Unity Free Tutorials

For this week's Unity tutorials, I focused on adding a mini-map and gun fire animation to my game. I originally was creating a 2D game but decided to change it to a 3D game.

The first tutorial I did was add a mini-map. This was an easy tutorial and didn't take too long. As my game is 3D, it will show my character on the map and the area around him. To create a mini-map, I first created a circle and triangle as an arrow with both being png images. This would be needed for my map render and mask. The map turned out good but is a bit too big which is not what I want for my final game.

For my second tutorial, I worked on gun fire animation. During this, I would add sound and a script to my gun so you may hear the gun shot. The script would help for the gun fire as it shows the gun shot with a little maker. The script could be useful for other gun weapons in my game as it will take less time in editing other guns in the game.

These tutorials have been helpful and will be important for my game.

                                                             
                                                                       My mini-map

Game Testing

For this week's blog reading, it is about testing and criticism in games. This is to help you know what works and what doesn't work in your game.

Link 1: The book "Challenges for Game Designers" helps improve your brainstorming abilities and sharpens your game design skills. It can help with its non-digital exercises to help improve your game designing skills. Challenges of the book can be made into a fully functioning game. It will help you know if the ideas you have for your game will work properly.

Link 2: In this article, it talks about criticism. Giving criticism can help someone improve their work. Constructive criticism can lead to positive and negative feedback. When giving constructive criticism, it is important to focus on valid and unbiased feedback. You can't say something doesn't look good without a reason . You need to have a reason as to why you don't like certain things and how they can improve them. This is important as it will help tell what works well and what doesn't work well in a game.

Link 3: Solo testing article talked about different types of playtesting. Playtesting covers any activity where you are playing a game in progress for the purpose of improving it. Types of playtesting include bug fixing, focus testing, usability testing, balance testing and fun testing. Each has its own meaning of testing a game. You will see what works and what doesn't work when testing your game.

                                                                Testing Image Link

Game Stories

For this week's reading blog, it was about stories in games.

For the article I read, A Practical Guide to a Hero's Journey was about how myths help us create stories for games. Myths help convey the values of society and teaches people who they and how they should behave. A myth can be brought to life in a game which would make you feel you are seeing what might these myths might have been. There are a few steps we can take when creating a story for a game:

Step 1: Pick your premise which is a theme or myth. It will help decide what your game is about and how people behave and think after playing your game.

Step 2: Create your main character that embodies the premise. Also create a enemies that will help further the premise.

Step 3: Create the character's world.

Step 4: Disrupt the character's world. You have to force the main character into action to help the story.

Step 5: Create levels that takes the player from one place to another. Each level should show some incremental growth, or struggle in the character's development.

Step 6: Confront the main enemy/main boss of the game.

Step 7: Collect your prize from winning the game.

These steps bring the story all together help create your concept.

Article Link

In the article, a person named Gerard Jones is talked about. He has book called "Killing Monsters" and in the book, Gerard wrote about how playing violent games actually helped one young boy named Johnathan: "Games gave Johnathon control over events where he and others felt none and, perhaps even more important, they gave him control over his own feelings. With these games Johnathan no longer felt as helpless. He was not as scared of others or his own feelings". This is fascinating and I was interested to learn more about Gerard Johns.

Gerard Jones

Another interesting topic stated Rollo May postulated that narcotics are myth-substitutes because they allow people to assert control over their environment even for a short period of time.

Rollo May

I enjoyed reading this article and learning about stories in games. I hope it will help me with my game project.

                                                      

                                                                  Image Link

Week 8 Progress

For this blog, it is about my progress in general so far.

Looking Back
For my progress so far, I feel I'm at at decent point with my marks and if I continue to do the upcoming assignments in the next few weeks, I'll be happy with my final grade in the end. I have missed a number of assignments which has caused me to miss out on some marks like the project blogs which has a good number of marks each week. My daily routine isn't like I planned back in week 1. I leave most of the work to the last minute which can stress me and cause me to make mistakes when doing my blogs. I always say to try and get the work done a day before they are due but don't always do that. Other module work has also caused this I feel and I need to plan better.

