10/16

Start off the day with the warm-up

Tell me about a time on your life that totally changed your perspective on something. If you have never had something like this, just make it up (tell me it is fake at the end).This doesn't have to be hard core either, it could be the time a new McFlury came out and you thought it would be good but it was gross.

Here's mine

I was aware of mixed martial arts (mma) but I wasn't really around it. I had been a part of boxing events when I was working in the casino industry in Nevada but never cagefighting. The boxing events were always really pretty nice, we would do a press conference that was catered and everyone came dressed up on fight night; suits and sparkling dresses in the ballroom watching the event. 

When I took the job as marketing director in California Casino, I learned that they have a Bi-monthly MMA/cagefighting events at the property. I didn't know a ton about the industry other than people get into the cage and beat each other up until someone quits.

The cost of the shows were very expensive, they cost the casino tens of tousands of dollars for each show. The casino did not own the fighting cage, the sound equipment or the lighting so I had to rent everything on top of paying the promoter his cut. The casino hold (the money the casino wins from slots, table games, and bingo) plus the ticket sales plus the money made in the restaurants never covered the cost of the shows so it always hurt the bottom line.

The tribe I worked for liked having events at the casino so there was no way I could stop having the shows yet taking the loss was on me. 

After about a year of putting on these shows, I had the bright idea of bringing the show in house.  For the amount I spent renting sound and lighting equipment for three shows, we could buy our own and my staff could assist me in booking the fighters, hotels, meals, tickets, etc and running the show.

The tribe told me to go for it

So I flew to Vegas and met with Throwdown to get a custom MMA cage built, I brought in all the equipment, met with MMA fight camps and got their rosters, hired the announcers, ring people, doctor, ambulance, got contracts drawn up... all of it.

Suddenly I was an actual player in the fight game. I would get invited to the UFC shows, Muay Thai Shows and other combat shorts shows by the owners and fight camps because they wanted me to hire their fighters.

We put on the shows for a few years and although they never made money, they weren't losing a significant amount of money so everyone was fairly content. 

After the shows, I would meet with each fighter individually and pay their purse (the money you get for fighting). Usualy the first fighters on the card didn't make much money and as the quality of the fighter improved, so did the fight purse. I would have a contract that would pay them a set amount of money for just showing up to the fight and then another amount of money if they won the fight (It's called show/win).

After my second to last fight ever put on, there was a fighter by the name of Stormi, the name still haunts me to this day. She won her fight in convincing fashion and didn't take much damage. I was in the bingo hall paying out the fighters and having them fill out their tax forms (this is where I would do the payouts because there were cameras everywhere so it was secure.) Stormi came in to collect her $500 ($250 for showing up to the fight and an additional $250 for winning the bout). We got to talking and Stormi was a really nice person. I asked her where she trains (these fighters train at different gyms so when one gym faces another gym, it's a big deal). She told me that she doesn't train at all and that the only reason she fought in the cage was because she was a single mom and needed money for formula.

I felt like the biggest dirtbag ever, I felt like I was exploiting desperate people for entertainment and I was deeply ashamed of myself for being a part of it. After that moment, I didn't want anything to do with it ever again. I have been a part of about 100 shows but I had never run into a situation like this (that I know of) but I was done. Soon after, I left the industry completely and I have never been back.

This is unfortunately a 100% true story :( 

Half Page as always

What are you learning?

GDevelop - Start and End the game

Why is it important? What is the assignment?

Create a start and end to the pumpkin game

How will you show you understand? What is the assignment?

We are about to start our Showcase Projects, this is the last GDEV project before then so it's time to show us what you can do

You are to create a game called "Night at the Carny"

How you interpret this is totally up to your imagination and talent.

Your game must have a playable character, enemies, and some sort of working shooting mechanic.

Your game must have a way to complete the game and show an end screen.

This MUST be an original game and NOT just swapping out the characters of your old game. It's time to do something new!

Due 10/18/24

Teams of two

Scoring

All original character art and animation - 2 Points

Ability to fire projectiles - 2 Points

Life System - 1 Point

Respawn - 1 Point

Damage to enemies - 1 Point

Parallax - 1 Point

Playable for at least two minutes for the novice player - 1 Point

End Screen/game restart - 1 Point

Functional Game - 1 Point

Carny Theme - 1 Point

TOTAL 10 Points with two points possible extra credit

This is due 10/18/24 END OF CLASS!

You will turn it in by creating a video of you playing the game while you explain how you earned all of your points in the projects.