Game Testing

This week's reading was about giving criticism and how it can actually be useful. The useful and good type of criticism is called "constructive criticism". It gives feedback to a person on things that can be improved or issues that can be avoided in a way that doesn't make it sound like you're insulting the person.

When giving constructive criticism, you have to make sure your opinions stay valid and unbiased. This means that the feedback has to be reliable/from a good source,to make sure you know what you're talking about, and free from personal preferences. As we've learnt before, everyone has different preferences in things, so when giving feedback, we need to make sure we avoid what we would personally like to be done and instead give overall feedback that will help the person improve on their ideas.

Along with that, make sure your criticism is clear, easy to understand and relevant to the topic. Be specific in what needs improvement rather than the typical, vague responses "I like it"/"I don't like it". These responses won't help the person so just point out clearly what works well and what doesn't

Giving criticism correctly can avoid people getting their feelings hurt and giving them low self-esteem. So as long as your feedback is specific,understandable,unbiased and reliable, it should be very helpful to the person you're giving it to.

Review Week: Comments and Feedback

The majority of comments I've been getting from other students have been positive and very helpful. I found the comments on my game process most beneficiall. I thought there would be more criticism on my game but it was the complete opposite. Getting comments off others gave me a chance to see my game ideas from someone else's perspective and not just my own. They gave me points on how to improve or ideas on things I could add that I may have not thought of myself.

I didn't really write many feedback comments on other people's blogs,  I wouldn't know what to write or how to give people points on improvement for their game process. Everyone seemed to have a good idea of what they wanted to do with their games so I wouldn't know how to add or improve on them.

I know the main point of the blog comments was to connect with others and get to know them but  I still felt a little awkward writing comments. However, on the few blogs that I have left comments, it was interesting getting to know people through their blogs and to see how others were getting along with their games. I did struggle thinking of what to say and  not ending up repeating myself on some of the blogs but it was still an interesting experience.

For my introduction blog, I never really know what to say about myself so I don't think it was that interesting and I probably could've thought of a better way to write it. I felt like it was really basic compared to other people's introductions. However, having an introduction blog was nice and really helped getting to know people. I didn't think I would, but I enjoyed blogging and seeing people's comments.

In the future, I would definitely try to comment more on other people's blogs and work on giving better feedback on their ideas. I would also put more effort into the appearance of my blog.

Week 9: Reading and Writing

When I first started doing the readings, I found them pretty difficult as most the time I didn't know what to write for the blogs or I wouldn't understand the readings. However, as I did more I got better at typing up blogs about the readings, or at least I'd like to think I got better. I still struggle with some readings but overall, it was a nice experience writing blogs.

Blogging was something new that I've never tried before and I honestly thought I'd hate it but it wasn't the worst experience. With other classes, they'd give readings but I wouldn't really read them, I'd quickly look through but not really pay attention but having to write a blog based off what I just read made me pay attention to details in the readings a lot more which made me learn a lot more too.

I think my favourite reading has been the latest reading I did which had to do with game fun. I learnt about the different types of fun and even though its basic knowledge that everyone has different preferences in things, it informed me about why we have these preferences and how it relates back to our ancestors which I thought was very interesting.

I don't think I have a big accomplishment for this class, I wish I managed my time a bit better and stayed on top of my work more but I'm happy that at least I tried something new and didn't completely give up on it. In the future, I definitely will try a lot harder to keep up with the work.

One of my favourite images from my blog is the one shown above. It's a screenshot I found online from the game "Corpse Party. I like it because it brings back memories to when I first found the game and how much I used to like it. I loved the story and the game style, although some scenes or parts were kind of disturbing, I still really enjoyed it.

I look forward to maybe doing more blog posts. I kind of enjoyed doing them, even though I didn't do all the blog posts I was supposed to do, I'd feel pretty accomplished when I'd actually do them, especially after really long readings. It would always be such a relieving feeling getting it done in time, especially since I tend to leave things til last minute.