The class assignments I have enjoyed the most are the Unity tutorials. I like learning how to make games but I have missed some Unity assignments. It great to see that we can make games at home. Unfortunately I haven't been doing the extra credits options even though I keep saying I will. It would benefit me a lot more and I do hope to try get some done in the coming weeks.

Looking Forward
There are some changes I want to make. For my project, I've thought of making a 2D game but I'm thinking about changing to it to 3D first person game. I feel a 3D game would be the better option as I have watched a good number of Jimmy Vegas's tutorials while I'll need to watch a lot more tutorials for a 2D game. Some blogs I haven't published need to be done and I need to get back to doing the project blogs. I will try to know what I fully want for my final game soon.

                                                                     Image Link

               We're nearly at the end of the first semester but we still got to keep doing the work.

Week 8 Comments and Feedback

For this blog, it is about the blog commenting and feedback assignments I've done so far this semester.

Feedback In
Receiving comments from others doing the same work is very good. I like seeing what people think of my work and what they think I can improve on. I've been receiving some good feedback that has given me ideas for my project. Thinking of new ideas from the comments is the best thing about receiving them as others will help give ideas I never thought of. Hearing positive feedback is motivating as I do get this feeling a lot which is that people are not going like what I have but I feel a lot more comfortable now.

Feedback Out
I hope my comments are helpful. Reading other students work is very interesting and its great to see the great ideas others have for their projects. I try to give my best opinion and ideas that may help others to improve. When giving feedback, I've noticed some things I have missed in my work which helps me learn more. I do feel I should be a little more critical as this could help others improve more. For the quality of me giving feedback, I would say they could be better but I am happy with feedback I have given and hope it helps.

Blog Comments
For the first weeks, I didn't do the feedback comments for some reason and I don't know why. It is an easy task and can help a lot. Its good to learn more about people and even discover what I have in common with them. I've seen some great introduction blogs and looking back at mine, I should have added a lot more. I feel when people look at my introduction blog, they may feel it is a rushed blog and they won't learn a whole about me. Even when looking at people's favourite game blog, they have talked about why its their favourite game while I only show an image of my favourite game and not let people know why its my favourite. When commenting on project blogs, getting my word count to 150 has taken me more time than I thought it would but I still manage to get 150 words in project blogs.

Looking Forward
I feel more comfortable commenting on other student's blogs now and look forward to seeing more of their progress. I'll try critique more when commenting on blogs. More blogs on my game project are needed for viewers to see and help give more ideas of what my game will look like in the end. I'm thinking about doing some new updated blogs for my game as like I said in my reading and writing blog, I have mixed feeling towards my project and I need to fix that. The blog comments and feedback have been helpful to me and I hope my comments have been helpful to others.

Enjoyed doing this blog and look forward to doing the next assignments in the coming weeks.

Week 8 Reading and Writing

For this week's blog it is about looking back at the reading and writing in blogs I have done so far in this semester.

Looking Back
There has been a lot of reading posts this semester and its probably the most reading I have done since secondary school. I think its interesting reading about games but to me I find reading difficult.  Reading is something I say to myself that I need to do more but I just never get around to it and I get distracted easily which takes me away from the reading. I'm a very slow reader as well. Learning new things about games is good as I feel its gives me better thoughts when making my game and when playing games.

 I've been doing most of the reading blogs the last few weeks and every week the readings are about something new.  Some readings have been missed. The readings included what makes games fun, learning about MUD games and cozy games. My favourite reading was the games decisions article which talked about cozy games. I liked learning about what makes a game cozy and when reading this article I thought of games I played that makes the player feel cozy. Some things I learned from the blog was factors that negate coziness and ingredients of coziness aesthetics.

When done doing the reading blogs each week, I feel I should get back to the readings a lot more to help me for my game project. I think some readings on Unity about the coding for example would have been useful to help us learn more about it as it I did encounter some problems in coding while doing the tutorials.

