Upon reading Greg Costikyans article 'I have no words & I must deign: toward a critical vocabulary for games', we used the different areas of games design he discussed in the article as headings and applied what we had learnt to analyzing a KS1 game. We found the KS1 game Shape Lab on the bitesize website (http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/ks1bitesize/numeracy/shapes/index.shtml). The first 5 headings look at specific content within the game and the final heading is a general overview of the game.
Interaction - to interact in the game you have to click on the correct shape that is being asked for.
The interaction in the game is simple, making it easy to use and suitable for the target audience. This being the case, the interaction is not very exciting its a simple click on the shape and repeat. This gets very boring after a while however it is suitable for the target audience as they like repetition.
To improve the interaction in the game i would include an exciting rollover when the mouse hovers over the shape of little sparks flying off the shape. Something simple like that wouldn't take the repetition the child likes away from the game, but would add a little more excitement to it. Another way the interaction could be improved would be if the characters were more intractable. By this i mean if the child clicked on the face of one of the two characters they could flinch away or sneeze. It's something silly like that, that would make the target audience laugh and create more of a fun learning environment for the them, especially with the target audience being so young.
Goals - to select the right shape that the professor asks for.
The goal of the game is outlined right away. It's obvious throughout what the aim is and how to go about achieving this goal. Once all the five stages are completed, the reward at the end is to see what the scientist has built at the end as the curtain is pulled up. This gives the feeling of a sense of achievement and this suits the target audience well.
The goals are set clearly out in the game so i wouldn't change the aim of the game at all. However i do feel the reward at the end could be improved with a print out picture of the completed robot at the end. It would just make it that much clearer that this is the reward.
Struggle - to use the scientists hints and select the correct shape out of 3 shapes.
There are three difficulty levels at the start of the game to choose from. They range from medium to really hard. This allows the target audience to constantly learn from the game as they continue learning and means they will still be challenged by the game. There is an element however that takes the struggle away from the game. If you answer a question incorrectly you are simply asked to answer the same question again with the same three options to choose from. If the player repeated this process twice then it would become very clear what the correct answer would be. this therefore takes the learning and struggle element away from the game (i feel anyway).
I would change the struggle element of the game by including a wider range of of questions and give the consequence that the question changes upon the player getting the answer wrong more than once. This would still teach the player as they would learn that the only answer they didn't pick was the right one and give them the chance to try again without this 'cheating' element.
Game structure- moving on at each stage.
During the game you have to choose the right answer to move on to the next stage. This forces the player to complete a stage at a time and in a sense force them to learn.
Endogenous meaning- The shapes
The only thing you can state as having Endogenous meaning in shape lab are the shapes themselves. They have a crucial part in the game, you click on the correct shape and the shapes are then used to build a robot. This gives the shapes a value in the game which they don't have in reality. It could be argued that the shapes have a part in the 'real world' as the shapes exist. players could use what they learn in the game and apply it in reality. However i feel that the player are just meant to take away the skills of what they learn and not the shapes themseleves so this is what is meant to be taken from the game.
Evaluation
Overall i think this revision game suits its target audience. I do however think there are a few little tweaks that could be done to improve this game. Simple subtle things such as rollovers and character options could improve the game drastically. i think the 'cheat' system needs to be changed as well as it's taking the learning element away from the game.
Saturday, 20 November 2010
Monday, 1 November 2010
Making board game blog
When discussing ideas on how to turn 'Mr cheeseys spelling fun' into a board game, we found out that it was going to be hard to make it just as fun to play as the video game version. I was only there for the second session that we spoke about where to take the board game version.
We each had individual ideas on what we could do to turn the game into a board game so we used the Iterative Method to find the best way to go about making the game.
Idea 1
We first discussed a way in which we could make the game a dice game with 2-4 players. We thought about designing a board with rules on certain squares that meant the child would have to pick up a card with a letter on it and then over the process of the game they would build a collection of these cards. Once they had collected enough of these cards to spell a word they won.
We soon discovered that there were many floors to this idea. For example what if a child didn’t collect the right letters and never got the opportunity to spell the word they were aiming for? Or that there was no real aim other than to roll a dice and maybe pick up a card and that didn’t really reflect the game at all or teach the child anything. Also there was the players wouldn’t be able to interact of hinder each other much throughout the game so it wouldn’t be very competitive.