Tech Task: Blogger Design Templates

I felt like my blog looked too dark and needed some colour in it so I decided to change up how it looked.
I followed a blog post explaining how to change templates to do this. I had no difficulty following along. There was a lot of templates to choose from and had some difficulty choosing one but in the end found one that I liked. I like the colour red so I tried to make that the main colour for my blog but it ended up looking kind of pink.
However, I'm still happy with the slight change in design in my blog and would definitely like to try find more ways to change up my blog's appearance.

Game Fun

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In the first article I read was "Natural Funativity" by Noah Falstein, it talks about what makes a game fun when everyone find different types of things fun,how evolution and what our ancestors did influences what we find fun today. It also talks about how fun is subjective and that even though we have a hard time defining the word "fun", "we know it when we have it".

The theory of "Natural Funativity" comes from the merging of Charles Darwin's theory of evolution and Natural Selection and the question of "What is Funativity Quotient?" from Steve Arnold. This theory is broken down into 3 sections:

• Physical fun
• Social fun 
• Mental fun

Physical fun:

People are most drawn to something that challenges their survival skills. They will continue to focus on something until they can overcome the threats and obstacles which also improves their skills. We find enjoyment in this as it relates back to our ancestors and how they had the need to perfect their skills so that they had a higher chance of survival.

Social Fun:

The way this relates to evolution is not through the means of survival but through reproduction, meeting and attracting mates. Games don't really focus on "attracting a mate" but through things like being able to play online multiplayer, that has changed. Devices and platforms that allow players to be in contact with one another in the real world allow the social aspect of games to develop. As "tribal creatures", we form groups and enjoy to learn from each other. We find ways of survival through sharing and learning from information in social situations and activities rather than through physical strength.

Mental Fun:

Mental fun focuses on improving our mental abilities as a form of fun. Our intelligence is what allows us to make use of our physical strengths, tools, language and carrying out conversations. All those things complement one another. Intelligence is the perception and manipulation of patterns, people enjoy finding patterns in something and learning from it. Being able to recognise a pattern and then act upon it has been a very useful survival skill. It is a workout for the brain.

Many games and activities are a mix of 2 or all 3 different types of fun, which is known as blended fun. However, by understanding the reason why we find these forms of survival so interesting and fun can help come up or further develop on game ideas/concepts. By combining these 3 things, you can capture the interest of many people and how much fun they have playing the game you've created.

The second article I looked at was "Hearts, Clubs, Diamonds, Spades:Players who suit MUDs" by Richard Bartle. It talks about what people like from a MUD. Bartle collected information from a discussion on what players liked,didn't like,why they played and what improvements they could make to a MUD. He summarised and noticed a pattern in the answers which divided the information into 4 groups. Most people drifted between all 4 groups but overall, the majority was fixed on only 1 group. These 4 groups are:

• Achievers- Focus on points and rising in levels as their main goal. The only time they mix in the other 3 groups is if it gains them more points
• Explorers- Explore the game and its features. Mixes with the other 3 groups if it gives them access to new areas or gives ideas on new things to try.
• Socialisers- Interested more in forming relationships with players than the game itself. Mix in other 3 groups if it allows them to talk to people and understand what they are talking about.
• Killers- Enjoy causing distress to the players and chaos in the game. Only mix in the other 3 groups if it allows them to become stronger to cause more damage, find people to taunt or place to cause chaos in.

Each of these groups enjoy the game differently, however, administrators need to maintain balanced relationships in these groups so the game can still be enjoyable for everyone

Unity Tutorial 06

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In today's blog, we're going through some more Jimmy Vegas' Unity tutorials. In these videos, he talked about creating a skybox, wind zones, lighting, fade screens, picking up weapons, fixing bugs in your game and add more to environments such as a house.

