Chapter 12 and 13 Journal Entry

     The basis of Chapter 12 of Reality is Broken is about Mission Impossible. Jane McGonigal starts off the chapter by talking about epic wins. These are feelings that gamers achieve after facing an extreme challenge. She believes that these should not only happen in games, but in life too. This would be tough, because as Jane says, epic wins are, "few and far between"(McGonigal, 201). Life does not give you the opportunity to be a hero everyday, but when it does, jump at the chance. Your life should be full of risks and chances. The more risks you face, the more opportunity for reward. Jane wants more epic wins in the real world because as a game designer, she knows what good can come from these. I can she where she is coming from with this. A great example of epic wins in reality would be Rosa Parks. She refused to give up her seat for a white man who did not have one. This inspired something called the Montgomery bus boycott that lasted about a year. What Roas Parks did sparked civil rights movement everywhere in the south and eventually led to equality for all. This is what you call an epic win in reality. Jane McGonigal just wants nothing but the best from us and i believe that isn't too much to ask for.
     Chapter 13 describes Collaboration Superpowers. She talks about how multiplayer and what good could come from them. Multiplayer games teach team work and strategy. I like her example of a game mode in the Halo games called Forge. In this game mode, you are allowed to build and create and put your mind to the test. This is what we should do in reality. Put your mind to the test, because possibilities for creating new and unique things are endless. When people get creative, amazing things can come from it. Big inventions come from people being creative, such as the sticky note, plastic, microwave ovens, velcro, super glue, and many other creations. Our mind is such a useful tool, we just have to push it and let our creative juices flow.

Chapter 10-11 Journal Entry

     Chapter 10 of Reality is Broken describes ways to bring happiness to the world. The goal she is trying to complete is something she calls "happiness hacking". What Jane means by this is the more happiness you put into a video game, the happier the player will be in the real world. They would then spread this happiness to others and so on. This idea seems fine on paper but it is just hard to actually complete. Jane created games that would include "happiness hacking", but I don't think they turned out so well. One example is her game, Cruel 2 Be Kind, where players must kill people with kindness. This game is played in the real world with a group of people. While playing this game, you might actually compliment people who aren't playing. Although this sounds harmless, it would sound like some sort of weird joke if a group of people were constantly complimenting you for a certain amount of time. Jane also created another game called Tombstone Hold 'Em. You play this game in a graveyard with a group of people. A graveyard is a place where people to go to grieve and pay respects, not fool around. While these games seem like fine ideas, they are a bit strange.
     Chapter 11 of Reality is Broken is talking about The Engagement Economy. Jane believes that if people can challenge themselves and strive for a bigger goal in games, they will be able to do it in reality. This has seemed to be working in certain ways. One example is something I have actually came upon in the past. It is called Free Rice. The objective is to complete questions and for every right answer, the website, freerice.com, will donate 10 grains of rice to help fight world hunger. I believe if more games were made like this, then big things in the world can be achieved.
   

The Walking Dead Game Narrative

Dylan Broussard

Tanya Sasser

English 101

24 September 2015

The Walking Dead Game Review

The Walking Dead, a game by Telltale Games, is a game based around a zombie apocalypse that has started in modern day Georgia. You play as ex-history professor Lee Everett. You and your new friend Clementine, a nine year old orphan, must now survive this new way of life. The Walking Dead is different from other games. You as a player get to design the story. The things you say, the actions you do, and every other choice you make will affect the outcome of the game. The developers used plot, characters, and mood/atmosphere to effectively create a exciting and action packed game.

The plot of The Walking Dead is pretty simple to understand. You, Lee Everett, must survive a zombie apocalypse. You start out with nothing, but depending on the choices you make, you might gain friends and other things to help you on your journey. I liked that your choices affect the outcome of the story. Whether you are nice and honest to everyone or you choose to become a hateful liar, the story might change. I am glad that I could feel as I was a part of the story. I felt that I was in Lee Everett’s shoes.

screenshot from The Walking Dead

For example, in this photo you have the choice of what to say to Clementine. These choices not only affect the present, but will affect your future The choices that were made were my choices. Overall, being able to partially be a part of a character’s life and feel what they feel is what I believe made this game’s plot amazing and why it won Best Game of the Year in 2012.