To fix these problems we would of had to place many different rules into the game to ensure that a word would always be able to be spelt (the majority of the time).
We decided to scrap this idea completely.
Idea 2
Our second idea was to have a game that would be similar to 'Shove Halfpenny'.
The game would be for up to four players. Each player would pick a pile of cards and each card would have a word written on the back. The aim of the game would be to push the counter onto the correct space of the board and pick up the letters they need to spell the word on their card.
We made a quick layout of the board to see if it could work and play tested it. The concept did work but there are a few things we need to alter and we plan on doing that next session.
We decided to stick to our second idea (for now anyway) unless another idea surfaces.
We each had individual ideas on what we could do to turn the game into a board game so we used the Iterative Method to find the best way to go about making the game.
Idea 1
We first discussed a way in which we could make the game a dice game with 2-4 players. We thought about designing a board with rules on certain squares that meant the child would have to pick up a card with a letter on it and then over the process of the game they would build a collection of these cards. Once they had collected enough of these cards to spell a word they won.
We soon discovered that there were many floors to this idea. For example what if a child didn’t collect the right letters and never got the opportunity to spell the word they were aiming for? Or that there was no real aim other than to roll a dice and maybe pick up a card and that didn’t really reflect the game at all or teach the child anything. Also there was the players wouldn’t be able to interact of hinder each other much throughout the game so it wouldn’t be very competitive.
To fix these problems we would of had to place many different rules into the game to ensure that a word would always be able to be spelt (the majority of the time).
We decided to scrap this idea completely.
Idea 2
Our second idea was to have a game that would be similar to 'Shove Halfpenny'.
The game would be for up to four players. Each player would pick a pile of cards and each card would have a word written on the back. The aim of the game would be to push the counter onto the correct space of the board and pick up the letters they need to spell the word on their card.
We made a quick layout of the board to see if it could work and play tested it. The concept did work but there are a few things we need to alter and we plan on doing that next session.
We decided to stick to our second idea (for now anyway) unless another idea surfaces.
Friday, 22 October 2010
Mr cheesey's spelling fun group meeting
We met again today with the aim of preparing our presentation to show our progress with the development so far.
We started by going over the game concept, level designs etc just to refresh everyone on the game and the stuff we would need to put in the presentation. We discussed the new sketches that had been drawn out and different graphic styles we could have gone with. We decided that although a ‘Dr Seuss’ style graphics would look good (and seeing the alternate sketches showed this) that it wouldn’t suit our target audience.
We worked in illustrator to bring our sketches to life and try out different colour schemes we had found via kular. We put all our visuals into the presentation. Its really cool to see how the sketches have transitioned from hand drawn pictures to digital images
In our next meeting we plan on going over what each person is going to say in the presentation and fine tuning any issues if they arise.
Wednesday, 20 October 2010
KS1 Game
Mr Cheesey's spelling fun
Mr Cheesey's spelling fun is platform game with the aim of teaching children to spell. The player must collect the letters dotted around each level, once all the letters are collected they are then asked to spell a certain word (with the help of hints) using the letters they collected.
This is the game concept we came up with when deciding what kind of KS1 game we wanted to create. I orginally came up with the basic game concept when first told the brief. i thought that it would be a good idea to have a game that taught a child how to spell because that was the subject i hated most when i was younger (and still do).
When we were sperated into pairs (or a group of three in my case) i told the group my idea of having a platform based game that involved spelling. The group liked the idea and agreed that it would teach a scarey subject for all young children in a fun way.
From then on we came up with charcter designs, a bit of a narritive, level designs and a put all our ideas into a presentation that we could then later present to the class.
We had to present to the class our idea and they had to vote what games they thought we could take on through to full development. That was proply the hardest thing because we didnt know if our game would make it through. We put so much effort into it that it would of sucked to have to just scrap the idea and go and work on someone elses game. But thats the process of Game Design, scrapping ideas that may have been good and discovering better ideas.
Thankfully 'Mr cheesey's spelling fun!' made it through and it's gonna be great to work on the process of developing it into a flash game, well not just a flash game the best flash game developed by any first years this uni has ever seen!
Mr Cheesey's spelling fun is platform game with the aim of teaching children to spell. The player must collect the letters dotted around each level, once all the letters are collected they are then asked to spell a certain word (with the help of hints) using the letters they collected.
