All About Mimi

  Reading 12 I have now finally finished my chapter completely. After all this time researching and filtering out content I can now say I produced a chapter I am happy to show. I have learned a lot from my project and will use the knowledge learned in my future projects.  I have also learned so much from my classmates and it was great to help them too. Reading their work made me truly interested in their given topics. Nature game I now know so much about game aesthetics and find the topic way more interesting now that I have researched all about the topic. I was not always into gaming, in fact, I was edging toward disliking games but now I have gained a new appreciation. The work going on behind making a game an immersive experience is now very interesting to me. I find it admirable the dedication had when creating a world and story in a game and will look out for them in the next games I find myself playing.  I am also happy with the paragraph-making skills I have built ...

  Reading 11 the time has come for me to add my chapter of our class document with my peer's work. I have read over my work again and factored in my classmate's feedback and work. I want to be confident in my piece, so it is important to go over my chapter and really try to make it as good as possible. I feel I have a clear topic and have the information I need to make the reader understand. throughout this process, I felt like my conclusion would be my biggest struggle and I was right. Finding a way to summarise my topic in a quick and convincing way was difficult but in the end, I have completed my conclusion and am proud of it.  Book I aimed to make my chapter as informative as possible without it being too confusing. I stuck to my core topic and tried not to confuse the reader. Clear and concise was the goal and with the help of feedback, I feel I have reached that. I am excited for the class book to be released and can not wait to read all of our work. 

 Reading 10  This week is dedicated to graphics and images. After completing my chapter and receiving my feedback I am in need of some graphics. I am focusing on the aesthetics of the game so a visual ad to my chapter is more than necessary. I have looked for some free images to use and made some mock-up drawings of what I would like in my chapter.  First, I would like to demonstrate how the mood of a game can be changed by colour. I think I will do this by finding an image and changing the filter making it appear more bright or more dark and gloomy. My images should be examples of the points I make in my chapter. I also want to add images that display high resolution visuals and aesthetically preasing visuals showing the reader the difference between the two. I might add an image of a game that is a good example of a nice aesthetic. I was thinking Life is Strange or Badlands Badlands Next, I had to create an author bio about myself. Samira jailani, Mimi for short, is a 2...

 Reading 09 This week, I am assigned to look over and review the chapters of my peers and then begin working on my own chapters based on the criticism I have gotten from my classmates. I have written my chapters through much trial and error. I have made my introduction and conclusion for my chapter and I have added the bibliography I have been working on since the beginning of this task. I am glad to of had feedback from my peers and to of given feedback myself. I feel with every criticism I receive I am given the tools to improve my chapter of the book.  forest My chapter is about game aesthetics and their importance to storytelling and graphics.  The game aesthetic is the style of the game. Through shapes, sound and colour palate a game developer can make the player feel what they want to feel and react to what they want. Through the use of sinuous shapes a game can feel natural rustic and archaic, while sleek three-dimensional shapes can feel futuristic and mechanical....

 Reading 08 For this week's reading, I have to watch three videos on how to write an introduction and how to write a conclusion well. Next I am to write both for my chosen topic. in the first video starts out by saying your essay should open with a bang. It should grab attention and give the reader context, It should not open with a summary. it should show what the essay is about not tell what the essay is about. A good way to start your essay like this is to connect the topic to a larger event. It should be fun, write an anecdote, make a pop culture reference or song lyric. as long as it is relevant this should make your introduction more immersive and that is the goal. Conclusion The second video talks about how conclusions are key. The conclusion is the last chance to get the reader to understand and agree with you.  A conclusion is a good place for a solution. Make sure not to start a new topic. people will understand things are personalised to them. Make sure you are pass...

 Reading 07  For this week's reading task I am required to write at least five to six paragraphs about my selected topic, mine being game aesthetics. Each paragraph must have at least 5 sentences, including an introduction, conclusion, and at least one supporting phrase. Each student in the class is assigned to read and remark on two additional works made by peers. We must carefully examine them to ensure that they include everything specified above, and if not, we must indicate what is missing and what is not so that we may assist them in making adjustments and making it appear better.  review Since I am in the same chapter as them I have read over the work of Mary and Hanin. It was nice to see the work they both put into their pieces. Their paragraphs were easy to read and were not too long their topics were clear and concise. I also felt like I was learning from their research. I could not find any faults with their work, if anything, it took inspiration from their wor...

 Reading 06 As usual, this week starts with two tasks. The first is a video I should watch that will aid me in my overall reading project in creating a game. second is writing about it here. Beginning with the former I had to watch a video on how to make a good paragraph.   i n order to make an academic paragraph you need to indent a line or skip a line never do both. Have one central idea in a single paragraph, don't fill your paragraph with different ideas. But be sure to make the topic clear in the paragraph. All other ideas must relate directly to the topic everything should support each other. a paragraph can be as long as you want but 5 sentences should be enough. make sure everything is important and show reasons why. Examples are the best way to show your points. Next, the video talked about bridges, Bridges connect sentences and create flow through your paragraphs. I Learned to avoid repetition of words, especially in the same paragraph.  Paragraph I used th...

