Reading

My reading for week 5

Hi folks so for this week I finally got feedback on how my progression has been going and overall I feel like I am getting back on course for doing it the correct way. I decided in the future for getting my sources to stick to using google scholar instead of using my colleges libraries sources. I may change my mind on this in the future but until then im gonna stick with this program. 

So from the feedback session I had with my lecturer I wrote down  what I am required to use in the future and a research method to help me have a process to work upon (and possibly improve in the future). this includes the following things

1. Collecting material on the topic
2. take notes/ read material
3. look for things in common between them , such as topics themes etc
4. making each theme into its own heading/paragraph
5. Writing content on the paragraph of readings

Now that I have gone over my research plan. I am going to place below some of the references I have chosen and discuss why I think they are relevant or not.

As you probably know from my previous blog unlike many others researching two different subjects for the book I am focusing on on being "Serious Games". In doing so I have found these below which I feel are helpful in me understanding more about serious games and why.

Source 1

The first source I looked at this week was Serious Games: Games That Educate, Train, and Inform as i found it interesting as it was written by David R Michael who has been a successful independent software developer for over 10 years. The book was published back in 2005, meanwhile the other author Sande  Chen has been active in the gaming industry for over five years and was even a speaker at the 2005 game developers conference. Having this book from the perspective of two people working within the topic of serious games offers much potential insight as it allows us to look at many things to do with it. overall I didnt find too much to read on this but figured I would give it a try as I found having it come from two perspectives in the industry it may be more informative.

Source 2

The second source I found was titled Serious Games: An Overview by Susi, Tajra and Johannesson, Mikaek and Backlund, per  )and discussed that not only what serious games are and how it may benefit a player in ways such as allowing players to experience certain situations in a more safe and risk free way as well as saving the player/ training any other ways in both timing and cost effectiveness.  I also liked that this source labelled the types of fields/markets in which these games may be explored. from things such as education and health care to things such as military training and corporate games. The report also allows some insight into serious games in both the European and North American Market. allowing me to branch out from my previous source from last week targeting one countries perspective and instead focus the perspective from a more global standpoint.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages

Skövde: Institutionen för kommunikation och information , 2007. , p. 28


Source 3

For my third source I found this reading titled "Why So Serious, on the relation of serious games and learning"https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-00692052/ as well as a PDF  describing many issues such as  addressing how although serious games are becoming more popular , as well as discuss possibilities for serious games in terms of an educational usage and the inclusion of more potential COTS (commercial off the shelf games) for the purpose learning. I found this interesting to read as it focused on things such as comparing other similar educational concepts such as elearning and education from an entertainment standpoint(ex TV) to serious games to show more relations than at first glance.

Overall I feel I am getting a better perspective of what I need in order to progress in the coming weeks as well as feel I need to start getting the sources placed back into the matrix to make putting my contribution to book easier overall and to learn how to do Harvard referencing more in the future so that I can work with it n future assignments.

Week 9 reading and writing

Reading and writing week 9

The Reason I chose this Image is because this was taken during a culture night we were assigned to attend at the start of the term. It was to help inspire us and at least for me it honestly did .I loved looking at the Bauhaus section, as well as the pop art section and feel it honestly inspired me in a lot of my work throughout the year and hopefully in the future years to come!!

Note: this was taken at the national gallery in town on Merrion square.

Looking Back

Overall looking back over the last 8 weeks of work from my blog comments to my Project write ups and readings. I feel I have gained a lot of useful tips from these items over the weeks such as the following things.

• From reading other peoples blogs I learned about all the different types of games Unity can make from stealth games to simple football games.
• I also learned from reading other peoples blogs and commenting/ communicating that I am not the only person struggling with things such as college workloads, balancing work between modules, and trying to get use to and adapt to new programs such as for example Unity and Illustrator.
• Connecting more with people in my class as not only because we are gonna be working together for the next  few years, but it was also nice getting to know them through their blog posts , as it showed their personalities off in a unique ways. It also made it easier connecting with them in person, as with commenting and communicating through blogger it made it much easier connecting with them in person and meeting some great people,
• I feel this module in particular has made me more organised , particularly in planning ahead on other modules as i needed to organise my time more to get other things finished.
• I feel I have been good on keeping up on the blogs overall ,but feel I could have perhaps focused more on the weekly Unity blogs , as I found it quite difficult completing some.
• One of the biggest surprises I had was learning how vast the industry of game development and that there is not a lot of definitive ways to look at things.

Looking Forward

With the weeks going by so fast I am almost at the end of my first semester of second year and I feel good about it there has definitely been some challenges in the passing weeks but I overall feel that I am getting better use to them and will continue to do so in the common weeks. I do want to focus the next few weeks on making things in unity so that I can at least make some items such as prototypes  and also keep up with the write ups and readings , as I go along the way.

