Life's A Game

I need to find the controller

[thingsprogrammersshout]

Things Programmers Shout #454

“A different error message! Finally some progress!” // submitted by @falterfire

[ultramotivationquotes]

I’m going to succeed because I’m crazy enough to think I can.

[absurdlifequote]

[linxspiration]

AbsurdLifeQuote

[artmania-feed]

[avenuesofinspiration]

[thinkthingsoutloud]

Meadows & Mountains | © | AOI

[thelavishsociety]

Window Malta by Edgar Katkov | LVSH

[linxspiration]

Random Inspiration 182

[thethingaboutprogramming]

The thing about programming is that you quickly start to wish you had the source code to all of your devices so you can ‘fix’ them, because programmers always know better than other programmers.

(via thethingaboutprogramming)

[thinkthingsoutloud]

Participatory Design

My muse design game was lacking a bit of additional input from the muse's end so I decided to redo the participatory design. So for the participatory design I decided to perform one of the ui exercises we did in class. With the type of game we have in mind, changing the UI would have a huge influence on the mechanics aswell. So with regards to the exercise, I told my muse to forget the current UI (but still keep in mind some of the current mechanics due to time constraints) and we bought spent 15 minutes redesigning the UI separately before spending some more time discussing our ideas. This helped exercise helped in class, and sure enough it helped with my muse and we were able to redesign the application with a lot more of input from her end. So now it's of to the desk so I can start reprogramming the redesign.

[blazepress]

source

[dirtyprettything]

[thinkthingsoutloud]

You've got Feedback!

Some time ago now, I received some very useful feedback about my Inspired game design. Feedback that I expected after having presented the prototype and my findings thus far.

First off I thought my game was way too simple, although frustratingly hard to control the paddle movement through the use of the gyroscope I wanted to see how I can make it more interesting. So in class we then had an exercise to do, where we paired up and had to design each other's UI for our game. Being such a simple game, and being limited to smartphone controls, redesigning any element of the UI also means changing its mechanics, but I was open to any suggestion that could come out of the exercise.

So we had 15 minutes to redesign each other's UI and another 15 minutes to discuss it and I felt that my partner in this exercise was able to give me valuable input and show me various perspectives the same game.

Part of the feedback that I received also stated something that I was quite worried about. I hadn't put much of my muse in the game, there was an overwhelming amount of myself in the game so my next step is to perform the exercise we did in class with my muse as a form of participatory design since we were unable to get anything from using PLEX

[thinkthingsoutloud]

TiLT - The Initial Prototype

So it's been a bit of a long time since I last blogged, mostly because I've had other assignments that required a lot of my time.

So a couple of weeks ago we presented our prototype to the class together with all the information we managed to extract from the activities we had with our muse, and this is what I came up with...

I also created a short physical prototype where I made use of actual balloons together with two players on either side of the table, had them balance on one leg and shoot at the balloons using straws and paper. Well hopefully you'll understand this clip a friend of mine took during the prototype.

Considering the prototype design was very basic, I received some encouraging feedback and I think that me and my muse are on the right track to designing an awesome game.

Making the presentation also helped me to recap on what my muse and I managed to achieve and my biggest concern is the participatory design. Although by using the PLEX cards we were able to generate some interesting stories, we didn't really generate useful game mechanics or ideas. This is why my next step is to take a different approach to the participatory design with my muse in order to make her feel like she's contributing more to the end game.

[thinkthingsoutloud]

Today we have a presentation, and we're going to present a prototype of our inspirational design game. This short video shows the game I plan on creating, showing a simple level.

This Video Prototype's main aim is to show the current version of the game's mechanics. How the player has to tilt the device to move the triangles, and tap the screen to fire at the circles.

[thinkthingsoutloud]

The Participatory Design Task

So yesterday I was finishing up a presentation I have for the Muse Design Assignment, and I was using tumblr to help me remember what I did throughout the weeks. Then I noticed I forgot to blog about something, the participatory design.

For this we used PLEX which I mentioned in an earlier post on the Cultural Probe. We gave PLEX a few tries, and using them we were able to generate some stories and character descriptions, none of which though, will be used in the initial prototype.

So, I didn't really know what to expect from using these cards, because they can make you tell very vague stories that will have absolutely nothing to do with a game. They can also help generate mechanics for a game which you would never think of. For our last go at PLEX, I tried to create this setting were I introduced a game setting using the Competition Card in PLEX. My muse didn't get that I was trying to directly insinuate a game and after feeling stumped for quite some time, she made a story out of it. Also, seeing your cards as a limitation can be a bigger hindrance than help. They're great to use without any doubt, but the cards shouldn't be seen as the limiting factor but it should just be a stimulant to help generate ideas, even if they have nothing to do with what's on your cards or the cards on the table.

Now we have the presentation of our initial prototype, and after receiving the feedback for our current prototype, I think I'll probably try to use some other participatory design tool to improve the current mechanics.

[thinkthingsoutloud]

Thinking Out Loud!

In my opinion this is probably one of the best ways of getting insight to what someone is thinking or feels and in our Muse Assignment, it's a great way of coming up with an idea for a game.

That being said, I need to create a paper prototype for next week and a light bulb has yet to shine in my head, I think it actually switched of the one I had on.

So for the think aloud, I had her play some different mobile games, from the simple logo guessing games, to emoji guessing, hangman, a couple of small platformers to gyro. The game that made me rethink the whole trivia game concept.

The above image is Gyro, a simple yet addictive game where you have to catch the incoming circle in the corresponding sector of the center circle.

It's simple, it's got a simple colour scheme with simple mechanics but once our session was done, my muse had already downloaded the game and was back to playing Gyro.

So for now, what I know for sure from the interviews and the observations ... the final game has to be on a mobile platform. It needs to have a short average play time but makes the player want to play again. There also needs to be some social aspect to it. From the think a loud, she was able to appreciate a different type of game other than some guessing or trivia game and hopefully a wider range of game possibilities will reveal itself.

[linxspiration]