 Reading 05 This week I want to focus more on starting my book chapter. I have fully re-read the articles I have found and linked to my previous blog posts. First I had to watch the video for this week's reading test as well.  This week I learned how to code a document and create themes. I remember Harvard referencing from last year so I am sure that will come in handy for the bibliography of the class book I have already collected ten articles and videos I can source. The task for the research was to watch the video. Code each of my annotated bibliographies and there should be at least five themes. then I have to find the gaps in my research and I will need to write five sentences about each theme.  Harverd Referencing This was a really helpful task and now I know that I am missing a few topics from my research. Trying to figure out how to code a document was tedious in the beginning but I can see why it is a necessary step. In seeing what I have in such an organised man...

 Analysis This week I spent more time researching my topic of Game Aesthetics and watched a video on how to read a scholarly journal. Before watching I knew that it would be useful to me as I have had struggles picking up the most important piece of a document in a quick amount of time.  The video talks about how it is not necessary to read every word of the document in the first read. In the video, the guy says it is best to read the abstract of the article first, the abstract is a summary. Then you can decide if it is relevant to your research. Next, you skim the introduction looking for keywords. Highlighting some key sections give you future quotes you can use. Next skip all the way to the conclusion. It will tell us what the writer has found in their studies. after all, go back to what it's highlighted and deeply read around those paragraphs. I applied my newfound knowledge to some articles I read for my research about my chapter on Game Aesthetics. In the first article, ...

 Doing Using last week's research I will be reading through the articles I have collected for my chapter about game aesthetics. After reading and watching all my gathered I have found the path I want to lead my chapter.  One of the videos I found talked about the difference between game aesthetics and graphics. To put it short, game graphics are just the technical enduring of vectors. Better graphics equal more detail but that doesn't make the game good. The aesthetic is the style and is what makes a game look visually appealing. I want to focus on how important game aesthetics are to the game's graphics and story. One of the articles it talks about how lines and shapes can change the mood of a game e.g. circle shapes feel more innocent and youthful while triangles feel aggressive and forceful.  shapes in conclusion, I want to have my chapter talk about game aesthetics being the key to enhancing the story  and graphics of a game.

 Planning This semester, we will all write a chapter of the collaborative book our year group will be making. After looking at the spreadsheet. I want to be focusing on the game design chapter. I want to focus on game aesthetics as a sub-topic. Although I feel this topic also goes into game immersion I will focus on it through the game design lens. I will research it through articles and Youtube videos. My plan is to use keywords to gather a handful of articles that can be my starting point, a foundation. Then I will research the information deeper through a few more articles. Starting with this week I will find my foundation articles and youtube videos.  game aesthetics I found a great video on aesthetics vs graphics on Youtube. It talks about how high-resolution graphics don't work unless you create a greater aesthetic.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5oK8UTRgvJU I also found an article about te aesthetics of game art tat discusses the psychology of shapes, lines and v...

  Game Stories For this weeks reading tasks we learn about game stories and how the narratives affect the game design. I started with the article "What every game developer needs to know about story".  I learned that as games evolve, people crave more depth. .game developers want to sell their wares to more people. And the story is a universal human experience. Games are not films. They are a type of story that is different from all previous forms of story, while also sharing the same characteristics and tropes as all other types of story. I learned that some misconceptions are that a story needs dialogue. Story is about conflict. conflict can be between the main character's self, an opposing character, against the environment and against the supernatural. Article Next, I read about a basic structure of a game, and the skeleton I should use for my story in my designed game. First, I need a hero, a protagonist. next, there should be an "inciting incident" to prop...

 Games GDD Today we are learning about game design documents. Game design documents Are documents that talk about everything that goes into your game. There are two main reasons for GDD documents. The first is memory aid  Many important design decisions define in detail how the game works. Game development usually takes a long time, so if you don't write it down, you may forget your initial design decisions. Designers use design documents to document design decisions as they are made. That way, you don't have to solve the same design problem over and over again. Next, it is also used as a great communication tool. Teams often collaborate with many people to develop games, so we need an effective way to communicate our design decisions. Communication with design documents is not one-way but establishes a dialogue between you, the designer, and your team. By growing with the development process and creating easy-to-comment documents, you can lay the groundwo...

