This page is of historical interest only
You want the newer version here
Hark The Sound: Game Maker
Game Maker is the first version of a tool to make the process or
making new games for Hark The Sound easier. In this version
you can only make text-file games. We hope to improve it soon to allow
games including sounds and music to be constructed with it.
Creating a new game
- Start Game Maker using Start->Programs->Hark The Sound->Game Maker
- Enter the desired prompt in the Prompt: text box. The prompt is
the item the student should respond to. For example, if you are
creating the game 'Name this capital's state' a prompt might be
Nashville.
- At this time, you may press the Speak key next to the text field
to hear the program pronounce what you have entered. If you are
unhappy with the pronunciation, you may alter it by misspelling the
word to give a more desirable pronunciation.
- Enter the corresponding answer to the prompt you have entered in
the Answer: box. For example, if you are creating the aforementioned
game, the corresponding answer you would enter would be
Tennessee.
- You may check the pronunciation of this word as you did in step 3,
but this time pressing the Speak key next to the answer text field.
- Repeat steps 2-5 until you have all your prompt/answer pairs. If
you would like to remove a pair, simply select that pair from the list
by clicking once (or by moving the up or down arrow keys), and press
the Remove button.
- At this point you may add as many questions as you want. These
will let the student know what their objective is. To add a
question, press the Add Question button. Type your question in
the text box, and press the OK button if you are
satisfied. Pressing the Cancel button at this point will close
the box and not add the question. Possible questions for our
example game could be "Can you name the state this capital
belongs to?" or "What state is this city the captial
of?". Adding multiple questions will be good for your students
so that they will not have to hear the same phrase repeating
over and over.
- You can also add hints for your pairs to help your students if
they are stuck. To do this, select a pair from the list by
clicking on it (or moving the arrow key up and down) and press
the Add Hint button. Type your hint into the textbox and press
OK if you are satisfied. Pressing the Cancel button at this
point will close the box and not add the hint. Each pair can
have any number of hints.
- To save the game, go to File and select Save from the drop down
menu. Type in the name you would like your game to be called
when it is listed in Hark in the text box and press
OK. Pressing Cancel at this point will close the box and not
save your game, allowing you to further edit it. If you press
OK, at this point if you run Hark, your game will now be
playable.
Editing an already created game
At this point, this editor can only edit the text of games, not
reassign sounds (wav or midi files). If you would like to do this, see
http://www.cs.unc.edu/Research/assist/Hark/HowToMakeANewGame.html
(if you are online) or select How to Make a New Game from your Hark
The Sound folder in your Start menu.
If you would like to edit a text game you have created, or change
only the text of a game including sounds you can do this by following
the directions below.
- Start GameMaker using Start->Programs->Hark The Sound->Game Maker
- Go to File and select Open from the drop down menu
- Select the name of the game you'd like to edit and press OK to open it
- Add to the game by following the instructions from step 2 on under CREATING A NEW GAME
- To save your changes, go to File and select Save. The original
name of the game will be in the text box, if you would like to
overwrite the game with your changes, just press OK. If you
would like to save this edited game under another name, enter
that name in the text box and press OK.
This page last updated: 5 December 2003.