by Jaxson Fordyce

Pokemon Legends: Z-A is the second game in the Pokemon: Legends series. The Legends series games are known for their open-world playing style, and this one did not disappoint. As in the many other Pokemon video games, the goal is to capture different creatures and train them to learn moves and fight other Pokemon, eventually becoming the most powerful trainer in the world. This game in particular though, was different from the rest.

Every game in the main series takes place on an island with unique environments and places to go. Instead, this one is set in a gigantic city that was actually a part of the earlier game Pokemon X and Y. You don’t need to play the earlier games to understand what's going on, but older fans might notice some references mentioned. The graphics were much better than previous games. However, despite all the praise I have for this game, there were still a couple factors that made me not love it as much as I should. The last Pokemon game, Pokemon Violet and Scarlet, came out a little under three years ago. While this might not seem like a lot, it is much longer than their usual two-year release schedule. Also, since this is a Legends game and technically not a main series game, we’re still waiting for the next one. Let’s just hope those spoilers for Pokemon Winds and Waves are not completely fake (mostly for the company’s own sake and their risk of going out of business!). I can’t decide whether I fully liked it or not, so you will have to play the game yourself and tell me what you think.

My Current Grade: B+

by Jaxson Fordyce

Super Mario 64 (1996) - Instead of using 2-D figures like previous Super Mario games, this game made 3-D shapes that were colored and textured to look like realistic objects. Even though these simple shapes seem to be nothing compared to what technology can do now, it was groundbreaking when it was released. It was the first 3-D game to become famous for its graphics, even though Maze War was actually the first 3-D game released.

Pokemon Go (2016) - It was the first video game ever to use satellites to track a player’s location. It encouraged millions of people to get outside and exercise. It was made in partnership between Pokemon and Naintic, and it raised their stock by 200%. Within a week of its release, it got 10 million downloads. Today, it has over one billion. It remained very popular for years, and only recently has started to lose popularity due its inability to change. Players got bored with the constant pattern. Still, it won many awards such as the Best Family Game and Best Mobile & Handheld Game. 

Elite (1984) - This game is not as famous as the ones that are previously on this list. It was the first ever video game to have a “sandbox” world. In video games, “sandbox“ means that the world can keep going on forever. The most popular sandbox game is Minecraft. A sandbox game can keep auto-generating new things for players to explore. Most games that use this feature will eventually just stop generating and not work if you go too far, but they all have Elite to thank.

Space Invaders (1978) - Video games are one of our main sources of entertainment, but it wasn’t always that way. In the 1900s you would have to drive all the way to an arcade to play a video game, so many people didn’t like them. When Space Invaders was created, it became famous worldwide because it gave players a chance to try new strategies to beat their old high scores. Arcades became a place where people went all the time because of the affordable prices and wide variety of things to do. They soon went out of style after the invention of console and handheld gaming, but it was great while it lasted.

Roblox (2006) - Roblox is considered a video game, but it is more like a website. There are millions of games to play, but the original creators didn’t make a single one of them. Game designers from all over the world make their own creations to post there, hoping to become well known and move on to making their own companies. Roblox was given one award in 2018, and two awards in 2019. 

by Derek Lee

Section 1: Building

Let’s start off with building. Building is easy, but believe it or not, some scripters can’t even do it well. But don’t blame them, as scripting is more crucial than building (but we will move to that in a different section). You may wonder how to build well. It is as easy as grabbing something from the tool box. All you have to do is click the search bar in the tool box and search for something. If you are not a great scripter, you can search something like “Door (working),” but you do not need to do that if you are good at scripting. It really is that simple for building.

Section 2: Modeling

Some people think that modelers and builders are the same thing, but they aren’t. All Roblox developers know that they aren’t the same as builders who can just grab something from the tool box and work on something, but modelers build it on their own without grabbing a single thing from the tool box. Instead, they grab “Parts” or “Tuss” from the Roblox made stuff. Modelers are very helpful when it comes to something like trying to build an entire set of things that builders would be unable to do. Also, developers that join your game will finally stop saying, “Oh these are all models guys, and I am a developer!” I would ban them if I could (Just kidding!), but that is annoying. Modeling though is just the best thing you could do! Don’t be lazy. If it takes too long, you can also hire modelers if you would like, but if you want to hire a developer it may cost Robux because it is very difficult to find free developers unless they have like five months of experience. 