  Game Decision  This week we are learning about flow and decision making in game design. Flow is the psychological theory that we can adapt to create engaging and challenging games. This helps make framework of game play based on human psychology. The flow state is when a player is presented  with a challenge and they really engage with it. In simpler terms it is when you get lost in a game to a point where your sense of time is warped. An engaged player is highly likely to consume more, unlike a disinterested player who is more likely to forsaken the game all together. Flow progression has three stages. First a player is presented with a challenge. the way to go about this would be to create a challenge slightly more difficult than the players abilities. This is done using a flow graph. Players will quickly lose interest in games if success is too easy. If levels are too hard the player is more inclined to abandon the game. on the other side of the graph if a game is to...

 Game Fun  Tic Tac Toe This week we read about how games and fun coincide. Youtuber The Game Over-analyser discusses what makes a game fun, is fun a naccassity in game making? and how our brains react to fun. He first talks about the book 'Theory of Fun' by Raph Koster. Raph states that game needs a rich possibility space for learning and should reveil infinite depth and that is what makes it fun. He used the example Tic tac Toe and Go. Tic Tac Toe is simple with limited amounts of outcomes this makes it less interesting compared to Go, a complex strategic game that requires more mental stimuli meaning there is more for us to learn from.  Koster says we as humans are a "pattern recognition species" and that we learn in chunks stored in various patterns in our brains.any new learning situation  presented to the mind causes a dopamine rush, this is fun. Examples given were chess and poker. Chess teaches you strategy and oversight while poker teaches you probability and...

Week 9 Reading and Writing Overall the reading I have been doing this semester has been really resourceful. I found it a very interactive way to learn about game development. It was a unique way to write notes, what I learned stuck because I had to write in my own words and opinion for the source material. I enjoyed the reading task more than others especially the Game MDA task. It was my introduction to the headspace and framework of a game developer. Hearing the intricacies of game development was interesting as I didn't think much thought of it before. The amount of detail and thought that goes into developing a game turned out to be way more than I had expected. The Game MDA really helped form a skeleton for my game. I used the three tools; Mechanics, Dynamics and aesthetics to really bring out the best game I could materialise. I have unfortunately fallen behind on some of my tasks which makes choosing my best accomplishments a little more difficult. Hopefully, I will use my r...

Games MDA Games MDA This week we are talking about Game Mechanics, Dynamics and Aesthetics framework. It is the most accepted game design. It was designed by Robin Et Al. MDA framework helps designers consider the players perspective as well as their own. This encourages experience-driven design. Aesthetic - "describes the desirable emotional responses evoked in the player, when she interacts with the game system". Aesthetics focus on what makes a game enjoyable in great detail. Through direct vocabulary eg. discovery, challenge, expression, a designer can understand what about their game is "fun". Dynamics - "describes the run-time behaviour of the mechanics acting on player inputs and each othersí outputs over time".Dynamics work to create an aesthetic experience eg. adding time pressure to a game creates the aesthetic experience 'Challenge'. Mechanics - describes the particular components of the game, at the level of data representation and algo...

 Game elements L earning about game elements made me realise how complex a simple game can be .  Game elements are the components  that make up a game.  I learned that there is no set in stone description of what a game is. They came up with common themes when describing a game.  Some  of the themes would be, a set of rules, a goal, conflicts and decisions that lead to  an uncertain outcome.  Next, the blogger writes about 'atomic elements', a term I first heard today. They are named as such because when isolated they are the smallest parts of a game that can be studied individually. There is no exact definition for an atomic element but once you look at each element a theme starts to form. This helps game designers know what they need to build their very own game. Atomic Elements      Players         Resources Player     Interaction  Objectives      Game State...

Game Design  During this week's reading task I read the "Four Basic Methods For Generating Ideas" article. The article speaks on how to improve your abilities in producing ideas with four techniques the writer has chosen to focus on. The first technique is Concentration. The writer states that a study shows that “ any changes in the environment positively affect the generation of ideas”. They also believe curiosity is the key to creativity. Just changing a small routine can aid you to come up with fresh new ideas. Game design Technique two is Brainstorming. Although basic, brainstorming is an effective way to generate ideas and is used heavily in the industry. Next Scamper. This method has its own subset of techniques e.g. Substitute (replace something in an existing project), Combine (Mix two existing genres) and Adapt (update old mechanics to new Technologies). The last technique is considered the hardest, The Ramsey method. For this method you collect the maximum amou...

Time Strategies  I've always had issues with time management, the only time I am punctual is when I am being depended on, usually that means group projects. To my advantage this year has quite the few group projects in the curriculum. I will, though, have to shape up on my punctuality for the modules that don't, luckily this week's tasks will teach me a few things about time management. Time Pixabay The article I chose to read  11 ways unsuccessful people mismanage their time . I found it very enlightening. It begins by saying "time management can help determine our success" which I believe is true, leaving work till last minute can lower the quality of your work and waste the time spent leaving it with an air of anxiousness. Although I was familiar with the ways in which people mismanage their time, it was still important for me to read them out loud. A really useful tip given was to make rituals. Having activities not work related spread out throughout the day c...