The goal of this project was to make a non-linear hypermedia piece.  For this project, I wanted to try my hand at making a Flash game.  100 Needles is a Flash-based, side-scrolling platformer.  Originally, I wanted the game to help players focus on a kind of non-linear/cyclical timeline in regards to the timeline of the game (as opposed to the real timeline of the players playing the game).  For example, even though a person cannot come back to life in real life, the character in the game can be revived an infinite number of times.  If the character dies, the game should end there, forever; however, he/she is brought back to the beginning of the level and is given a chance to try again. Also, the character never actually advances past the first level until a certain point is reached.  Prior to that point, the character travels through the first level over and over and over again.

Unfortunately, the game doesn’t really present these ideas as well as I imagined it would.  Regardless, it was my first Flash game, and I was pleased with how it came out!

CONTROLS: Use the arrow keys to move and the spacebar to jump.

Here is the original assignment:

Your second project will begin to experiment with the non-linear characteristics of hypermedia. Again, the subject matter and its development will be determined through a process of proposal and preliminary review. In this exercise, you will be encouraged to investigate the structure of communication from the point-of-view of the “reader” as opposed to solely the “author.”