I had trouble initially deciding what to do, because, (not to be dramatic), it feels like my heart was telling me to do a Turtle-based project but my brain was telling me to do data processing. Instinctually, a Turtle-based project seems more interesting, however since I am considering trying out data processing as a field, it makes more sense to do data processing.

When it comes down to it, however, I think I should stick to a Turtle-based project, because the excitement and creativity of building a game will help motivate me through the final stretch of the semester. My two vague ideas behind a Turtle game are a) doing a text-based game and b) doing a game with boss behaviors that are based on different classes. I enjoyed what we did in class today, where we defined different classes of turtles, and it reminded me of how the pacman ghosts have different “personalities.”

It might be interesting to see if I can create a word-based game that has different boss behavior. But how could I make it challenging for people to beat? Can typing speed be accounted for? How do I course-correct for mistypes / spelling (an issue I had with my 8-ball user input questions)? Maybe it should be a multiple choice type situation? Variable bosses and challenges would be much more interesting in general to me.

And although I want to use this project to hone in on my skills learned in this class, I am already growing ambitious over the possibilities: what could I do with easter eggs? Are there ways to embed music? If I have the time, what kind of graphics could I develop? Maybe I can involve data-processing methods in my game, to help me learn skills from both options? I truly believe that this excitement and curiosity will fuel me through my final project, and that I need to harness it to drive the end of the semester.

I haven’t had the chance to start the project yet, but here are my plans for the next few weeks:

• week 1: draft out code and set up a basic interface; block out a story if it’s text-based
• week 2: continue writing code, making sure to refactor, test, and clean throughout; play with random module and classes of bosses
• week 3: clean up code and run final tests
• week 4: add visuals, easter eggs, etc.