In the first video, he explained how skyboxes and wind zones worked and it was pretty easy to follow along and do it yourself. There was a big variety of skyboxes available so I have a lot of choice for when I go on to create my own game which I think is very good as I'll have lots of different styles I can try out to see what suits best for my game. Along with having pre-made skyboxes, you can mess around with the settings and keep the style but change the lighting or the colour to whatever you like best, giving you a lot more freedom when creating your game. Adding wind into the scene was really easy and a really nice addition as it made the game look a lot more realistic. Once again, it was simple and fun being able to mess around with the settings to find what gave your game the right feel.

The second video he talked about fade screens and how to pick up weapons rather than starting off with them. This tutorial might be useful for my game but I'm not sure if I'll have weapons in it but it was still handy to know how to do this just incase. I still need to get the hang of script but hopefully I will with more practice. As for the fade screens, those would definitely be something I would like to include into my game as it would be a nice transition into the game. 

The third video talked about and went through fixing bugs in your game, along with teaching me how to do a fade out screen and how to add more things to an environment. Some of these things will definitely be useful when I'm making my game.

Overall these tutorials were very helpful and taught me a lot of things that I could potentially add in my own game.

Game GDD

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This weeks reading was "Design Considerations" by Greg Aleknevcius. In this reading, he discusses how a game can be a lot more appealing and enjoyable to someone when a lot of thought is put into the games components, rules and design of its box. He gives some suggestions to what you might want to consider when designing your own game. I thought some of the points were very interesting as I wouldn't have really thought about those things if I hadn't read this article.

An example of some points I found helpful were to use high contrasting colours for different player pieces but to carefully think through the colours you want to use to make sure people who are colourblind can still distinguish the player pieces. Along with using different colours, you can use different shapes to differentiate the pieces too. A game can run a lot more smoothly and be a lot more enjoyable if different functions had different design components.

The article says that first impressions of a game come from its box which is very true meaning a lot of thought has to be put into the box design too and not just the game itself. Make sure to have the games name on the side of the box and think through how you want to print your game info so that consumers have choice in how they store the game.

After reading this, writing the rules of a game sounds a lot more difficult than expected. Some things the articles says you can do to avoid or minimise difficulties is to avoid writing very vague rules so that players can "decide for themselves how to play", it might come off as if the game isn't fully finished and another point was to give examples of where those rules apply to guide players and give a better understanding.

This article was very helpful and gave some good advice on how to design your game so that its a lot more enjoyable for players.

Game Vision Statement

Introduction:

The game I will be creating is a mystery game. The player is a detective who has just been assigned a case and has to solve it by collecting clues from various locations until they have gathered all or enough to find the criminal. I've yet to come up with a name for the game and what the case will be about.

Genre:
The genre of the game will be mystery and kind of adventure.

Gameplay:
As mentioned before the player is a detective, assigned a case. They will have to go to multiple scenes,investigate them and collect clues that will lead them to find the culprit. A timer will be added in the locations where the player has to search for clues. The clues found will be stored in an inventory. The character will be controlled using the arrow keys.

Resources Required:
To create the game, I plan on using Unity on a PC. I will be following Youtube Unity tutorials to help create the game as I'm still new to using Unity and haven't fully gotten the hang of it yet.

Inspiration:
My game is inspired by games such as "The Wolf Among Us" and the "Danganronpa" game series, mainly in the sense that these games are mystery, detective-type games and require you to go around investigating different environments to collect things/clues that help you later on in the game. However, my game won't have any/much dialogue and won't have a really long and detailed storyline like the 2 games mentioned.

Source

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Game Elements

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This reading discussed a lot of different aspects in games that need to be considered when creating a game and when critiquing it.This reading really helped me understand better the things I'll need to think about when I will be creating my own game. Implementing the things mentioned in the reading will definitely make the game a lot more enjoyable when played.

One of the main things I realised I will have to focus on to make the game enjoyable is the rules and objectives of the game. The player needs to understand what they are doing or what they need to do to fully enjoy their experience. If they are aimlessly wandering around trying to figure everything out by themselves, they'll lose interest in the game pretty quickly,which is something I want to avoid. I'm obviously going to consider the other elements that make up a game too but those 2 are the main things I'd like to concentrate on.