For my project right now, I have a mixed feeling towards it. I feel I have a good idea but not quite sure how the end product is going is to be. Maybe I'm thinking too big for my game but I feel with all the other module work, I need to do more on my project.

Biggest accomplishments so far in this class have been learning more about games through the readings and learning how to use Unity.


                                               

Image
This image is probably my favourite. It was used in my game fun blog and I feel it fits the title of the blog. The image I feel is good for our project as we should be having fun making our game in Unity and making it fun to play. Relaxing is something I need but work comes first.

Looking Forward
Looking forward, I hope my game turns out good. I've missed a few recent submissions for my project and need to get back to submitting them. Hopefully the remaining reading tasks will help me learn more. I'm thinking more about my project plus what to do with it and how the final game will look in the end. When first starting this module I was a little worried but it been an interesting module and I do look forward to see what happens next semester.

Unity Free Tutorials

For this week's Unity tutorials, I have begun working on the game I am going to make. The game I am making is a 2D platformer game and I have watched some tutorials for starting my game. I found a Youtuber name Brackeys who has some tutorials for making a 2D platformer in Unity.

For the first tutorial, it was the basic starting point of getting my character to move and the camera to follow the character. I downloaded the 2D assets pack to help me make my 2D platformer. The pack came with a character design and prototypes for the ground which the character walks on when in play mode. The look of this character will not be the final look in my game. At first everything was going well but when I first tried to enter play mode, once again I encounter errors again with the script just like in other tutorials. I was frustrated at first but I got it working by editing the script of Platformer2DUserControl. 

The Platformer2DUserControl script needed fixing with these these changes below:

In the script, delete the namespace reference 'using UnityStandardAssets.CrossPlatformInput;'
Finally: under 'Update' and 'FixedUpdate' replace 'CrossPlatformInputManager' with 'Input'. They should read: m_Jump = Input.GetButtonDown("Jump"); and float h = Input.GetAxis("Horizontal");

After this, I focused on the main camera to follow and be in the same position as the character. I worked on how smooth the camera would be, meaning how focused it would be on the character. It can help for player direction to see what lies in front of them when moving forward.

For the second tutorial, it was about adding art environment. I've used some artwork from the asset store that fits the idea of the stage level I have for my game as I didn't want to use artwork from the tutorial video. The tutorial helped me learn how to use the artwork for foregrounds and backgrounds. The tutorial also showed how the add grounds that can be used for platforms but I haven't added any yet.

I feel this was a good start at making my platform game and look forward to continue working on it.

Tutorial 1
Tutorial 2

                                                       
                                                                  Work in Unity

Game Fun

For this week's reading, the articles were about fun. Two articles I've read are by Noah Falstein and Richard Bartle.

The first article by Noah Falstein is about fun and what makes a game fun. Fun is described as a source of amusement or enjoyment. A paraphrase used is "we may not be able to describe fun, but we know it when we have it". Each person has their own way of having fun. The article talked about how human evolution over the last thousands and how humans maintained their place in their families and communities.

There are different types of fun explained and why people may like these.

Physical Fun
There may be a connection between our evolutionary heritage and games and entertainment in physical form. Our primary urge of survival instinct. Anything that threatens our survival gains our attention. Anything that involves threats to survival and countering those threats will gain an audience. Hunter gathering is compared to fitness sports today as they involve body fitness and good coordination.

Social Fun
This is about meeting new people. Online multiplayer and even single-players games in group settings have helped. New technology devices like phones have helped put people in contact with new people that is also likely to further the social aspects of video games.

Mental Fun
This would involve using our intelligence to focus on mental fun. We practice and improve our mental abilities. Our ancestors would think of how they would survive, what animals would that hunt for food and how will they hunt them. They learn from their experience and use for future events and us humans today learn new things that may benefit us in our future.

The second article by Richard Bartle was about MUDs which I have never heard of. MUDs have been active since 1978. From the reading, it discusses four types of players who play MUD games. These approaches may arise from the inner-relationship of two dimensions of playing style.

Achievers 
Regard points-gathering and rising in levels as their main goal.

