Game Testing

From reading the article that was giving to us, i strongly agreed that most people when are being asked about their thoughts on something they most likely to say "i like it" but deep down they might not like it. And it's in our nature to let our emotions speak first and our logic second.

The article tells us why giving a criticism is a good thing. It is known as constructive criticism and it refers to feedback both positive and negative. Giving constructive criticism can help to assist individual by giving  feedback on things that they can improve on and things to avoid. What i have learned is that constructive criticism can keep feelings from being hurt by focusing on things that they can improve while avoiding personal insults.

The article also gave us tips on how to give a good constructive criticism such as :

- focus on valid and unbiased feedback
- make your criticism clear, understandable, and relevant

Some example:

Bad ways of giving constructive criticism:

1. That logo design sucks, who the heck would pay for something like that?
2. I hate red and green, why not use black and white instead!

Good ways of giving constructive criticism:

1. The balloon font used in the logo seems a bit too playful for your business, do you think a serif- font might be more professional?
2. There isn't much contrast between the background and text color, and the font size is a bit small so the text is hard to read.

I think this photo can represent the words constructive criticism

Interested link :
constructive criticism
https://personalexcellence.co/blog/constructive-criticism/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Varieties_of_criticism

Games Stories

From reading articles i understand that game stories are very important to the game and the player. Game designers often reference three works in particular that tell us how to make useful stories that apply directly to games. These work are Poetics by Aristotle, The hero with thousand faces by Joseph Campbell, Story: Substance, Structure, Style and Principles of screenwriting by Robert McKee. Aristotle, Campbell and McKee provide some of the most often-cited advice for storytellers in general, so i think it's a good idea to apply their advice to my games.

Identification between the player and their characters, avatars, tokens and so on is a common way to get players to be emotionally engaged with the game.

The article tells us the guidelines for how to tell a good story within a game.
One important thing that Aristotle really hammered on is that each scene should follow the previous ones with a logical cause-and-effect relationship. Weak writing goes like this: “X happens, then Y happens, then Z happens.” Stronger writing is more like this: “X happens, and because of that Y happens, and because of that Z happens.”
Aristotle defined a stage play as being comprised of six elements. These are Plot, Theme, Character, Diction, Rhythm and Spectacle.

GTA V
I think the game story of this game is very good and interesting

Link of interest:
https://learn.canvas.net/courses/3/pages/level-9-dot-2-mckee?module_item_id=44583
http://www.gamasutra.com/features
https://www.thoughtco.com/write-the-short-game-story-2074328

Week 8 Reading and Writing

My overall thoughts about  reading and writing assignments are working very well for me as i get to practice more on writing to improve my writing skills and vocabulary as well as reading. Although sometimes i do think it's too much to read some of the articles and most of the time i just got lost in the topic itself.

My favourite reading so far was near the first or second reading week, which is about mindset. I really enjoyed reading the articles as it also helped me with my mindset. 

Reading notes helps me each week with my game because every time i went back to read them, i always come up with new and different ideas from previous game idea. I think it's really good idea to go back and read few things over because you never know that you might have a better idea than before.

I have discovered many new readings and research strategies such as things i would never have done it myself. Looking at tutorials on unity is my new discovery. I never knew how game were made until watching unity tutorials.

I am very happy with my game project. Although there are some parts that i am not sure how i will make it work. I will start to prototyping my game project by first making the game architecture. i will do this by looking up more tutorials on YouTube. I feel like my game is not to bad in terms of the game story and the game objective. Writing up blogs about my game every week really helped me a lot as every week i always came up with new ideas and design from previous blog. I guess that's part of designing as you always have new ideas every time you write or design.

What i consider to be my biggest accomplishments for multimedia are working with unity which i have never used or heard about it before also writing blogs. When i first started using unity i thought to myself, there is no way i'm going to be able to make a game or even tried to make a game. After a few weeks with unity engine i started to get to know the basic of the software and what it can do. I was very interested of how amazing it do, it is like i'm creating my own world where can customize everything as i like. Writing blog and reading a lot of articles was a thing that i never wanted to do at all but for this class i had to read and write. At first it seems really boring and takes too much time but as i get to read and write more i really enjoyed it. Getting to have new ideas through reading articles and changing my ways of thinking was i think my accomplishment for this class.

I choose this image to be my favourite image because i think it is very cool to make a special item or gem in a game. Every game have a special items for the player to collect and i find it  very interesting creating my own gem.

