So my group and I started focusing on Lemonade Stand as our project to work on through the remainder of the semester. In class Thursday, we were able to discover why our activity would not run as a stand alone activity. The "engine" framework that the designer uses to run the activity was in a folder that was inside another folder...when we ran the command to initiate our activity, the program couldn't find the engine. As a work around, we moved the contents of the inside folder into the "outer" folder and everything worked well. A better solution for this is definitely one of the things that we are considering as being worthy of our attention.
After we got the game running, we immediately found that the user interface was entirely based on keystrokes—no mouse movements at all. After a careful check through the README files, the wiki and the ever popular Google search, we found no instructions as to which keys did what. It took time using the trial and error method to learn these, and to top it off there is no game play instructions for the user to read either. This is yet another area we are considering as needing further improvements.
There are a few bugs that we have identified as well—in the game, the player is supposed to enter their profit for the day in certain categories (i.e., pennies, dollars, dimes, nickels, and quarters). Suppose a player has earned two dollars and forty five cents in profit…the only input that the game accepts is dollars: 2, quarters: 1, dimes: 2 – any other combination, even if correct (i.e. dollars: 2, quarters: 1, nickels: 4) will tell the player that their input is incorrect. Another bug is the pennies category…never is that used. It is a category listed for the player, but the player is never put in a position to use pennies. We could possibly use the “added events” that the developer is interested in being added to create possibilities where pennies could come into play.
There also APPEARS to be another bug, but I’m interested to see if my team has had the same results. I’ve tried on several occasions to buy supplies…however, I intentionally bought more than I could afford. What I noticed on these occasions is that it appears that the program allows me to buy the amounts I ordered even though I didn’t have enough money to pay for it. While my “cash on hand” was zeroed out, I had “extra” supplies that I should not have been able to buy. I’m curious to discover if I am overlooking something or if my team has had the same experience…since there is no documentation that may be another question for the developer…and quite possibly something else we could look at correcting.
There are a few other areas where we could improve the game play, but I’ll wait until our team meets again to put those up in the ether. After Thursday’s success, I am feeling pretty confident that we chose the right activity to get involved in…all that remains now is a successful meeting—and some answers from the developer.
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