Explorers
Like exploring the world to discover new locations.

Socializers
Interested in meeting new people.

Killers
Prefer to kill instead of focusing on a objective.

I enjoyed reading Noah Falstein's article as I liked it discussing how people from thousands of years ago are compared to people today. Richard Bartle's article was interesting at first but my interest declined through reading.

Noah Falstein Article Link
Richard Bartle Article Link

                                                                   

                                                           
                                                                  Image Link

Unity Tutorial 5

For this week's Unity tutorial, I focused skybox plus winds, fade screens and work on environments of a game.

The first tutorial focused on skybox and winds. First I started off with the skybox which is basically designing the sky that surrounds your game. This will help for the to look of your your game as your game may be in dark or bright setting. The lighting also helps with the shadows of objects in your game like a tree for example. I tested different colors sources for environment lighting to see how it would affect the game.

Next part of the first tutorial was on windzone which is controlling the wind for the environment of the game. I feel this is very useful for those who are making open world games as it will help give life to their game. When editing the turbulence and main wind, if you set to a high number, it gave a crazy look to my trees in Unity. We would need to keep the settings for the wind low so it won't seem broken or have a crazy look to it.

The next tutorial was creating a fading in the screen and creating a script which allows me to pick up an axe from a tree. First part was picking up the axe which was stuck in a tree. A cube with an invisible box collider was then positioned over the axe. Finally I added a script to the "TakeAxeObeject" which allowed me to take the axe from the tree. This part of the tutorial was very helpful as it is useful for a game that has players able to pick up weapons.

The final tutorial involved fixing bugs but it also involved adding a house and editing its look. I enjoyed working on the house to give it a look I liked. I had to edit the lighting on the house as well so it would look like it fits in with environment around it.

I enjoyed doing this week's tutorial and these tutorials are close to the end. I start working on my main project soon and I'm looking forward to it.

                                                                   Axe in the tree

Game Decisions

For this week's reading, it was about what productivity applications we can learn from games. The article focused on cozy games and how to design them. Coziness is a state or quality of being in control but still being engaged during times of rest.

Coziness itself refers to how strongly a game evokes the fantasy of:
Safety: A cozy game has an absence of danger and risk.
Abundance: A cozy game has a sense of abundance. 
Softness: Cozy games use strong aesthetic signals that tell players they are in a low stress environment full of abundance and safety. 

Factors that negate coziness include:

• Extrinsic reward: 
• Danger, fear, threat: 
• Responsibility: 
• Unpleasant distractions: 
• Intense stimulus: 
• Distance
• Confinement:
• Deception, betrayal, lies, insincerity 

Cozy games can fulfill player needs. They can create spaces for higher order needs like mastery and self-reflection.

There are a number of highly specific design patterns for each domain of game design. 
Ingredients of cozy aesthetics:

• Abundance: a theme of plenty and generousness assists in player calm and security. 
• Smooth Transitions: Gentle gradients between states, colors, or environments within the cozy area.
• Protection & Support: Clear signals of strong safety and comfort, from the environment and characters around the player, signal that this is a safe place in which to explore higher-order needs.
• Focus: Elimination of interruptions, pressures or sources of unwanted distraction, allows the player to feel a place is knowable and thereby becomes familiar and comfortable.
• Refuge & Escape: if there is an “outside” to this space, it is contrasted in its discomfort or danger. 
• Human-centric: The comfort and ease of humans in this space or system is apparent.

Cozy visuals cam help give games a sense of safety and comfort. This be achieved with bright colors, bright lights, natural materials, open space and contrast.

Cozy locations are places without danger and the player can do what they want. It can also allow creative expression where players can design the location to what they want.

Two examples of cozy places are below:

• Places that fill basic needs, including food, rest, warmth, and opt-in sociability. They should include visible places to comfortably sit, eat, drink, and view beauty.
• Transition spaces without danger or obligation: trains, backseat of a car, slow-moving spacecraft

This was a very interesting article as I feel it gave a good look as to what can make a player enjoy a game they play. I never really thought about coziness when playing a game but this article has help me think more about it when playing video games.

