The Fantastic Adventure (About Brins)

Have you heard the term 'programming'? You probably have, but do you know what it really means? You might be surprised to know that if it weren't for programmers programming, computers wouldn't do anything at all. To program something is to write a bunch of commands for the computer so that it does something for you. Microsoft Word, for example, is a very big program. Every single thing you can do with it has been programmed by someone. Of course, you can type things into it and highlight stuff with your mouse; you couldn't even do that if someone else hadn't felt like making the computer able to do that by programming.

To program, you'll need a 'programming language'. This is yet another program, programmed by someone to understand certain words and instructions that you can give it in order to program other things. Visual Basic, a programming language, lets you display a message for the user. To do that, you can type the message in, but you'll need to put in keywords in order for Visual Basic to have a clue as to what it's supposed to do with this message of yours.

So, there's a little guide to programming. It's there because I'm doing a bit of programming myself, with Visual Basic, funnily enough. I got taught how to use it in school, so why not after all?

I'm making a parody on old educational games/stories, taking great inspiration in concept from one game (which remains only a very vague memory from away back at the beginning of school, but it's clear enough to remember), and its story from another very old TV series/bunch of videos we were shown called 'Look Through the Dragon's Eye', featuring puppets and a copy of The Dandy (a British comic, just in case you didn't know).

There it is on that picture to the right, 'The Fantastic Adventure'. Also included is the slogan, 'Begin the adventure because your teacher told you to!'

Taking a cue from Dragon's Eye's commendably valiant attempt to fit education into a fantasy plot, The Fantastic Adventure follows three small children on a quest to find the Land of Numbers after the Arch Master threatens their hometown of Additon. Although from my confusion watching Dragon's Eye, I came under the impression that the villain didn't have any reason to be doing anything, I think this one could benefit from some kind of motive. Is a plot twist in store?! Do you care?!

That's right, in case you hadn't guessed, this entire project is, of course, not taking itself at all seriously. It's a parody on early primary-school digital-education material which I didn't understand, and one which rings of mockery despite my heart-felt admiration of said material. But for the sake of the argument, let's just pretend it was all awful, ok? Ok.


Truth be told, I just started this in a bid to get some practice with the language before University, but it's got me intrigued at its potential. Hopefully this will go further than my previous attempt at a text-based computer game, many months ago...

Speaking of which, I should try to incorporate exploding benches into this one, too.

  ¶ 7:47 pm