This is the game concept we came up with when deciding what kind of KS1 game we wanted to create. I orginally came up with the basic game concept when first told the brief. i thought that it would be a good idea to have a game that taught a child how to spell because that was the subject i hated most when i was younger (and still do).
When we were sperated into pairs (or a group of three in my case) i told the group my idea of having a platform based game that involved spelling. The group liked the idea and agreed that it would teach a scarey subject for all young children in a fun way.
From then on we came up with charcter designs, a bit of a narritive, level designs and a put all our ideas into a presentation that we could then later present to the class.
We had to present to the class our idea and they had to vote what games they thought we could take on through to full development. That was proply the hardest thing because we didnt know if our game would make it through. We put so much effort into it that it would of sucked to have to just scrap the idea and go and work on someone elses game. But thats the process of Game Design, scrapping ideas that may have been good and discovering better ideas.
Thankfully 'Mr cheesey's spelling fun!' made it through and it's gonna be great to work on the process of developing it into a flash game, well not just a flash game the best flash game developed by any first years this uni has ever seen!
'Mr Cheesey's spelling fun' meeting
The WHOLE group met again today to discuss all our ideas, get them all out in the open so we could then narrow them down and get the concept of the game set in stone. We discussed various aspects of the game:
- The reward system - We had an idea that after correctly spelling a word that the child would be given some sort of coin as a reward and at the end of the game that coin would unlock something. We decided to alter that idea slightly and instead of the child being given a coin they are presented with a key. after completing all the levels they are able to open a chest with their collection of keys and print of a certificate.
- Levels - We decided to 'theme' our levels a bit more. By 'theme' I mean make them a bit more exciting. to do this we decided to have a variety of interactive backgrounds on the levels the child plays through. for example we sketched out a bathroom themed level where bubbles are constantly flying around in the background and you can bounce on a rubber duck to get to a ledge quite high up. We're hoping that with a varied number of themed levels this will keep the child constantly interested in the game.
- Briefly discussed colours - we haven't finalised any of the colours yet. we all have ideas in our heads about what the colours should be and most of the group agree with each other on what these colours should be however there was a little conflict on this subject so we have agreed to wait until with have all the sketches up onto the computer as vectors before making a final decision.
- Difficulty settings - we defined the difference between the difficulty settings and decided that as you go up in difficulty not only will the spelling of the words get harder but also that the number of lives the player has will decrease.
I think we still have a lot of work to do as a group but I'm happy with the progress we're making now and that the majority of the group seem to be on the same page as to where to take the game next. This will make things easier with having to work together as a team.
Friday, 8 October 2010
VIDEO GAMES CAUSE VIOLENCE IN CHILDREN...
I was sitting down on the train the other day and someone walking past plonks a paper down on the table I’m sitting at so as you do I pick it up to have a read through. Always good to keep up with what’s going on in this world I thought. I open it up, browse past all the boring headlines, and Wham! I see it. ‘Boy kills mother because of video game’. What a load of shit I thought, how the hell can a video game force a boy to kill his own mother? so I carried on reading this article intrigued on how they were going to justify the heading. Well turns out, the boy went and got his dad’s gun from his wardrobe because the boys mum wouldn’t let him play halo 3. He then shot her because ‘that’s how they dealt with things on Halo’ he told police later. He was standing over her body waiting for her to ‘respawn’ when officers found him and it was quite clear he didn’t realise she was actually dead and never coming back.
I actually smiled to myself shaking my head when i read that. What kind of world had the parents brought this child up in? Fairyland? I mean come on, what good parent would let a child believe that people respawn in real life? Me and my sister were brought up playing the goriest of gory games like Resident Evil and Silent hill and in fact still do play some of these games, but do I get the urge to grab a shotgun and blow people’s brains out? No! Our parents brought us up telling us that video games (like movies) were not real and as soon as we understood that important fact we were able to enjoy the fun world of possibilities that video games brought to us.