Links of interest:
http://www.lostgarden.com/
This week's article

https://medium.com/@kitfoxgames/designing-for-coziness-d33d2519a59e
Similar article

https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2018-11-05-how-to-design-for-coziness-and-kindness
Interesting perspective on how to design coziness in a game

                                       
                                              This would be a nice cozy place to relax in
                                                                  (Image Link)

Game Design Document

                                                         
                                                                    GDD screenshot
GDD Link

When first making a game design document with the example template given on Dundoc, I didn't have a clue what to do at first. After some time, I realized what I had to do. I have done document with some early ideas I have for my game. There was some sections I hadn't even thought of yet like sounds for my game and I'm not sure what I will do for sound right now.

There is still a long way to go. More things will be needed for my game idea and I'll work more on Dundoc.

Enjoyed this task and look forward to the next.

                                                         
                                                                       

Game Vision Statement

 This is my vision statement for the game I would like to make.
Article Link

Introduction: A working title I have for now is "The Hunt". You will play as a bounty hunter character who is hunting the most wanted person in this game world. The game will be made through Unity and will be a 2D based platform action shooter game. The age rating may be 12 but most people will be able to play it.

Description: You play as "Wolf" who is one of the best and most feared bounty hunters in this game world. He is tasked with capturing or killing the most wanted criminal in this game world. Through the game you play through multiple stages with different designs like a city and jungle design. Each stage will have different enemy types each with their own abilities. Along the way you may run into other characters like different bounty hunters who may help or try to stop you.

Features:

• Run/jumping/movement
• Enemies jump, fly, and attack you.
• Moving platforms
• Player boosts
• Score
• Timed gameplay
• Secondary targets

Genre: The game will be a 2D platform action shooter game. It will have sci-fi look and feeling to it.

Gameplay: It will be shooter game and the player's main weapon will be a laser rifle but will be to earn more weapons and abilities through progression. You will be able to run and jump. There will be platforms that may stay still or move and you will jump to them if they are below or above you. A score will be displayed through each stage and you will earn a grade when completing a stage and the game. Each stage may have hidden locations were you can extra score by taking out secondary bounty targets. A timer will also be display to see how fast you can beat each stage and will effect your grade. There will be boosts through the game that may assist you like regenerating health or you may not lose any health for a certain amount of time like 30 seconds.

Platform: I would like for this game to be played on a computer. I feel this platform may be best suited for this game.

Target Market: This game would be for players who may want to test themselves and see how good they can be this platform game.

Resources: I feel the main resources I need is planning my times for working on this game and prototyping to make sure everything works.

                                                              
                                                                           Image Link
                                                  Metroid is one of the inspirations for my game.

Unity 04 Tutorial

For this week's Unity tutorial, I worked on a dynamic hud and weapons. I missed Unity tutorial 1-3 during the weeks they were due but I've worked through them. This week I've had three video tutorials to watch and work on Unity.

The first video focused on dynamic hud. Here I worked on the text and extra cursor for the gem. It wasn't a very exciting tutorial in my opinion and I problems. Again like last week I had problems with the script. When I would drag the script to the gem, I would get an error. I was working beside a friend who finished this tutorial fine but even he didn't know what the problem was.

The second video, I worked on adding a weapon with animation. It was very interesting to work on animating the axe to work the way I needed it to be. It was good to have something in first person instead of just only walking.

For the third and final video tutorial this week, I worked on stopping my axe from clipping into objects using layers and add a sound effect to my weapon. A script was needed to swing the axe and give it sound. Still was having trouble again with the script as this time, the sound of the axe swinging wasn't working. I've copied the script I need from the tutorials and used them in visual studio but still I am having problems.

I've enjoyed working on Unity even if the scripts are annoying me and look forward to doing more work on it.