Another thing that stood out to me in the reading was games as systems, which basically says that changing one element of the game can actually have a much bigger effect on other elements as they are all connected to one another. I didn't really think making a few minor adjustments could make such a difference so now I know when I'm making a change(s) in my game, I'll really have to think about the possible effects it might have on the other aspects and carefully think through what things I want to correct.

In the article by Doug Church, he states that people lack in design vocabulary which affects how we critique people's games. People usually just state whether a game is "fun" or "not fun" and leave it at that, but that's not very helpful. Game designers would want a more in-depth analysis of their games so they can understand better what they did well and what they need to improve on. However, they can't really get that type of critique if no one knows "the language of game design" so finding a way to word feedback is something people would need to work on.

Feedback Thoughts

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While reading these articles, I related to them a lot as I criticize myself,my work or ideas a lot and never feel confident in sharing anything I come up with because I instantly assume that its not good enough or not as good as someone else's.
The first article states to focus more on the positives of feedback rather than the negatives. Whenever getting feedback on something, you could get loads of positive things said about it but the one negative is what always sticks and puts you down. This article tells you to seek for the positives, take it in, understand it and believe that you did well in whatever it is you are doing. Rather than putting yourself down or minimizing what you did well, you embrace it and believe the good things that have been said about your work/ideas/etc. are true.
The second article gives 7 steps to follow to help overcome self-doubt. I really liked this article, it tells you to stop comparing yourself to others and seeing them as competition,to avoid trying to be "perfect",not to be afraid to be yourself, accept mistakes and failure as a part of the journey to improvement and to have faith in yourself and what you do.
I feel like its always easier said than done but taking some of the tips given in these articles and trying to follow them a little everyday, you'll eventually overcome self-doubt and stop seeing feedback as a bad thing.

The 2 articles I read were:
Silence the critical voices in your head
https://hbr.org/2016/12/silence-the-critical-voices-in-your-head
Seven Ways to Crush Self-Doubt
http://www.spencerauthor.com/seven-ways-to-crush-self-doubt/

Game Brainstorm

I haven't played many games so coming up with ideas was a little difficult but based off some games I know or have played,some game ideas I had are:

Survival Horror:
A survival horror game sounds like it would be an interesting game to create. When I think of a survival horror, I think of Corpse Party. I really like the style of the game and would attempt to create something with a similar style to it. The idea I had was to have character(s) trapped in an abandoned house that turns out to be haunted and they would have to collect items and/or hints to help escape while they try avoid/fight off ghosts or some other supernatural creatures in the house. There would be multiple rooms to explore to find whatever the character(s) is searching for.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OzwdgrxYViQ

Jimmy Vegas has a series on how to create a survival horror in Unity which I could follow as a guide to help me create my own.

Platformer:
The main platformer game I'm familiar with and everyone else is too is Mario. Mario is one of the main games I enjoyed playing growing up so I feel like I'd really enjoy actually creating a platformer game. The idea was that the character would be a student and each level could have a different goal like trying to skip class or they're late and try to sneak into class without getting in trouble and the "goombas" of this game would be school staff, the goal being to successfully achieve whatever the quest of the level is without getting caught and avoiding the staff e.g. a teacher.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=on9nwbZngyw&t=302s

Puzzle Game?:

I'm not really sure which genre of game this falls under but here's another game idea:

I find things to do with mystery and crime really interesting so creating a game based off those would be really cool. The game could be based around a detective trying to solve a case and he would have to go to crime scenes and other places to collect clues and evidence that eventually leads him to the criminal who committed the crime. The goal of the game would be to solve the case with the evidence you gather throughout the game.

Unity Tutorial 01

(Source:Unity logo)

I have never used any sort of game development tools before so I was completely clueless going into these tutorials. I was expecting to find it a lot harder trying to understand what the tutorials were explaining since I've never done anything like this before but watching these Unity tutorials was very helpful.

