Amateur Artist

This was the final project for my Basic Digital Arts class where we learned Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator skills along with experimenting within Audacity. Taking these skills, we were tasked with learning p5js and making some sort of interactive program out of it. Where many people chose to do something that manipulates squares and other shapes, I wanted to make a full game where the players could interact with the space more freely. My inspiration was those old flash games that you'd find on something like pbskids.org (when they still had all their games). The idea behind this was to just make something that simulates a MS pain styled program with the added complexity of unlocking things the more that you play. It gives a full exploration and some progressing achievements to get to.

Towards the end of the semester, the class had a small competition. In a usual, non-covid year, the class would have a day where we would get together in a computer lab and all code through the night with donuts to keep us awake. Since that couldn't happen because we were all online, it turned into a showcase competition called Coding with Donuts. This was between all sections of this class of this year, hosted by the University at Buffalo Media Study Department, and sponsored by a local donut shop, Paula's Donuts. I had to showcase my game and give a 10 minute presentation on my inspiration for making it as well as walking through a little bit of my code. At the end of the night, I was awarded the "Best Code-Based Interactive Work" certificate. 

In 2022, my professor approached me and told me that he nominated this project to the university for a student showcase. This required me to make a presentation poster and give a more formal presentation to anyone who stopped by my booth. This was an intimidating experience for me since I was presenting next to people who were showcasing their projects with highly scientific research: new ways of combating cancer, the storage strategies of renewable energy, and things like that. What I did to set myself apart from these was to make my own website for this project where I could host a place for a community page and a place to display the work the people create with my project. As well, it gives a nice, professional place to talk more in-depth about 

Created by:
Eric DeVore

Special thanks to:
Bernard A. Dolecki
The University at Buffalo Department of Media Study