                                             Error I receive when trying to add the script

Game GDD

For this week's reading, I looked into stages in the design process and what I should consider when designing my game. I've read about generating ideas. There are many different starting points I must consider when making my game. Some of these are starting with core aesthetics (what do I want the player to feel?), start with technology ( what platform is this going to be on) and start with materials like art and game mechanics.
https://learn.canvas.net/courses/3/pages/level-5-dot-0-generating-ideas?module_item_id=44545

I've read about prototyping which is going to be very important as I will need to test my game a lot before it is finished to make sure everything is working properly.
https://learn.canvas.net/courses/3/pages/level-5-dot-1-prototyping?module_item_id=44546

An article I read was Design Considerations by Greg Aleknevicus. Components for a game is talked about. I've learned that using highly contrasting/distinguishable colours should be used for different characters. This would make characters different from one another like knowing who a player's enemies are. Use different components for different functions. Make sure icons are distinct from one another. Icons would be used to summarize something important that can help the player or cause problems for the player in a easy to read format. Example of this may be we see an icon that is green which we would assume would help us like it may heel our game character or if we see an icon that may be red, this may be dangerous to the player. Don't use a lots of icons, as some may not be distinguishable from each other which may cause confusion to the player.
Design Considerations by Greg Aleknevicus

Enjoyed the reading this week and I look forward to the next.

                                                                     Image Link

Unity Tutorial 3

I enjoyed doing this tutorial for Unity this week. For the last two weeks I didn't blog about the first two tutorials but now I've caught back up in Unity. This tutorial involved making a clock that works in Unity. The notes given helped me work through the tutorial and it seemed like a lot at first but it actually didn't take that long to get what I needed in Unity which I really liked. The notes were very helpful as it also showed images of where I would need to place things in Unity and I was able to easily place the contents for the script in Unity.

Unfortunately their was one problem I had which was actually getting the arms of the clock to move. For some reason I wasn't able to get them to move even though I followed the instructions but I must have missed something. Should spend more time looking closely at the instructions next time. The camera for Unity is annoying as I struggled to get a clear view of what my clock looked like at times.

This tutorial was very helpful as I feel I have learned more about Unity. Still have a lot more to learn in Unity and hopefully the next tutorials will help me more.

                                                               
                                                                       Tutorial 3 work

Game Idea Research

From the ideas I came up with in my game brainstorm ideas, I have chosen to do research on my platform game idea. The platform genre has been around for many years and has many mechanics that have given unique experiences in many platform games. Below are possible game mechanics I may implement in this game idea.

 Mechanic 1: The first mechanic I've research is probably the most important mechanic in a platform game which is jumping. I found some research on this mechanic from this link. In the link, it leads to a web page that contains a video that helps explain jumping in platform games and how they can make or break a game. What I like most about this video is how important fairness is to the player when jumping. It tells if a jump is hard, it's cheap or if a jump is easy, it's boring.

Mechanic 2: The second mechanic I may use is moving platforms. Basically the player would have to reach a platform that may be above or below them but the platform moves and the player may have to jump to reach them. With this, players will have to plan out how to reach the platform by timing their jumps.

Mechanic 3: The third mechanic I may add to this platform game is a speed boost mechanic. The idea of this is when a player collects an item like a gem for example, they will receive a boost in movement which makes the player move faster for a certain amount of time. This mechanic would help players reach the end goal of the mission/stage quicker in the game. I think this mechanic may be helpful if I added a feature where you may see how long you have spent on a mission so players may try do a speed run on the stages to see how quickly they can finish them.

                                                            Super Mario (Image Link)

Game Elements Reading

Article Link

For this week's reading, it was Formal Abstract Design Tools by Doug Church. Having read this article, I really enjoyed it as showcased designs that are used in games. The article talks about what makes us like and dislike a game.

Mario 64 is talked about in this article and the FADTs of this game are explained. In the game, players decide how to work out the right action that will help them progress through the game. The game designers create different ways an action can be done and players find out how to do the action. Example, when jumping a platform, maybe they can get to the platform by triple jumping and if they can't, they must figure out another way to reach the platform.

Sports games are also talked about and how FADTs are be used. If you make a free flowing sports game, the player's action decide how the game plays out so you can't make your own story.

