Tracy's Co-op Success Story: Implementing WIL's House of Horrors Installation into an Interactive Online Version.

Another spooky time of the year has come and gone, but what better way to start November than by looking back at all the ghoulish events you got to indulge in last week? 

On Wednesday, October 31st, the spooky haunted house returned in SFU Surrey Mezzanine. Spider webs and fiendlike masks took over the booth - what was that all about? This booth was called 'WIL's House of Horrors', an installation mimicking a haunted house which included a Halloween interactive video game inside.

Brave individuals had the opportunity to trek into WIL's House of Horrors and get immersed in a virtual haunted journey. This interactive booth was organized by Work Integrated Learning (WIL) not only to enjoy some spooky fun with Surrey students, but also to help them get educated about their career and Co-op opportunities.

 This in-person game inside the booth was created last year through a software called Isadora (by Jeremy Mamisao and Alice Chan, SIAT Co-op students), an interactive media presentation tool for developing all the real-time interactive elements of the game such as clicking buttons, talking through a microphone and taking pictures of participants. 

In order for me to implement all these into this year's House of Horrors, I had to quickly learn how to operate Isadora file of the game and go through different inputs and outputs for the set up. It was a challenge for me to learn a graphic programming software (which is not an easy tool for me) within a short amount of time, but I ended up finding how Isadora can do so many cool things! Overall, we had a successful, enjoyable event! 

While the in-person game was created through Isadora, my major task for this Halloween was to construct an online version of the game. As far as I know, most games for the web are built with Adobe Flash (ActionScript3.0) or HTML5. This was definitely a challenge for me because one of my weaknesses is lack of programming / coding knowledge, while these skills are quite important in order to develop interactive pieces.

My initial step for developing the online game was to identify resources I have that could potentially help me to accomplish it. I started off by looking up ActionScript tutorials that are available online in order to expand my basic knowledge in Flash. When I was struggling with compile errors, I asked my SIAT colleagues to review and help me solve the problem! I believe I executed my plan to the best of my ability and I realized that overcoming such challenge was a great experience that certainly helped me polish up my skills! 

So even though Halloween is over, it doesn't mean the scary fun has to end just yet! If you are still craving some spooky action, WIL's online game has you covered! Turn your speakers up and check out: www.sfu.ca/wil/surrey/halloween 

ENJOY!