Feedback Strategies

Feedback Articles

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For this week I focuses on reading  and focusing on two main articles .These articles included

Link to "what kind of message help a child grow"here

Link to "Five Reasons to stop saying Good Job" here

• "What kinds of messages help a kid grow".This article by Deborah Farmer Kris and focuses on the type of praise that should be given to preschoolers/kids from a young age  in order to shape a healthy mindset of how people learn and grow from it. I personally like how the article notes to replace Generic praise with Process Praise , as generic praise lacks instructional value. For example replacing things such as "good job" with "good job sharing with your sister" ,as these will tie the child's actions to their specific success and helping the child from a young age to Learn what is to be praised for and what is not to be praised for in the future for things such as school and work.The article also mentions the power of the word yet being used to encourage the child to keep trying and not give up on a task. This can be by using it when a child says something like "I cant do it" and responding with "you cant do it "yet". I feel this to be very true ,as I know plenty of people who could have used this type of advice in the past ,me included when not being able to do something in work, or on an assignment allowing me to learn and progress as a person and mainly allowing me a way / drive to conquer my setbacks.
• "Five Reasons to stop saying good Job" This article by Alfie Kohn focuses on  Five reasons  we need to stop saying "good gob" These reasons include

1. Manipulating children- Referred to as sugar-coated control by Rheta DeVries as it praises them for complying with our wishes at that moment as it may have a long lasting effect in the long run. With children being so hungry for our approval  people have made a habit of exploiting praise for our own convenience and will not prepare them for how things actually work in school and work life in their future.
2. Creating praise Junkies - This means that kids will be come so use to praise that they will become dependent  on them making it hard for them to learn valuable life skill such as learning from criticism and conquering challenges in the process.
3. Stealing a child's pleasure - This highlights that in constantly praising a child's actions we take away the pleasure/delight a child may feel for actually completing their accomplishments. and to feel pride in what they learned to do.
4. Losing Interest -This states that a person may only keep doing something as long as they are being watched and praised for it meaning this may seem like it is helping them but is instead making the individual attention towards this thing more distant. "the more we tend to reward people to things the more they lose interest" I found this phase in the reading to really capture the point the writer was trying to get across about this issue.
5. Reducing achievement-This highlighted that a person may do a certain action in order to gain approval. It also highlights three possible responses that may  improve the situation without praising the individual. these three Items were  say nothing,  Talk less and ask more and to say what you saw  mainly focusing on things that we can say to our kids so that we do not affect them in the long run without fake praise for things that should not be praised. Helping them to develop in the future as people.

"game Idea research"

Dillon Eagers Game research Ideas

Link to the image here 

For this blog I am doing research into the project topic "Game Mechanics".  The Idea I chose to continue researching was  my first idea which was a simulator where you  are trying to catch a swan as two goofy police officers as a parody of the iconic/comedic scene from hot fuzz where both police officers are trying to catch an escaped swan for one of the towns locals.  It would be a 3D game ,with an environment styled after the town of Wells where the film was made, or at least parts of the town. I also want to find a way to make the game more challenging so I considered  giving the levels time limits and goals keeping the player alert and focused on passing the level and giving it a challenge.

Overall I am finding it hard to describe 3 possible game mechanics as when I was looking up it I found it hard to find examples due to their being no definitive answer to what game mechanics are between academics and game designers . The only way I found to describe it is as an item/object/ moving platform and how the player responds/reacts to it. Like how Mario had to avoid being hit by barrels in "Donkeykong". The three Mechanics I decided to focus on today was

• How my character chasing the swan reacts to the powerups, (Which is by increasing his speed  or reach when chasing the swan).
• Having obstacles such as hedges,bushes, bikes and water that the player must avoid or it will slow them down giving the swan more distance to escape (adding challenge).
• How the swan(antagonist reacts) when the player grows nearer to it.

For inspiration on this idea/concept I came across a trailer for a PS4 game titled "The Unfinished swan" which when I watched it reminded me of the type of environment I would love to make in unity for my title which judging by the similarities is very doable  with the 3D options given to us by unity. I feel like This trailer really catches the perspective of  how I want to design the city/ Town in my game. I also took inspiration from a game called "Untitled goose game" as it was  a great use of design and color , as i feel it would really add the warm country village style I am interested in presenting in my game. 

• The unfinished swan trailer link here
• The untitled goose game game-play link here
• The Unfinished swan wiki page here
• The Untitled goose game Wikipedia here
• Film locations from the movie hot fuzz here

Possible ideas for the game

1. Add Cornetto Cones as Power ups  or ice-cream cones as a reference to the trilogy the movie is based off ( possibly aiding players speed/agility)
2. Make cover for game of game using hot fuzz logo but add swan recapture in red to add intensity and make it look more sinister for comedic purposes.
3. Use bits from movie soundtrack to edit into game to help with intro ,outre or upgrade sounds for protagonist.Soundtrack 1 here, Soundtrack 2 here
4. Add small references to the movie to bits from the movie (Easter eggs for the fans to find props ,characters, phrases etc.)

I feel good about this Idea overall and am looking forward to Researching and making it with unity in the coming weeks.

So in finishing up this blog I shall leave a link below tho the scene that inspired me to do this , as my game idea in the first place.Click here

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