Players being able to have control of what to do in games is what I feel attracts them to keep playing. I liked reading this article and feel it helped give me a better insight for creating my game.

Super Mario 64 Logo

Image Link

Feedback Thoughts

Below are my thoughts about the articles I read on feedback.

1. Silence the Critical Voices in Your Head
When first reading this, it focused on what most people do which is being critical to work we do. I am always critical of my work and a lot of the time I say its not good or no-one is going to like what I've done.What I like most about this article is that I feel we can relate to this. We may think about the negatives more than the positives of something we do and we are afraid it won't be good in people's eyes. If we are told something negative about some work we do, this is actually good as can learn from our mistakes and do better the next time. People may not want to say anything negative about some one's work face to face but it is important to know what we can improve on.
Link to article

2.Why It's So Hard To Hear Negative Feedback
I enjoyed reading this article a lot. When we hear negative feedback, it may put us down and make us feel negative about ourselves. In the article, the best solution to hearing negative feedback, is trust and honesty which I agree on. When giving or receiving feedback, we should be honest about the good and bad as this will lead to improving in the future. After reading this article I feel more confident in myself and shouldn't be afraid to take criticism on work I do as it will only fuel me and hopefully others to do better in the future.
Link to article

                                                              Feedback is good.

                                                                 Link to Image

                                                                       

Game Brainstorm Ideas

Below are ideas for a game I may make for my multimedia assignment.

1. My first game idea is a puzzle/riddles game. The idea I have in mind is a player takes control of a character and has to explore a open world and solve riddles to complete the game. Not only would you have to solve riddles, but there may be other dangers in this game that will try to stop you from completing this riddles like traps for example.

This game would test how smart you may be to able to solve these riddles. It may sound like a boring idea but I feel may encourage people to test themselves. I also feel this would actually test people's growth mindset to see if they like easy challenges but don't improve or challenges that get tougher but improve themselves along the way.
Puzzle Games

2. My next idea is an open world adventure game. The idea I have is for players to travel through an open world in order to get to a destination. They may travel through different parts of the world to explore. Inspiration for this game comes from the PS3/PS4 game Journey where players explore the game's world through its deserts and ruins while trying to reach their assigned destination.

The main objective of this game would not be too complicated as your only goal would be to reached your assigned destination. I would hope for this game to be a relaxing experience.
Open World Adventure Games
Journey

3. My next idea is a 2D platform game. In this game, players may control a character who may defend themselves with or without a weapon to get past NPCs through stages of the game. Each mission/stage through the game would look different and maybe have different NPCs with different abilities.

This idea would be for players that want to play a simple action platform games that may be similar to old classic games like Super Mario and Donkey Kong. I would hope it to be challenging but also fun.
2D Platform Games

4. My final idea would be an action arcade like game. My other ideas would probably focus on one player playing the game but I would like to make a game that multiple people can play. I would this game idea to be like old classic arcade games like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and X-Men with cartoon visuals that I hope would look well today.
Action Arcade Games

                                                          Creating Games is Fun.
                                                                   Image Link

Technology Tools

Before I started this course, I wasn't really familiar with any technology tools until blogging. Now I see there are more technology tools I can use for this semester. A tool that interests me is Graphics Creation. Bookmarking and image editing are also tools I can use. It will be fun to create my own graphics and I look forward to it. There are also course websites that will help me learn to use different tools. Some of these websites are Class Wiki and Google Docs. Hopefully each website I use helps and allows me to learn new things.

Blogging is a technology tool.

Image Link

Assignments

I've been on blogger for the past week, doing work and getting to know how to use blogger more. Now week 2 is coming with new assignments coming. This is all very different than other courses as all the work is done here and we read lecture notes for assignments online.

Some upcoming assignments that I am looking forward to are the Unity3D work and Project work. The Unity3D work is practical based tutorials to allow me to practice the fundamentals of Unity3D and this is something I haven't worked on before so I am excited to see how this works and what I'll learn. I'll be working on a semester-long project and I'm always keen to see with what I can do for projects.

