Reading Week 11 Hi and welcome back to my blog! This week I read an article called " Giving criticism - the good, the bad and the ugly! " by The Closet Entrepreneur. This article is about giving constructive criticism to your peers. Giving criticism is a good thing as it gives others the chance to improve and learn what to avoid. Those who you are giving constructive criticism to are also more likely to credit you in some way for their success. Constructive criticism can stop feeling from being hurt and as they are less of a personal attack and more of a learning curve. Image 1: https://brooksandkirk.co.uk/constructive-criticism/ When giving constructive criticism we must focus on giving valid and unbiased feedback. We should not let our personal tastes or opinions affect the feedback we give as this can be bias. We want to give feedback that will help the person improve. The feedback we give should be clear, understandable and relevant. After reading this artic...
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Game Stories Hey and welcome back to my blog! Today I will be writing a blog on a reading I went through. This week's readings were based around game stories. The first reading was "Into the Woods: A Practical Guide to the Hero's Journey" by Bob Bates. In this article, Bob explains that the Hero's Journey in a game is important because myths are important. Myths give people something to believe in. Myths give us a sense of identity as well as a sense of community. Myths are what we rely on to ease the fear of the unknown when we think about life and death. To write game stories, we need to understand how myths are put together and communicated. And that is why the hero's journey is important. A hero's journey includes multiple elements. The main elements are; Establishing the hero's world The call to adventure Entering the mythological woods Trail of trials Encountering the evil one Gaining the hero's prize Returning that prize to...
Week 09 Reading & Writing Hi again and welcome back to my blog! In this blog post I will reflect on all the reading and writing work I have done to date. Overall, I have found the reading and writing assignments interesting and very useful. I have always found that summarising something after reading it allows me to take in the information better. By writing the blogs, I have definitely got a better grasp and understanding of what I was reading. My favourite reading so far was Lost Garden by Daniel Crook because I learned so many new things that I would never come across by myself. Crook discussed "Dunbar's Layers". This is a suggested cognitive limit to the number of people with whom one can maintain stable social relationships. The average person can have up to 150 relationships but once you look into all the layers, it can drop down to just 5 intimate friends. This suggestion can then be applied to game design. He also talk...
Readings Week 08 Hi and welcome back to my blog😀 Today I will be writing about some readings I looked at it during the week. The first reading I read was " Clubs, Diamonds, Hearts, Spades: Players Who Suit MUDs " by Richard Bartle. In this article I learnt about "MUD". "MUD" is a multi player real-time virtual world that is text based. Mud combine five different elements such as hack and slash, player versus player, role playing game, online chat and interactive fiction. In this article I also learnt about the history of MUD and the different games that used MUD years ago. Bartle divided players into four categories; Achievers Their purpose is to master the game, and they take pride in their status in the game, and how short a time they took to hone their skills. Explorers Explorers want to be surprised by the game. They will seek out new areas to visit, hoping to find unique aspects of the game. They are content with thei...
Games Decisions Hi again, welcome back to my blog. Today I will be writing about readings to do with decision-making and flow theory. Unfortunately I was unable to get the readings "Theory of Fun for Game Design" and " Challenges for Game Designers" off Amazon for this week. Instead I read an article from Lost Garden by Daniel Crook. In this article, Crook talked about making a Massively Multiplayer Online game (MMO). An MMO is is an online game with large numbers of players, typically from hundreds to thousands, on the same server. I had never heard of this term before. Creating a game with more players costs more money and takes more time. A lot of people think the more players able to play, the better the game. Crook gives examples of games such as; Multi-User Dungeons and Fortnite, to counter this statement. I personally I enjoy video games that involve loads of players but after reading this article, I have no...
Reading Hi again! Today I read about initial design which is the first step of the iterative process. I first read an article by Greg Aleknevicus where he spoke about what makes a game more appealing. He discussed components, boxes, themes, cards and rules. I learned that the visual aspect of components can have a great impact on the game I create. Both colour and shape are important to look at when making them. I never took into account that many people suffer from colour blindness. After reading about this, I looked into what colours would be the least distinguishable. They mainly have difficulty with seeing green, red and blue or a mixture of these colours. Adding different shapes depending on the colours can also help people distinguish between the components. Icons can also help users quickly understand what each component means. Another point Greg made was to try and not crowd the components. I definitely think games with less clutter are more visually ...
Game Elements This week's readings game me an insight on the questions that must be asked when thinking about; p layers, objectives, rules, resources, game state, information, sequencing, player interaction, theme and games as systems. I found the examples given for each of these very useful and gave me an idea of all the variations there are. Image 1: https://pxhere.com/en/photo/948574 I think the "Three step process" given for critically analyzing a game will definitely come in hand: "1. Describe the game’s formal elements. Do not interpret at this point, simply state what is there. 2. Describe the results of the formal elements when put in motion. How do the different elements interact? What is the play of the game like? Is it effective? 3. Try to understand why the designer chose those elements and not others. Why this particular player structure, and why that set of resources? What would have happened if the designer had chosen differently?" ( h...
Game Design Games cannot be described through one definition. After examining different definitions one could say a variety of things. Games are an activity, with rules, conflict and goals. They include decision-making in an artificial, safe world outside of ordinary life. "The components are the hardware, the rules are the software. Both define the game. Both can exist independently from each other, but separately are not a game." - Wolfgang Kramer ( http://www.thegamesjournal.com/articles/WhatIsaGame.shtml ) In my opinion, this is a true statement. The rules and components define a game but if one varies, the game is completely changed. Image 1: Chess Board Game https://pxhere.com/en/photo/1544607 After reading about iterative nature in " Pulling the Plug: In Defense of Non-Digital Teaching and Learning" by Lewis Pulsipher, ( https://gamecareerguide.com/features/602/pulling_the_plug_in_defense_of_nondigital_teaching_and_learning.ph...