When I got home that night i decided to have a look online and see if there were any other similar articles about Video games. I stumbled upon some forums which had tons of parents on it ranting about video games and how they have gotten too violent and most should be banned. The fucking cheek I thought! I ended up turning the computer off in rage. Were all parents this naive to think that video games caused the violence in their children? My parents and lots of other out there with savvy used to sit down with us when we played our video games no matter how childish or gory they were and we used to laugh at the blatant un-realness of these games.
as a gamer it really pisses me off that games we love and enjoy are scrutinised by naive parents who just use video games as a babysitting tool! They are more than happy to let their child play the game when Jenny phones up for a natter but as soon as their kids re-enact a scene from the game, parents shit themselves and blame the game itself. They have got to understand video games can be gory yes, and take the time to sit with their kids and judge the game themselves, as well as look at how mature their child is and if they can cope with gory games full of death, like me, my sister and many others out there could and still can.
Thursday, 7 October 2010
Ludus VS Paidea and Agon,Alea Ilinx and Mimiery
Whilst discussing Ludas and Paidea, two games that each would fall in to the two categories popped into my mind.
Paidea---> THE SIMS
Ludus ---> RESIDENT EVIL
I would class the resident evil franchise as Ludas although some may disagree due to the lack of clarity of the rules. There are set rules and objectives in this game that when followed all lead to the same outcome. The lack of ammo and health available in this game is a rule in it's self as it forces you to ration what you do get given and the fact that you only get a limited amount of room in your inventory forces a player to fight for survival with the bare minimum. No matter how you play the game, whether or not you play it strategically or just run through the game, it will always have the same outcome making the game a tad more limited but never taking the sparkle away from the game.
Paidea---> THE SIMS
The Sims is 100% paidea. You can do whatever you want in the Sims without consequences. You never complete the game and there is no real objective as the player is free to make there own objective, so you really do just purely play the game for the fun of it.
Agon, Alea, Ilinx and Mimicry - The legand of Zelda
Agon - competition
The Agon element in the legand of Zelda would be against the various bosses you have to face throughout the video game. There are also time challenges that are optional for the player to complete throughout the game, in these side missions the competition is against the clock. The competitons against the clock got very frustrating sometimes but its one of them things you wanna try over and over untill you do it so you get rewarded at the end with different prizes.
Alea - Randomness
The Alea element in this video game would be when you break open jars and random objects such as rupees, arrows or health top ups fall out. Depending on what comes out of these jars could change the course of the game for example if you only had one heart left and you whack a pot open hoping for a heart as your fighting the boss and a bundle of arrows fall out your likely to die and have to start the boss fight again. These random elements keep the game interesting and playable as they wont be pradictable.
Ilinx - Movement
In the Legand of Zelda there is a vast area in which the player can freely explore and discover mini games and side mission in, this is where i believe the Ilinx element comes into play. This is one of the best elements of the game (in my opinion). I used to get a bit bored if i was stuck in a temple or something in the game and knowing that you could just leave the temple and run around and go fishing, discover caves or even just ride around your horse around Hyrule gave the game that something special. If it didnt have this element there would of been plenty of times when i would of wanted to just throw the controller on the floor and not even bother playing it anymore.
Mimiery - Set plot
The mimiery in Zelda was very gripping. The storyline was one that you just wanted to play to see what happeed next. Playing as Link and learning all that has been happening around Hyrule really made you feel like you was very much apart of that world and that drove you forward throughout the game as in the end you kinda took all the bad things happening personally and wanted to save the world from it.
Agon, Alea, Ilinx and Mimicry - The legand of Zelda
Agon - competition
The Agon element in the legand of Zelda would be against the various bosses you have to face throughout the video game. There are also time challenges that are optional for the player to complete throughout the game, in these side missions the competition is against the clock. The competitons against the clock got very frustrating sometimes but its one of them things you wanna try over and over untill you do it so you get rewarded at the end with different prizes.
Alea - Randomness
The Alea element in this video game would be when you break open jars and random objects such as rupees, arrows or health top ups fall out. Depending on what comes out of these jars could change the course of the game for example if you only had one heart left and you whack a pot open hoping for a heart as your fighting the boss and a bundle of arrows fall out your likely to die and have to start the boss fight again. These random elements keep the game interesting and playable as they wont be pradictable.
Ilinx - Movement
In the Legand of Zelda there is a vast area in which the player can freely explore and discover mini games and side mission in, this is where i believe the Ilinx element comes into play. This is one of the best elements of the game (in my opinion). I used to get a bit bored if i was stuck in a temple or something in the game and knowing that you could just leave the temple and run around and go fishing, discover caves or even just ride around your horse around Hyrule gave the game that something special. If it didnt have this element there would of been plenty of times when i would of wanted to just throw the controller on the floor and not even bother playing it anymore.