There are extra credit assignments that can help. I will definitely be doing these extra assignments as I'm happy to gain extra credits that can help me if I miss out on work or want to be sure to get the best possible grade. Some assignments that interest me are the Wikipedia Trails and Growth Mindset work. I will be looking into these when I can.

Lot More work to come.

Image Link

Learning Growth Mindset

                              

Before doing this blog, I had no idea who Carol Dweck is and what growth mindset is. After learning about her and growth mindset, I am fascinated from what I've seen. I've seen some videos called The Power of Believing You Can Improve, Make Challenge The New Comfort Zone and How To Help Every Child Fulfill Their Potential and these introduced me to Carol Dweck. After watching these videos, I like Carol's views on education and found myself agreeing with her and even questioning myself about how I learn. Mostly everybody would probably want easy work and be done with it quickly, but I feel Carol wants everybody to learn something new and get better after completing work. I like the idea that praising intelligence could cause people to stay as they and not get better while praising process would drive people to want more hard work to get better.

After watching those videos of Carol Dweck on growth mindset, I am really interested in learning more about growth mindset and want to test myself in future work to see if I want only easy work or tougher challenges that help me get better. 

                                                            Keep learning to do better
                                                             (Image by Paula Piccard)

Introduction of a ITB Year 2 Student

                  

                                           Introduction

My name is Ciaran Dowling and this is my introduction. I am 19 years old and I am currently in the second year of  BA Creative Digital Media (BN021) in the Institute of Technology, Blanchardstown (ITB). I've recently started my second year with new courses for this year. Last year I had a number of different courses through the year and did a lot in each one. Some of these courses were Digital Photography, Web Development, Story telling & Narrative and Design Process & Practice. I successfully passed all my courses in the first year and didn't have to do any repeats in the summer. Story telling & Narrative was my favorite course as it was the one I was most interested as we did work such as analysis's on stories and movies plus in our final assignment we had to create an animation story which I really enjoyed. I felt very lucky that I passed all my courses last year as I felt I did much worse but somehow I prevailed. This year's courses look even more difficult but I'll just have keeping working and hopefully I'll do good.

About myself, some interests of mine are football, music, games and movies. Some of my favorite movies are Return of the King, The Dark Knight and Jaws. By doing Creative Digital Media, I hope to do something in films in the future as I have a passion for movies. I support Liverpool FC and watch them every week when they are on. Hopefully this is the year Liverpool actually win a trophy because we desperately need one. A hobby I do nearly everyday is going to the gym.

This is all part of my Multimedia Development Course this year. I hope to do well in this course and learn new skills that will help me in the future.

                                                       

                                                                            Image of me

Workshop 01

     

                                         Workshop 1

The first questions given to us in our first lecture was very familiar as last year were asked the same questions around semester 2. I thought moodle was very helpful through the year as it had all the work we had to do on it and all the notes from lectures we needed. One thing I need to improve is starting work early and finish them early as last year I would leave the work late and felt pressure to finish them. When talking in groups, it was good to hear from other people on what they liked and hope is improved.

The traffic lights exercise was tricky I have to say. Even in a group, myself and others struggled as we just thought it was cars go when light turns green and stop when red but their was more to it. I couldn't really figure out the solution to this exercise. I felt like the exercise didn't really help me with anything as I didn't really learn or gain anything. Usually when in a group I feel you would eventually figure out the solution together but not this time. Hopefully I might get some feedback that explains what I missed in this traffic lights exercise.

It was an interesting start to this course. Most of the work that will be done is going to be on this blog which at first hearing I wasn't very excited about. But after spending some time on this blog, I feel a lot more confident in doing work here. For the first week, there is a good bit work to do on this blog but I'm sure after some time, myself and others will be fine with whatever work is given.

I'm looking forward to this course and hope to do well in the end.

                                                                      Flickr Image

My Favorite Game

                                                      My favorite game is

                             

 

Rockstar's 2010 open world western game, Red Dead Redemption.

Red Dead Redemption

Hello

Welcome to my blog