I Wish I Would Have.... [Blog 9A]

Well, I was excited to present our game design project.  For the first time all quarter, I got to work with some GIRLS for a change, who wanted a good grade as much as I did.  We met in the library one evening and discussed our game concepts; what we wanted it to look like, the music behind it, the characters, etc.  Leaving the library (after someone else had offered to do the powerpoint so I wouldn't have to for a 5th time, another plus!), I was feeling good.  It was Monday and this project was already done.  What a great end to the quarter this was turning out to be!

We presented in class on Friday, along with everybody else, but as I watched other groups present, I noticed some things in their powerpoints that we didn't have.  Pictures, music, sound effects.  None of these were required, but nonetheless, it made their presentation, you know, prettier.  We did the best presentation we could; I was feeling good and confident.  After all, I've maintained about a 100 all quarter in this class (my TA is pretty frickin' awesome with grading).  Well, grades on Blackboard had a different story.  My first B+.  Ouch, even though I shouldn't really be saying ouch.  An 88 is not bad!  But you know, compared to the rest of the quarter...let's just say I was kind of wishing I had done the powerpoint myself like every other week.

Thankfully, I can make up for it in this blog by reflecting on a couple of my mistakes with the presentation.  Nothing I like doing more than blatantly pointing out my own flaws as a creative person.  Just kidding, I'm over it.

The first thing we could've done was add some pictures to spice up the visual attraction of our presentation.  We left our audience kind of in the dark when explaining what our game would look like.  We wanted it to be a side scrolling game and very colorful and cartoony, kind of like this picture:

Side-scrolling view, colorful, cute

We also wanted to convey to the audience of how our character was going to look (you could pick boy or girl, kind of like Wii style) and how he would advance to the next level: by collecting balloons!  Sorry he looks like Harry Potter, but there's nothing really wrong with that, right?

We could've also added in some music as an example of what we wanted to be coming out of the speakers when our little kid demographic would play this game.  The second part of my soundscape I did early in the quarter would have definitely sufficed for this.  It was upbeat and jazzy and even had kids laughing in the background.

In my elementary years, I was actually required to create a board game for an accelerated program I was in (yea, I was one of those kids).  I came up with a great idea, but when it came time to formulate and explain the rules to other people, I got stuck.  I think the same kind of thing might have happened here.  Although we explained the rules and delimiters pretty well to our audience, I definitely feel like it was the most difficult concept to present; we had an excellent idea of how the rules would work in the game because, well, we created it and spent an hour sorting it out.  If you explain a game to someone, usually it takes a little application on their part to fully grasp it, right?  You wouldn't just try to explain to someone how to play Euchre.  You first explain it, then play two or three open hands, then re-explain what trump means before actually diving into a game.  Same thing goes for this I think.  We knew that rules are things that the player has to do in order to advance, so we tried to tell our audience about the criteria needed to be met during a level for the player to advance (i.e. they have to give an answer).  We tried to make it clear through our delimiters what things would be holding a player back (i.e. the answer the player gives needs to be correct; the player cannot advance until the required amount of balloons collected per level matches the quota set by the game).

Overall, game design is pretty fun.  You're the boss: you make the rules; you make the delimiters; you add in your own sound effects.  It's neat, just not something I see myself spending my life on.  Editing still sits in #1.