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

  1. Start Game Maker using Start->Programs->Hark The Sound->Game Maker
  2. 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.
  3. 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.
  4. 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.
  5. 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.
  6. 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.
  7. 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.
  8. 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.
  9. 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.

  1. Start GameMaker using Start->Programs->Hark The Sound->Game Maker
  2. Go to File and select Open from the drop down menu
  3. Select the name of the game you'd like to edit and press OK to open it
  4. Add to the game by following the instructions from step 2 on under CREATING A NEW GAME
  5. 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.