I look forward to read more and write more. I want to improve and commit myself to do more readings and writings because it will help me in the future.

Game Fun

From reading through the articles I've learnt that games are created by designers/teams of developers, and consumed by players. They are purchased, used and eventually cast away like most other consumable goods.

The difference between games and other entertainment products (such as books, music, movies and plays) is that their consumption is relatively unpredictable. The string of events that occur during gameplay and the outcome of those events are unknown at the time the product is finished.  
The MDA framework formalizes the consumption of games by breaking them into their distinct components and establishing their design counterparts.

MDA Components

Definition of the components:

Mechanics
Describes the particular components of the game, at the level of data representation and algorithms.
Dynamics 
Describes the run-time behavior of the mechanics acting on player inputs and each others outputs over time. 
Aesthetics 
Describes the desirable emotional responses evoked in the player, when she interacts with the game system.  

Link to Sources:
dmonline.pbworks.com/w/page/128058585/CDM Online
http://www.gamasutra.com/features
https://spin.atomicobject.com/2013/09/03/mda-game-design-framework/

Game Decisions

For this week reading blog, I've read an article called "Cozy games". The article gives an overview of what coziness is. They explore more into depth on the word "cozy" and have found out many different meanings in cozy such as coziness can help your game appeal to broader audiences or coziness helps retention by giving players control over pacing while still maintaining engagement during periods of rest. 

What is cozy?
The article refers coziness itself to how strongly a game evokes the fantasy of safety, abundance, and softness. Coziness defines as safety, abundance and softness.

Example stated on the article: 
"Safety: A cozy game has an absence of danger and risk. In a cozy game, nothing is high-risk, and there is no impending loss or threat. Familiarity, reliability, and one’s ability to be vulnerable and expressive without negative ramification all augment the feeling of safety. To maximize safety, activities should be voluntary and opt-in so that players never feel the threat of coercion."
"Abundance: A cozy game has a sense of abundance. Lower level Maslow needs (food, shelter) are met or being met, providing space to work on higher needs (deeper relationships, appreciation of beauty, self actualization, nurturing, belonging). Nothing is lacking, pressing or imminent."
"Softness: Cozy games use strong aesthetic signals that tell players they are in a low stressenvironment full of abundance and safety. These are gentle and comforting stimulus, where players have a lower state of arousal but can still be highly engaged and present."

Cozy also fulfill needs  as i think people play because it allows them to experiment with a particular set of skills and activities that would otherwise be expensive or impossible in the real world. The opportunity to fight off attackers might not exist, but a game lets them practice those skills safely and easily. 
Human is motivated to fulfill various needs. For example, when we get hungry, we are motivated to find food and eat. Players seek to fulfill their emotional and psychological needs within games. Each game taps into a highly specific set of motivations. For example a survival game such as ‘Don’t Starve’ is very upfront about the fact that it, let’s player explore the planning and tactical issues around getting food. 

"Don't Starve"
Gameplay

Link to sources: 
http://www.lostgarden.com/
Theory-Fun-Game-Design
https://www.klei.com/games/dont-starve

Game GDD

From reading the article, what i think game design document is that a game design document is a highly descriptive living design document of the design for a video game. A GDD is created and edited by the development team and it is used in the video game industry to organize efforts within a development team.These documents are created by the development teams such as artists, designers and programmers to guide throughout the game process.

As reading through, made me realised how much components can have huge affect towards the player and the game. An example of this was " Imagine playing Chess with flat, cardboard counters. It's still the same game but would it be as enjoyable an experience?". The components consists of making the tiles smaller than the spaces they're placed upon. This means that they can be slightly bumped and moved without disturbing all the others. Use highly contrasting/distinguishable colours for player pieces.

The box. 
I think most first impressions of a game come from the box. It does not matter if the game is good to play but if the box does not look attracted then there will be no one to buy it. There are many ways to get people's attention through the box.
Examples :

List the name of the game on the side of the box.
Make sure any "back of the box" photo shows a legal game position. 
Print opposite sides of the box horizontally and vertically.

Game rules are very important to the game design too. Stating your rules to the game  it's a very difficult procedure and one of the hardest things to get right.
There are an amazing number of very common questions that many games fail to answer
Examples:

When exactly does the game end? 
When do you reshuffle cards? 
Is a player allowed to bid more money than she has?
What happens if a player runs out of money during the game? 