The mood and atmosphere of The Walking Dead brings the game to life. Mood is defined as, “a state or quality of feeling at a particular time”(Dictionary.com). Things like anger, happiness, confusion, and sorrow are a few examples of the many things you and the characters might feel during gameplay. As you played The Walking Dead you feel like you were in the movie theatre, watching a horror movie. You felt scared. You felt the suspense pouring out of the screen. You felt the tears of the characters as they wept. It was all I asked for in a game and more. I believe that I felt the most emotion when Kat took Duck into the woods to kill him but killed herself instead, and you sat there and watched him cry as he looked over his wife’s dead body, trying to decide if he wanted to, or could actually kill his son.

kenny crying about his son's death

Each character and the mood they bring to the story are all special in their own way.

The characters of The Walking Dead each play a specific role in the game. The things said could either make or break a friendship. It is amazing how each and every character reacted to the speech choices you made. I really wish you could play through the eyes of each character.

walking_dead characters

I understand that this would of been hard to do since characters were dying or leaving left and right. It was nice to be in the shoes of a character such as Lee. It made you think of choices not only of what is best for you, but for Clementine as well.

The Walking Dead was a very intense game that puts you on the edge of your seat wanting to know what is in store in the next episode. It has a creative story that is warped around the choices you choose to make. It has atmosphere that will drive your emotions wild. It also has very unique characters that make you question human nature. It is an incredible game that should be played by everyone.

Game Design Post Mortem

     My group, The Corner Crew had the game mechanic conflicts/obstacles. To re-create the game uno, we added a +3 and a +5 card, a shuffle card, a new rule to calling out, "Uno!", and an all or nothing rule. After getting our feedback, I believe we did a great job on our presentation. Although there were good things, there were also things that went wrong. There is always room for improvement.
     My team and I did some things very well. Each person on my team had something to say about our newly designed uno game. A group described our new game as, "more interesting", and that, "they had a very effective way of adding different conflicts in the game". On the feedback forms, we only got agrees and strongly agrees. I thought that this feedback was very nice and positive. I am glad that our game was simple enough for people to understand and want to play.
     During our presentation, we did not have many things go wrong. One of the biggest things that did not go right is that our slideshow would not open. This was not our fault because the internet was not working properly, but it was still something that could of been fixed.
     There were a few things that we could improve in. One thing that we could do next time is have a backup plan just incase our slideshow decides that it would not like to fail again. Another thing we could do next time is actually make props to use. We only described the cards we were adding, but next time I believe we should actually make these new cards. It is not a whole lot, but I believe it will make the presentation more interesting.

   

Game Mechanic Case Study

Dylan Broussard

Mrs. Sasser

English

16 September 2015

A Change In Chess

Chess is a very popular and very old game. The origin is not exact but many believe that chess started in India around the 6th century. The original version created in India is not the version we most commonly know today. This version we know today was set up in Europe around the 15th century (History of Chess).

Chess is a simple game to understand. It is played on a board of 64 squares. Each player begins the game with two rows of eight pieces. The first row is made up of pieces called pawns. These pawns can open the game by moving forwards one or two squares. After their first move, the pawns can only move forwards, never backwards, one square. The pawns can only attack diagonally. Behind the row of pawns are eight other pieces. From left to right, these pieces consist of a rook, a knight, a bishop, a queen, a king, another bishop, another knight, and finally, another rook. The rooks are allowed to move left, right, forward, or backwards as many spaces as the player desires. The Knight can move two squares any direction, except diagonally, and then one more square at a 90 degree angle. This makes an “L” shape. The Bishops may move as many squares as the player desires, but only diagonally. The queen may move as many squares as the player desires in any direction. And finally, the king can move any direction the player pleases, but only one square at a time. Although the king can not do much, he is the most important part of the game.

