A8
OFF PAGE ONE/LOCAL
Wallowa County Chieftain
Wednesday, March 17, 2021
Gamer: ‘Generally, I just go on a webpage and type, ‘How do I do this?’
Continued from Page A1
Shepherd said he found a
website that was started by
an individual who goes by
Black Thorn Prod where he
could log on and request par-
ticipation in the game jam.
“The fi rst thing you need
is a game engine,” Shepherd
said. “You download it and
use it to play the game.”
A game engine, also
known as a game frame-
work, is a software-develop-
ment environment designed
for people to build video
games.
“It processes all the code
and runs it,” he said.
It allows you to put visual
items in the scene of the
game being built. With it,
the developer drags a circle
into the scene. A “transform”
allows one to put items into
the circle and place them at
X,Y and Z coordinates for
width, height and depth.
“But my game is just 2D
so I only use X and Y coordi-
nates,” Shepherd said.
He went onto explain
some of the technical issues
involved.
“Then you have to create a
new script, which tells it what
to do under certain parame-
ters using (computer) code,”
he said. “Like, in a script, I
could say, ‘On mouse, enter,’
which just means when you
hover your mouse pointer
Bill Bradshaw/Wallowa County Chieftain
Shepherd Newton, a 12-year-old computer programmer, shows how Level Reset — the game
he created recently — works at his Enterprise home Wednesday, March 10, 2021. He already
has a business model in mind for use in his professional life one day.
over an object, it will trig-
ger that thing, that part of a
script. You also have open-
ing and closing brackets. In
there you say, maybe, ‘trans-
form scale’ which means,
you’re calling for it to trans-
form to say, ‘I want my scale
to +=’ which means to add it
… on the X coordinate and
the Y coordinate, an integer
… and then it’ll add that to
the scale whenever you have
your mouse over it.”
Crystal was quite aware
how far over the head of
mere mortals Shepherd was
speaking.
“He just described the
programming
terminol-
ogy that they use to create a
chunk of software that’s part
of the game,” she said. “That
one chunk would transform
however many objects you
assign it to.”
Crystal tried to translate it
into English.
“We normal people usu-
ally don’t think about cod-
ing in that way. We think of a
program as one long line, but
programmers today actually
think of it in terms of chunks
of information that they can
use over and over again,” she
said.
They agreed a script can
be saved and reused much
the same way as a “copy and
paste” function is saved and
pasted in and out of a word
processor’s clipboard.
“Eventually, it all com-
piles together and what the
end user sees isn’t like the
scripts he described, but the
actions those scripts call for,”
Crystal said. “It’s like pack-
ing a dresser and instead of
one big object, there’s all
these diff erent drawers. This
thing he just described is
how you would defi ne one
action for a game.”
But how did a 12-year-
old learn all this at his ten-
der age?
“Generally, I just go on a
webpage and type, ‘How do I
do this?’ and I watch a ton of
tutorials, and eventually your
brain learns to comprehend
something,” he said.
Crystal admitted much
of what the rest of her fam-
ily does with computers is
beyond her.
“I will tell you, as the wife
of my husband the mother of
my son, I don’t think this
way,” she said. “I think it’s
pretty much a natural abil-
ity that they can handle it
with the tutorials and the
learning.”
While Shepherd’s game,
called “Level Reset” didn’t
gain a high ranking during
the game jam — “Some-
where near the bottom,” he
said — it was a start. He
hopes to participate in more
game jams later this year.
“He is working on some
other games,” Crystal said. “I
do artwork, so I’m creating
some artwork for a game he
and I talked about making.
He’s always talking about
diff erent games he wants
to work on. I think, what
the game jam did, was give
him a goal within a specifi c
period of time that he had to
achieve something he could
submit.”
Shepherd doesn’t spend
all his time on the computer.
He’s been involved in 4-H,
having raised a prize-win-
ning 39-pound turkey, and
participated in archery and
robotics. He also plays
games with his parents.
In a way, he fi nds it an
advantage being an only
child.
“If I had brothers and sis-
ters, I think I might be hin-
dered by them saying, ‘Let’s
go play,’” he said.
His parents are eager to
see how Shepherd’s com-
puter skills blossom.
“We always talk to him
about how he needs to build
career skills through this,”
Tim said. “We have expecta-
tions how he should use this
in the future as a career or on
a business.”
“For the fi rst game that he
made up, I was pretty proud
of him — and he didn’t
stop doing his schoolwork,”
Crystal said. “We were doing
school, too.”
Eagle Cap Shooters to build new facility
Received $50,000
grant from NRA
By BILL BRADSHAW
Wallowa County Chieftain
ENTERPRISE — Plans
call for a groundbreaking
in April for a new educa-
tional building at the Eagle
Cap Shooters Range north
of Enterprise, according to a
press release.
The Eagle Cap Shoot-
ers Educational Alliance
received a $50,000 grant
from the National Rifl e
Association in 2020 and the
alliance has nearly raised
the required matching funds
to pay for the new structure,
said Stephen Wolfe, presi-
dent of the alliance.
“We’re almost to the
deadline of $50,000,” he
said.
Wolfe said the alliance
continues to raise money
through donations and gun
raffl es, both on its website
and at the Stubborn Mule in
Joseph.
AR
Proudly Supporting
Wallowa County
Agriculture
“We’re planning on ask-
ing a group of people to
come in and give some
donations,” Wolfe said.
“We’re almost there and
we’ll probably need a bit
more.”
Gina Birkmaier, vice
president of the alliance,
said in the press release that
the multipurpose building
will provide an indoor facil-
ity for classes, events and
training activities. Classes
will be off ered to range
members, law enforcement
personnel, nonprofi t groups
and to civic and charitable
organizations, the release
said.
The current facilities at
the range include a 1,000-
yard covered rifl e range,
a 50-yard covered pistol
range, a 1,150-yard black
powder cartridge range, a
shotgun range with an elec-
tric turret and fi ve competi-
tion bays.
Wolfe said he expects
the new building will take
60-90 days to construct, and
septic facilities already have
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