Section 3: Scripting

Scripting may be a lot more difficult than anything else you could possibly do, unless you have learned it for a while. It takes an average person1-2 years to learn Luna scripting, but to learn Java scripting, an average person may take up to three years. Again, scripting is very crucial for Roblox games and if you create a Roblox game, you need a scripter because if you have no scripts then it is less likely people will like it due to it just being plain and boring, but if you want to have an item you put in to your game, then you can use this: local ServerStorage = game : GetService(“ServerStorage”) Now I am not going to go through the entire script because it is very long, but you get the idea on how to script. If not, you should try to hire a free trainer to teach you how to script on these types of games.

Section 4: Interfacer

Now it is time for interfacing! This may be the easiest one of all of Roblox developing requirements, as all you need to do is click at the top and it says “Interface.” When you do, you should see how to do it. It is like one of those things you may have seen in STEM class for creating an app in the app lab, as you just drag a piece, say what it says, add texture and everything to it, put it on the side or where you want to put it, and then you're done. I would rather do that once the game is finished because it is on every developer's screen. But once you are done, it may need scripts, so ask a scripter if you can't script, then just add some parts. For example, if it is a donation screen on the side, just add where they can donate and it adds to your account. Or if it is in a group, then adds group funds like if you pay your developers once the games are finished. Interfacing is just super easy, and I think you will easily get used to interfacing as almost every Roblox game has it including Brookhaven, Blox Fruits, etc.

Section 5: Finishing

Now you are finished with your game and I would like to develop games in groups but you can do you as having a group or now called communities are fun to have including if you pay your developers. My first thing is to open a game and then advertise, wait a little while, and then create a moderation application. So then your game will be safe from exploiters and act like a true boss and get mods online when needed. Also consider using the app Discord as it helps with issues like mod logs if you create your own bot or communication between mods and others. Almost every single Roblox game has a Discord server, and mod ranks are cool so create them with the group. Then add the group within scripting. Also do not let your mods only be in the Discord server only answering tickets. If you had Discord for awhile, you know what I am talking about. In Roblox, people say it as “DC” or “Dizzy” since it tags like this, “#######.”

Now that I've shared the basics, get out there and make some games! Becoming a developer is a lot of fun, so enjoy it!

by Derek Lee

Hello everyone, and welcome to another crazy Roblox event in our gaming section! Today it is all about the one million dollar Roblox event! It started on March 13, and has an age requirement of 13 or older to participate. The Roblox corporation has never done this before, as they are just giving ONE random person a million dollars if they win the 25 Roblox games.

This is basically the Ready Player One Event from 2017. Who will win this event? I have no idea yet. My goal is to try to play in the event, but my other goal is to try to stop any exploiter in the way of trying to rig it. If you try to compete, watch out for the Mega Hunters, as there are three thousand of them in just one group! Be careful--this feels like a real competition against the Mega Hunters. In order to win this, you will need to figure out how to be one step ahead of a probably one million people worldwide. It could even be more, since Roblox has a player base of over 11 million people.

Even if you choose not to participate or can't because of the age requirements, you're going to want to stay updated somehow. I recommend Twitter or YouTube. This may be the best event in history of Roblox! Nearly all of our Gaming readers play Fortnite, right? When was the last time they gave out one million dollars? The answer is never. They've given out thousands of dollars, but never close to one million.

This Roblox event is called “The Hunt: Mega Edition.” Do you think you can place or in the Top 100? That would be nice, but I wonder if a teenager will win or an adult. It will interesting to see. I will keep you updated on these Roblox events as the information comes out. 

Some of the games for this event include 3008, Three Player Obby, A Wolf or Other, Arsenal, Basketball Legends, Blade Ball on Blade League, Car Crushers 3, and Carry an Egg. All the games have been leaked online, but I'll let you find them if you're interested. I hope you had fun learning about this event, but more importantly, I hope you have fun playing in this challenge! Good luck! I'll be playing and watching too!

by Zoey Beemiller

For approximately 250,000 years, humanity has innovated and used the environment around us to shape the world to our liking. However, it has only been in the last 65 years, 11 months, and four days (as I am currently writing this) where we were wise enough to invent video games and add them to our daily lives. So let's explore how we got here, how video games are made, and how technology has managed to come this far in this relatively brief amount of time.

Humble Beginnings

Let's go back to the beginning. There is a debate as to where video games really began, but there is a general consensus that it was from William Higinbotham, a physicist who created a game called "Tennis For Two." It allowed a player to have a virtual tennis game against either a robot or another player. On the small screen on which it was displayed, a player would throw the tennis ball and it would show the curvature of which way the ball would go, similar to some sports games still being sold today. At the time many people couldn’t afford a computer so regardless of the invention, people did not really play the game…until the revolutionary invention of arcades!