Mimiery - Set plot
The mimiery in Zelda was very gripping. The storyline was one that you just wanted to play to see what happeed next. Playing as Link and learning all that has been happening around Hyrule really made you feel like you was very much apart of that world and that drove you forward throughout the game as in the end you kinda took all the bad things happening personally and wanted to save the world from it.
Tuesday, 5 October 2010
Interview
What is the title of the last fiction book you read?
What is the last live performance (music, drama or dance) you attended?
What is the title of the last film you watched in the cinema?
I went and saw the new resident evil film the day it came out, it was soo good in 3d! the best 3d film Ive managed to see so far. i do love my resident evil, but much prefer the games to the films. i think if they decide to make a film from a video game, they should keep the games original storyline for once, but film producers seem to change it all the time they'd be a lot better film out there.
How often do you read a newspaper?
I dont really read newspapers, they seem to just be depressing now days but if one is laying around ill flick through it. i just check the sports or entertainment bit though when i rarely do pick one up to read. im more of a music or games magazine person. i cant be bothered with all these gossip ones either its just the same crap really.
Which art gallery/museum/exhibition did you last visit?
i used to go to a lot of castles when i was younger, they always seemed to have a huge room full of different paintings. i cant remember the last one i went to was though. the only thing like that i can remember going to last was London dungeons for a school trip and then after we went to the imperial war museum which was real good fun. it was interesting seeing all the old weapons and tanks i took so many photos that day just of the vehicles.
How many hours a week do you spend playing video games?
probably around 2 or more hours a day if i have a day off. it also depends on what games Ive got to play, if ive completed all my games then i only seem to play them again when showing friends what their like. but saying that i do play halo 3, halo reach and resident evil 5 quite a lot although ive completed them all several times.
How many hours a week do you spend playing games other than video games?
i dont really play board games that much, i used to play games like pay day and monopoly when i was younger. i play quite a lot of card games with friends at weekends. we play card games like shed and poker and since it normally at weekends we turn it into a bit of a drinking game too.
Girl with a dragon tattoo, was a really enjoyable read could put the book down! Loved the film as well it stayed very true to the book.
What is the last live performance (music, drama or dance) you attended?
I went to the download music festival back in June, that was the most recent festival ive been to. i went last year as well but this year was better by far. i got to see 30 seconds to mars again as well as Aerosmith, slash, billy idol and some many other great bands id thought id never get to see. Gonna go see 30 seconds to mars and paramore in November, its so much fun to get to see your fav bands live.
What is the title of the last film you watched in the cinema?
I went and saw the new resident evil film the day it came out, it was soo good in 3d! the best 3d film Ive managed to see so far. i do love my resident evil, but much prefer the games to the films. i think if they decide to make a film from a video game, they should keep the games original storyline for once, but film producers seem to change it all the time they'd be a lot better film out there.
How often do you read a newspaper?
I dont really read newspapers, they seem to just be depressing now days but if one is laying around ill flick through it. i just check the sports or entertainment bit though when i rarely do pick one up to read. im more of a music or games magazine person. i cant be bothered with all these gossip ones either its just the same crap really.
Which art gallery/museum/exhibition did you last visit?
i used to go to a lot of castles when i was younger, they always seemed to have a huge room full of different paintings. i cant remember the last one i went to was though. the only thing like that i can remember going to last was London dungeons for a school trip and then after we went to the imperial war museum which was real good fun. it was interesting seeing all the old weapons and tanks i took so many photos that day just of the vehicles.
How many hours a week do you spend playing video games?
probably around 2 or more hours a day if i have a day off. it also depends on what games Ive got to play, if ive completed all my games then i only seem to play them again when showing friends what their like. but saying that i do play halo 3, halo reach and resident evil 5 quite a lot although ive completed them all several times.
How many hours a week do you spend playing games other than video games?
i dont really play board games that much, i used to play games like pay day and monopoly when i was younger. i play quite a lot of card games with friends at weekends. we play card games like shed and poker and since it normally at weekends we turn it into a bit of a drinking game too.
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