After the end of a chess game, the board is set back up the same way it was in the beginning. Chess is by far one of my favorite board games. It amazes me that just after four moves in chess, there are over four million possibilities. You could play countless numbers of chess games and never play the same way twice. It is one game that you can always play differently to give it a challenge. Chess is hard but what if there was a way that you could change the rule of the board set up so there was a new way to play chess? The chess game board set up of today’s version of chess has already been thought about and analyzed to the point that not many new ideas come from it , but a new version of chess where each piece in the second row was randomized from the start of the game gives new theories and new possibilities for the game.

Randomizing the second row of pieces each game creates new challenges. For example, instead of having rooks on the outside corners of the board, there might be a knight and your queen there now and rooks in their places. Now, players are forced to think about strategy differently. The ways players usually start a game of chess would not be possible due to the change in pieces. Opportunities would strike at different times and in different ways now. Opportunities such as taking pieces from your opponent, or ways a player could get control of center of the board. It could give not so good players the chance to actually compete with good players, force more thinking time during each turn, and dozens of other new possibilities.

Chess is a game of strategy that has been around for hundreds of years. Because it is so old, there is not a lot of new theory that comes along. By randomizing the back row of pieces, chess theory is now challenged and re-created. It takes away the assumption and instinct of regular chess and gives it a new and challenging feel to this old game.

Uno System Map

With our new version of Uno, many more conflicts were added to the game to make Uno more challenging.

Game Mechanics Analysis

UNO!

Most people have heard of Uno. No, I do not mean the number, I mean the card game. It was invented in 1971 by Merle Robbins. He was a barber in the town of Reading, Ohio who decided that he would create his own card game after he got in a dispute with his son about the rules of another card game, Crazy Eights. After saving up enough money, Merle Robbins began to manufacture thousands of decks of his new card game and sell them in his barber shop. The game grew to become so admired by families that Merle sold the rights to the game in 1981.

Today, Uno has sold over 150 million decks and has come out with multiple themed expansions and video game versions. This could all be thanks to the way the game is set up. The game mechanics of Uno have made it a unique and simple card game that can be played by people of all ages.

The rules of Uno are simple. Each player is dealt seven cards face down. The other cards are put in the middle of the players face down as a draw pile. The first card from the top of that pile is picked up and put down facing up and is now the action card. The player to the left of the dealer begins the game. This player must meet the requirement of the card. For example, if the card is a blue three, the player can either put down a blue card or any card with a number three on it. The player can also put down special cards if they match the color of the action card. These cards are skip turn cards, reverse turn cards, draw two cards, draw four cards, and wild cards, which allow the user to switch the color of the action card. The word uno comes into play when a person has only one card in their hand. Once they only have one card, the player must scream, “Uno!”. If they are caught not saying uno before another player has placed a card down, the player with one card must draw two cards. These rules are easy to comprehend and easy to follow, which is part of the reason Uno has had so much success. They provide a big enough challenge that it keeps the game entertaining. It keeps players on the edge of their seats, awaiting to see what the person before them has in store for the next round of gameplay.

Every game ever made has had goals or one goal that must be accomplished. Uno has one goal and that goal is to have no cards in your hand by the end of the game. Achieving a goal gives gamers a thrill. The feeling of victory is a feeling like no other. It sends a sense of happiness, joy, pride, and many other positive feelings throughout our bodies. Not only is the goal of Uno to win the game, it is also about experience. Uno is a game played by multiple people at a time. In a way, Uno forces you to be social and interact with the people who are also playing the game. This is one of the biggest goals that any game designer has. They want the people playing their game to have a great time. If they are not having fun, then something is wrong.

Feedback is basically an action and its reaction. There are two types of feedback. The first is positive feedback. Positive feedback usually tends to speed the game up or put one player ahead of everyone else. The playing cards themselves are positive feedback. Playing a card such as a skip a turn card speeds up the rotation of turns at that time. Negative feedback is the total opposite of positive feedback. Negative feedback tends to make the game longer or to make all players equal. An example of this would be giving a plus two or plus four card to someone who only has one or two cards left. The feedback in Uno really depends on who is playing an who is receiving the cards.