Arcades and Ataris

About 20 years later, video games took a popular turn. The first ever consoles and video games were made in this window of time in the 1960 and 1970s. It started from the first ever console: Magnavox Odyssey, which was released in 1972. The console couldn’t have been made without the success of arcade games like Computer Space (1971), Space Invaders (1978), or Bertie the Brain (1950). Nearly ten years after the Odyssey, with a lot of innovating and pioneering in the video game industry, the first ever Nintendo console was made, featuring the first ever platform game, Mario Bros., in 1983.

Since Then

Soon Nintendo dominated the console industry. Video game characters became features in everyday life. Rapid fire discoveries were invented and innovated to the extreme. With the help of video games, the film industry (particularly the animation industry) also benefited from everything people were making. Maze War, the first ever 3-D game was created in 1974. In 1992, Mario Kart was released. In 1991, the first Playstation was created. Ten years later, in 2001, the first XBOX was released. 1997 was when the first GTA game was released. Ever since then, we have had many incredible video games, and VR headsets were invented. Video games have become so realistic that some people can’t even tell the difference between them and real life sometimes. It will be incredible to see what the next 65 years, 11 months, and four days of gaming looks like! 

by Jaxson Fordyce

A tip in making a wooden house is if people like to use the same type of wood for the whole project. It makes the house look very bland. Just because the game says it goes together doesn't mean it will look good. It will be all one color and look the same. Here are some wood types that go together with each other:

• • Cherry wood and crimson wood

  • Birch wood and jungle wood

  • Oak wood and birch wood

  • Spruce wood and dark oak wood (Used in the house pictured to the left)

A floor in any Minecraft house will probably have wood planks or cobblestone blocks, but look at the floor in your own real life house, does it look exactly the same as the walls? Most likely not. I think cobblestone houses look the best with deep slate tiles as flooring. Wooden houses look best with the kind of log that the walls or roof is made of. Make sure all the logs are sideways and facing the same direction.

It can be hard to find the right kind of fence for a house because there are only fences made of wood, although there are walls. Even though walls seem like they should be used for making walls they are terrible at it. 

1. Walls are half the size of normal blocks which makes it impossible to put things right up against them such as furniture and paintings. 

2. Doors are made to fit in normal blocks so you can’t attach a door to a wall block.

Wall blocks can also be very useful though. They have the same properties of fences so you can use them to solve your fencing problems. They also come in many styles that normal fences don’t have such as cobblestone, sandstone, prismarine, endstone, blackstone, granite, andesite, diorite, brick, stone brick, nether brick, mud brick, and deep slate. (what this house's walls/fences are made of.)

The part of the umbrella that sticks into the ground is just fences. The block in the middle is just a wool block and the white parts near the wool are quartz slabs. It’s the carpets that make the outer parts the umbrella you might not know about. If you’ve played minecraft before you know that carpets can’t float in the air like other blocks. They immediately break and fall down. You have to put string under them. String is almost invisible, especially when looking at it from a distance.

In this build I didn’t actually make an inside. it would have taken way too much time to design all those floors. But on the outside I wanted there to be lots of windows. Instead of using normal glass I used white stained glass. It looks the same as normal glass but you cannot see through it as easily. I use this in my big builds a lot. 

You may notice how the roof of the tower has a lot of variations in the stone. A flat top to a build will work if the actual build is plain. At first I had a flat top on the tower but I realized all the windows and other details didn’t match with the roof. I think it looks a lot better now.

The tower in the picture on the left looks bigger and taller. Here's why. The left is looking at it from the bottom and is much closer to the tower than the right picture is. When on the ground, the trees block the view around. This makes it look like the tower is in a forest.

by Derek Lee

If you play Roblox, there is a new event for you to try called The Hunt with about 100 Roblox games for players to hunt through. 

For those of you who don’t play Roblox, it is a very popular online game. In fact, it ranks second in online games, only trailing Fortnite in popularity. I think Roblox is the easiest game, and soon enough, I think the gaming news websites will all be talking about this challenge. You can click the hyperlink to find current information about The Hunt: First Edition.

You may ask, “What is The Hunt?” According to the site, “This Hunt will take you into the Infinite Vault, where you'll find futuristic treasures collected. Obtain badges by completing THE HUNT: FIRST EDITION event in-game. Event details can be found next to the "PLAY" button in the main menu.”

If you haven’t played Roblox since 2020, you might not even know that Roblox started hosting events like this, but now is the perfect chance to play it again and try it! It’s been years since the last event like this, so don’t wait. While I hope the next event doesn’t take as long for Roblox corporation to create and release, you never know what the co-founder, Builder Man, aka David Buszucki, and the founder, Roblox, aka Erik Cassel have in mind.

This challenge officially concludes on March 29, so don’t delay! Get playing today!