There are tips to that a game designer can do to improve a game that does involve spending a money such as support your game online, make replace parts available and include extra components as replacements.

Interested links : 
Design Considerations
https://www.flickr.com/photos/bochalla/5248915179
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_design_document

The image on the game box can attract many buyers.
The design of the box has nothing to do with how the game plays.

Games MDA

   What i have understand from reading and watching the link that was provided for us on cdmonline is in game design the Mechanics-Dynamics-Aesthetics framework is a tool used to analyze games.

 It formalizes the consumption of games by breaking them down into three components: Mechanics, Dynamics and Aesthetics. These three words have been used informally for many years to describe various aspects of games, but the MDA framework provides precise definitions for these terms and seeks to explain how they relate to each other and influence the player's experience.

-   Mechanics are the base components of the game - its rules, every basic action the player can take in the game, the algorithms and data structures in the game engine etc.

-   Dynamics are the run-time behavior of the mechanics acting on player input and "cooperating" with other mechanics.

-   Aesthetics are the emotional responses evoked in the player.

There are eight type of Aesthetics as stated by Hunicke, LeBlanc and Zubek:

1. Sensation (Game as sense-pleasure): Player experiences something completely unfamiliar.

2. Fantasy (Game as make-believe): Imaginary world.

3. Narrative (Game as drama): A story that drives the player to keep coming back

4. Challenge (Game as obstacle course): Urge to master something. Boosts a game's replayability.

5. Fellowship (Game as social framework): A community where the player is an active part of it. Almost exclusive for multiplayer games.

6. Discovery (Game as uncharted territory): Urge to explore game world.

7. Expression (Game as self-discovery): Own creativity. For example, creating character resembling player's own avatar.

8. Submission (Game as pastime): Connection to the game, as a whole, despite of constraints.

Condra Game

Example is Condra Game. X has some data like a position and actions such as jumping. Since his piece of data its a Mechanic and since jumping is an action is also a mechanic.

This image contains numbers of mechanics. Firstly you can see some data. X himself has a position and as well as the enemies. When x touches the enemies he takes the damage.

link informations:

http://acmlm.kafuka.org/board/thread.php?id=8460

http://www.cs.northwestern.edu/~hunicke/MDA.pdf

http://gamedevelopertips.com/mechanics-dynamics-aesthetics-game-design-theory-behind-games/

Game Elements

Formal abstract Design Tools

What reading the article I've learned what is a modern computer game made of. The disciplines that are involved are design, art, code, audio and levels, this disciplines work together to achieve synthesis.

The industry is involving with more powerful screens have better resolution and more colors, paints and modeling tools, audio processing is faster and sound cards are more capable. 

The design is most important in a game without it would just be a CD full of data but no fun or interest experience. The game creation actualizes the vision, put in art, code, levels and sound together into what player experience minute to minute

https://learn.canvas.net/courses/3/pages/level-3-introduction-and-readings?module_item_id=44527

http://www.gamasutra.com/features

http://gameofdesign.blogspot.com/2011/10/fadt-formal-abstract-design-tools.html

PS4 Controller

Game Design

Overview

Why is game important

Games and sports are a necessary part of our life. They are to the body what education is to the mind. But, no. they are an integral part of education itself.

Those who have not played any games in life should consider their education incomplete. Gandhi greatly lamented for not having given proper attention to games during his formative years.

Games provide the best physical exer­cise to a child. They improve our digestive system and make us strong and smart. In the modern world which is full of struggle, it is very necessary to have a strong body. One, who is physically weak, is prone to many diseases.

After a day’s hard work at school or college, a student can get rid of boredom on the play-ground. Work alone is not enough. That is why it is said: “All work and no play, makes Jack a dull boy”. Moreover, games make our minds fresh and strong.

Game Design

i think game design is a subset of the field of video game development. Game design is a field with a broad focus. As such, the skills of a game designer are drawn from the fields of computer science and programming, creative writing and graphic design. 

Game designers take the creative lead in imagining and bringing to life video game stories, characters, gameplay, rules, interfaces, dialogue and environments. 

From my opinion a game designer is a cross between a writer, artist and programmer. It is an individual who presents a comprehensive artistic vision, while also possessing the technical skill to oversee and contribute to programming, image rendering, level design, digital editing and other construction aspects of game design.

Pixabay

Games

These are the link to my favourite games:

-    Mobile Legends

-    PLAYERUNKNOWN'S BATTLEGROUND

-    Clash of Clans