Conflicts and obstacles show up everywhere. You could have obstacles in your games or you could have obstacles in your life. Obstacles are put in place to make a game challenging. If there is no challenge in a game, then the game tends to get boring. The obstacles or conflicts that a player runs across in Uno are the cards. Skip a turn, reverse turn, draw two, and draw four cards are all obstacles that put setbacks in a player’s strategy. In my team and I’s version of Uno, a different obstacle was added compared to a regular game of uno. This card was called the queen pig card. The rules of this card state that it acts like a wild card where the user gets to pick a new color of the action card. The twist is that each player, one at a time in a turnstile basis, must pick up one card until the color of the user’s choosing is found. Nothing brings more excitement to a player than overcoming an obstacle or conflict. For example, after a NASCAR driver wins a race, they usually grab the checkered flag and do a few spinouts in their car. In Uno, one player per game can overcome the obstacles of receiving cards that have a negative outcome on their strategy, but are still able to leave the game a victor. This is what a game developer wants. They want their obstacles to be challenging but not challenging enough where the player or players leave the game because it is too hard. They want to see players victorious and enjoying their game.

Interactivity is also a mechanic that pops up in games. Interactivity means two-way flow, or an influence from one person to another. Uno’s turn based style gaming is the way in which players interact. After one player goes their turn, the turn flows onto the next person and then to the next person and so on. It is also the conversation that players usually have among themselves. Usually, a player will voice their opinion on a move that was made. This is usually followed up by another player’s opinion. Interactivity is what keeps a game intact. If there is no activity coming from within the game, then there is no point.

These mechanics are the building blocks of game. They are the reason that Uno is such a popular game today. Uno’s use of their mechanics make it a great family fun card game. Uno can give gamers a different challenge and an escape from the technological side of the gaming industry. It is great that you can choose what you want to play based on the strategy of other players. The game could last five minutes, or the the game could last fifty minutes, you just don’t know. In the end, being able to scream Uno and lay down the last card you have in your hand is what makes the experience of stress and excitement worth it.

Optional Mission: Reading Journal

     The Introduction and Chapter 1 of Reality Is Broken by Jane McGonigal was really interesting. Her facts in the Introduction and in Ch. 1 really caught my attention. For example, I found it remarkable that there are "more than 5 million "extreme" gamers in the United States play on average forty-five hours a week"(McGonigal 12). Five Million?! That is an insane number of people! I know that there are people that play games for a living but I was not aware that there were that many people.
     What really stood out to me was the fact that she says that games are "hard work"(McGonical 28). I have never put much thought into it but she is correct. Games are hard work. Games are made to challenge us. That is the whole point of a game. I have never though of it as hard work because as I kid I played games when I was bored or had nothing else to do. After reading Ch. 1, I have looked at everything I have ever played much differently now. I am one of those people who always want to win. I always want to beat everyone else and be number one. But you can't be at the top of the leaderboards by not working for the objective. You have to put some effort into it. I never thought of it that way but it makes a lot of sense now.
     Jane McGonigal wants to change the world by having people play video games. She wants people to play video games to help them out with real world problems. This strikes my curiosity. How will she do it? She has already been called upon by major companies such as McDonalds, and Intel to help make gaming an "innovation strategy"(McGonigal 15). She has already paved the way for categories of games that focus on positively impacting the world. I look forward to reading the rest of her book and seeing how she will use games to end major problems such as poverty, famine, armed conflicts, any many other quarrels the world is facing.

By far, this is one of the best games I have ever played.

Hello people. I use to go to Weaver High School a long long time ago but moved to New Jersey from the 9th to the 12th grade. I played lacrosse and basketball but I enjoy any and every sport. Now I am back in Alabama to attend college at JSU! Im majoring in criminal justice and yeah that's about it haha. I guess I'll see everyone in class on Wednesday!