Conclusion

Overall I feel I have came a long way since the beginning and looking at both what i need to improve on as well as what I have accomplished is quite satisfying and I feel that this write up was extremely helpful in helping me progress on this course and I hope that you all enjoyed reading.

Games GGD

Games GGD Dillon Eagers

Here is a link to where I found this image click here

For this weeks reading I am focusing on design considerations mainly in improving the UI and rules writing for board games. The piece I read was by Greg Aleknevicus and it focused on the following components.

• Make tiles smaller than the spaces they're placed upon
• Using highly contrasting/distinguishable colors for plavers pieces
• Use shape as well as color to distinguish pieces
• Use different components for different functions
• Making indices/ icons are distinct from each other
• Starting files should be back-printed in a different color
• Use legible and distinguishable font

My Items of interest

• I personally was interested in the part where aleknevicus talked about in the post such as using a white border to hide imperfections and greatly reduce the chance of the deck getting marked or damaged.
• I also like how he mentions adding extra components to a game so there is spare pieces in the event of one of the pieces being lost.
• Another one I found to be helpful was having A FAQ response page as it helps users to be able to have their questions answered as the issues arise over time.

Dillon Eagers "Games MDA"

Games MDA

https://images.app.goo.gl/SAnwkS26Zs4xigAk6

The point of this weeks reading was to learn about MDA which stands for " Mechanics, Dynamics and Aesthetics". This is a formal approach to understanding games one which attempts to bridge the gap between the following.

• Game Design
• Game Development
• Game criticism 
• Technical Game Research

This brief also goes onto detail on establishing their design counterparts. these counterparts can be seen below.

• Mechanics: Describes the particular component of the game through data representation and algorithms.
• Dynamics: which describes the players run time behaviors while  acting on players inputs to  each others outputs as time goes on.
• Aesthetics : this describes the emotional responses left by the player. (When describing the aesthetics of a game these are things to consider Sensation, Fantasy , Narrative , Challenge, Fellowship, Discovery, Expression and Submission).

1. Links to external site 1 here MDA framework by LeBlanc, Hunicki and Zabek. This link was very helpful in breaking down each of the things to consider in game MDA , as well as establishing their design counterparts.     
2.   Links to external site 2 here Designing to promote Intentional Play by Clint Hocking. Besides his Unique joke at the start I did like mainly how clink went into detail explaining the definition of words such as Intentionality and using examples through his playthroughs of games such as Donkey Kong 
3. Link to external site 3 here A brief description of MDA by Gamedeveloperstips.com. The reason I chose this one if it to me was much more clear and easy to understand the mechanics, Dynamics and aesthetics descriptions of Game Design. I overall felt it to be very much the same as the first link I read on MDA Framework by LeBlanc,Hunicki and Zabek.

Game Elements

My Blog on Game Elements

Link to the image here 

When I was reading week fours reading both I and the rest of my class were given 10 things to read when considering anything as a designer this includes the following.

• Players(in particular how may players does the game support as well as the relationships between players in things such as things) 
• Objectives ( This is to add challenges to the game and essentially give the players things to do such as solving a clue or winning a race for example,)
• Resource/ resources( which is essentially things that are under control of a single player, such as what weapon or item one may pick up or even things like territory.
• Game state (This is unowned items that are not owned by a single player ,but are still part of the game. For example the properties you can buy in monopoly or the common cards in Texas hold em, however the in video games it is important to know the game state because it keeps track of all the data the computer must keep track of.
• Information (the best way to describe information is how much of the game state is visible to each of the players such as how in poker games the players can only see their own deck and not the opposing players.
• Sequencing ( sequencing is the order in which actions in the game take place such as how a player takes their turn.)
• Player Interaction(  this is a highly important aspect to a game as it allows your players to have ways to conflict with people in ways such as being kind to a character to being aggressive, to even options of attacking a character one great example to this is the dialogue options menu in the fallout games franchise).
• Theme( The theme affects aspects such as the narrative of the story ,the back story and even the setting this allows us to provide players an emotional connection to the game without affecting the stories game play this is called (interchangeably)).
• Systems( systems can be defined as a combination of things/parts that form a complex home such as how you can design your character in games such as Skyrim or world of Warcraft where yo can have multiple systems all at once from combat to quests to even a chat system.  

I found breaking each of these down and simplifying them to be easier to remember in the long run as I was not as overwhelmed by the large number of sentences in the readings.I have also linked 3 links below with items of interest that a designer may consider when making a game/video game.

1. Link to game themes here
2. Link to Game Objectives here
3. Link to Game State here