I learned quite a lot from just a few videos, even if its just the basics. Jimmy Vegas does a really good job at explaining everything and guiding you through everything step by step. Instead of just listening to what he says and ending up forgetting it, I found having Unity open and following the steps as you watch a very good way to learn everything much quicker. There were parts I struggled understanding but hopefully with some practice I will manage to get the hang of them eventually.

This is all still very new and I've still lots to learn but I look forward to learning more about Unity and game design, I think so far its been really interesting seeing all the things you can create with just the basic tools.

Technology Tools

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Most of the technology tools shown I'm already pretty familiar with and have heard of them before but just haven't really used them much. The ones that are a little more new are blogging and graphics creation. I know about blogs but have never written one myself so it's an entirely new experience along with graphics creation so hopefully I'll enjoy both of those things while using them throughout the weeks.
I'm looking forward to using these tools more often though and think it'll be fun learning new things from them.

Assignments

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I think some of these are interesting new ways of doing assignments. With other assignments you would get reading material but wouldn't have to write anything about it so having to write a blog based off the reading you've to do is a good way to make sure people actually do the readings and learn things. Along with that, getting feedback off others so often is a great way to help improve on your writing and to bond with/get to know others.

Working on a project for several weeks is something I'm familiar with and isn't so new unlike the other parts of the assignment. Working on a project is a great way to show and put the skills you learn over the weeks to use. I think it's helpful working on a project and making something of your own, since you've something to work towards, you'll keep practicing and improving on your skills.

Other assignments didn't have extra credit tasks so this is completely new to me but I think it's really useful. Being able to make up for any work you missed is really handy since sometimes assignments might pile up and not everything can be done on time.

Introduction

About Me

Hey, I'm Amanda and this is a little bit about me. I'm 18, from Lithuania but lived in Ireland most my life, I chose CDM because I enjoyed things like photography and art as hobbies but I wanted to learn more about those things and work on them.

My favourite module from last semester would be the photography, as I said before, I liked photography as a hobby and taking pictures of random things I thought looked nice but actually using a proper camera and not my phone was really fun. I enjoyed learning how to use one and working in a studio.

My greatest accomplishment from last year would probably be getting through the year, even though I had to do repeats, I'm still proud I managed to pass everything.

My goals for this module would be to learn new skills, get the hang of game design and just overall, to do well in the module.

I don't really read that much so I don't really have a favourite book, I watch more TV shows and movies so a favourite would be a show called Brooklyn Nine-Nine.
I like most genres of music. Although I'm pretty late getting into this band, I've recently really gotten into Arctic Monkeys.

Some of the goals for the future are pretty basic like get my drivers license,move out,graduate,etc. I don't really have anything too specific I want to work towards just yet so I'm just going to see where things take me I guess.

I don't have any pets ): But I really want to get a dog(s) so I guess I could add that to my list of future goals.

Workshop 1

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The traffic light exercise was a very familiar concept as everyone has a fair idea of how a traffic lights work, but surprisingly it was a lot harder than expected. For the exercise, the tasks we were asked and were given to work with sounded really simple but I struggled a lot trying to put what I knew into words. Even though I knew how the traffic light worked, I assumed it couldn't be that easy and there was some more complex answer to it which made things a lot harder since I ended up over thinking it too much to come up with a proper answer.

Working in a group was fine, it was nice to get everyone else's input on the task given but it was also amusing seeing everyone else just as lost and confused. It was reassuring knowing I wasn't the only one who didn't really know how to word my thoughts well or draw out a flowchart for it.

The exercise just showed how even the most simplest of tasks can actually be really difficult which kind of has me worried for when we start looking at actual difficult tasks, I feel like I'll struggle even more trying to put things down on paper/text. Even now, I'm struggling to write out a reflection on what was done. Hopefully, that'll change though and it'll get easier to write these blogs as I get more used to them. It's an interesting concept though, I've never written a blog so it'll be nice to see how I get on with writing them.

Testing

This is a tester blog post.