Friday and Wed 4/18 & 4/20 Art 146

Hello everyone!

                This is Wes and I'll give you guys an update on the Art 146.  On Wednesday 4/18, we begin an exercise vision boarding.  Vision boarding is all about forming an image of the game by collecting images that will form the game or give a rough idea of the game.  So we cut images from magazine that seem interesting and let the images form the game idea.

               Most of the group formed their game ideas through cutting out the images or drawing out the game.  My group had some trouble, since we weren't sure what our game was about.  So we formulate the best rough idea of our game and plan to playtest it on Friday.

              On the Friday 4/18, the groups begin to playtest their games.  Most of us were successful, but for our group, we decided to over hull the game, since it didn't seem very exciting.  It mostly involved a person moving from one area to another area and beating a person in a small game.

             So with our second version we came up with a game involving dodge ball where the throwers have to hit the other team's dodgers four times (but moved to a different spot to increase difficulty).

            After our planning and testing, we went to the woodshop to have our first introduction for some of us on tools and safety procedures in using wood materials.

           That is all for the third week of Art 146.

Update Monday: 4/16/2012 Wes Art 146 Journal

Hellooo  I’m Wes, one of the documenters for the second week of Art 146 Game Experiment.  For this second week of Art 146, I’ll be documenting along with fellow documenter Karla of the activities that we of the students of Art 146 have been doing. 

            After going through the first week of getting the feel of how games are made and the possibilities of adding values to the game mechanics, we were given a task to come up with game ideas.  How we do this?  We went over several ideas with professor Heather.  Some of the ideas were to let our minds wonder around and open ourselves to random thoughts, bounce ideas off each other, and the classic think in the shower! 

            We also did an interesting exercise where we try to identify what a saw is.  Not just by its technical definition and what it does.  But also what is has been used in and what it reminds of , such as a popular culture reference in the movie Texas Chainsaw Massacre, murder mystery, and so on. 

            I wish I could post some pictures, but my partner Karla, beat me to the punch there.  Don't want to post redundant images, that you readers have already seen.  If you haven't have a look at Karla's post as well.  Now back to the news.

After going through several methods of possible ways to come up with game ideas, we then proceed to do an activity call the Game Walk! What is Game Walk?  It is a relaxing activity where an individual walks around by yourself and let the world give you ideas as you let your mind wonder around.

            Personally after, I wrote done quite a list of ideas into my handy notebook to store my ideas and random thoughts that went through my head.  There was so much that went through my head, it was a bit hard to think of which idea to use for a game idea.

            After everyone going through the Game Walk we came back together and formed teams to try to come up with a game idea from our ideas we had gathered.  There are four teams that were formed and all of us used the brainstorming exercise to develop our ideas.  My group did have an interesting idea with scavenger hunt and construction, but the idea needs more work.  Based on my observation of other groups, one group seem to be doing an interesting idea involving several people misguiding a persona blind folded. 

           My group was struggling a bit with ideas, since there were not much constraints on what games ideas we can come up with.  But I think my group will be able to pull off something in the next couple days.

         That is all for my entry.

Wooooo!!! its Friday! Testing games today! :)  

Different groups incorporated different elements of game design into their projects, making each game exciting!

I was very happy with how most games played out. Everyone seemed to be having fun, and the art department became a perfect place to host games. 

As for my groups game, Nest Quest, we realized that something we could improved on is the marking of the boundaries such as with cones, or spray paint. As designers of this game we were worried that players would spread too far out. We want to make certain adjustments and modifications like making eggs instead of using dodge balls and creating a small hive for the bee's to place the winning eggs. Hopefully these alterations can make our game more effective. 

Also, today we had a woodshop demo. Bryan and Mario were really great in showing us the machines and all that is available to us. Hopefully our class can begin to see more wood material integrated in future games! 

 

So assignment #3 continues. Today in class Heather was talking about MDA framework which represents Mechanics ( rules you play a game by), Dynamics (things that happen as a result of the rules), and Aesthetics (the packaging, what the game looks like).

Through the MDA framework, game designers question the affect that their games have on an audience. What emotions do I want my players to feel? What do I want them to think about? Questions we needed to think about as we continued to modify our game.

When we gathered in our groups, we researched through different magazines for MDA elements that would help our peers get a visual of what our game was about. Browsing through the magazines helped our team obtain more ideas that could improve our project.

Once all the team were done, each time had a collage of images that represented the ideas of each group. This method of visualization really helped set in stone our final game ideas.

 Can't wait to see each groups games in action! :)

Hey guys my name is Karla B! Wes and I giving you guys an update on what we are doing this week in class. On Monday, our instructor Heather, introduced us to our third experiment: Game Walk.

The concept behind this assignment was to start thinking about different ways of brainstorming such as when you are showering, meditating, drawing, walking, etc.

One method that Heather introduced to the class was a mind map (basically a spider web of ideas). The purpose of this exercise was to simply jot down any and all crazy, wacky, unrelated things that came to mind that could pertain to a single word or concept.

After wards, everyone was given the task of taking a 30 min walk, looking for a physical object, something we could make a game about. The goal was to seek places and things you normally wouldn't think about, challenging the definition of what games are. There were 2 rules we had to follow in this walk:

1.We had to be open to possibilities, be mindful

2.We had to walk alone

Although these rules seemed fairly simple and easy, they were actually quite hard to follow. I am not much of a walking alone type of person. Once we had completed this assignment we got into our groups and started discussing our experiences, and what we came up with.

My group came up with the idea to have a capture the flag, tag type of game called Nest Quest. There are two teams: the Birds and the Bees. The object of the Birds is to hide their eggs and capture the Bee's by grabbing the bee's bandana. Meanwhile the Bee's are trying to capture the Birds eggs and bring that egg back to the hive. The team that completes their task first wins.

So far this is our rough model for a game. I will keep you beautiful readers updated as the week goes by on more class adventures and projects.

Experiments in Game Design

Welcome to Experimental Game Design, a course being taught Spring Quarter 2012 through the art department at UC Santa Cruz.

Experimental Game Design is a class designed and taught by Heather Logas, sponsored by Jennifer Parker and funded through a grant from the UCIRA.  It is an interdisciplinary course comprised of roughly half computer science majors and half art majors.  Students create game "experiments" in different mediums that explore the space of what can be done with games as an expressive medium.  This blog will feature articles and visuals contributed by the students to highlight the activities of the class.