Mr Cheesey's spelling fun meeting.

We met again today with the aim of preparing our presentation to show our progress with the development so far.

We started by going over the game concept, level designs etc just to refresh everyone on the game and the stuff we would need to put in the presentation. We discussed the new sketches that had been drawn out and different graphic styles we could have gone with. We decided that although a ‘Dr Seuss’ style graphics would look good (and seeing the alternate sketches showed this) that it wouldn’t suit our target audience.

We worked in illustrator to bring our sketches to life and try out different colour schemes we had found via kular. We put all our visuals into the presentation. Its really cool to see how the sketches have transitioned from hand drawn pictures to digital images

In our next meeting we plan on going over what each person is going to say in the presentation and fine tuning any issues if they arise.    

Mr Cheesey development

The group met today to finalise our ideas and have a full understanding of how we want our game to turn out. We threw all our ideas together and started working on our presentation for Tuesday. Here are the new and tweaked ideas for the game.

• We finalised the story for the Cheesey adventure.  

Mr Cheesey comes from the planet Cheddar, a planet with unrivalled  intelligence. Phil the Sun has set Mr Cheesey the tasked of travelling to earth to help the struggling human race by teaching their youth how to spell. After settling in to his new home, Cheesey starts his perilous journey to save the world.          

• Tweaked the layout of the game and added a new reward system.

The reward system was that after each level you would collect a coin based on the theme of the level and insert each coin that you collect into a chest. We had a suggestion that maybe we should use something other than coins to open the chest, because having coins could imply that there might be something to buy.....and there isn't. It didn't take much thought on what we could change the coins to... so we swiftly decided to change them to level theme based keys. So after collecting the five keys from each level, you insert them into a chest which opens up and reveals a certificate that the player can print off (and frame). We also thought it could be a cool idea to make a bonus level (maybe on hard mode) to [play on the land of cheese, just so you could see exactly where Mr Cheesey comes from.

• Out of the 10 level concepts we came up with, we decided the 5 levels that we are going to be using.

We thought it would be a good idea to make the levels more intractable rather than places blocks over the screen for Cheesey to bounce off.  The levels that we decided on are;

1. toy box
2. bathroom
3. pirate ship
4. jungle
5. living room
6. -Bonus level when completed, Cheddar AKA the land of Cheese.

• We added some new characters.

We decided pretty early on who the main characters are going to be, Mr Cheesey and Phil the Sun. We had already discussed the enemy characters but thought it would be a good idea to add some more.

1. Blueberry Canary
2. Hot-dog Dog
3. Bake-well Bob
4. Spud the Spud
5. Dino Dan the Ham

Mr Cheesey development

The group met today to finalise our ideas and have a full understanding of how we want our game to turn out. We threw all our ideas together and started working on our presentation for Tuesday. Here are the new and tweaked ideas for the game.

• We finalised the story for the Cheesey adventure.  

Mr Cheesey comes from the planet Cheddar, a planet with unrivalled  intelligence. Phil the Sun has set Mr Cheesey the tasked of travelling to earth to help the struggling human race by teaching their youth how to spell. After settling in to his new home, Cheesey starts his perilous journey to save the world.          

• Tweaked the layout of the game and added a new reward system.

The reward system was that after each level you would collect a coin based on the theme of the level and insert each coin that you collect into a chest. We had a suggestion that maybe we should use something other than coins to open the chest, because having coins could imply that there might be something to buy.....and there isn't. It didn't take much thought on what we could change the coins to... so we swiftly decided to change them to level theme based keys. So after collecting the five keys from each level, you insert them into a chest which opens up and reveals a certificate that the player can print off (and frame). We also thought it could be a cool idea to make a bonus level (maybe on hard mode) to [play on the land of cheese, just so you could see exactly where Mr Cheesey comes from.

• Out of the 10 level concepts we came up with, we decided the 5 levels that we are going to be using.

The levels that we decided on are;

1. toy box
2. bathroom
3. pirate ship
4. jungle
5. living room
6. -Bonus level when completed, Cheddar AKA the land of Cheese.

• We added some new characters.

We decided pretty early on who the main characters are going to be, Mr Cheesey and Phil the Sun. We had already discussed the enemy characters but thought it would be a good idea to add some more.

1. Blueberry Canary
2. Hot-dog Dog
3. Bake-well Bob
4. Spud the Spud
5. Dino Dan the Ham

FIFA 2011 AC Milan Season.

I have just started a 2 player season on the new Fifa with a friend of mine, Philip Owen, and I thought I would blog about mine and Phils progression thus far.
 We spent some time discussing what team we should pick, we had to evaluate each team by their strengths and weaknesses because we didn't want to suck but at the same time we didn't want to pick the best of best. We made a short-list of the teams that we felt would be god to play a whole manager mode campaign with, on that list were;

• Real Madrid 
• Barcelona 
• Manchester United
• Arsenal
• Ac Milan
•  Inter Milan
• Juventus
• Bayern Munich
• Schalke 04
• FC Porto
• Fenerbahce 

We wanted a team that were good but still had room for development so we promptly agreed that Barce and Madrid were far too good. We also wanted to play as a team that were in Europe but played outside of the Barclay's Premier League, so we narrowed it down to the Italians and the Germans. I made the point that if we chose Munich then we wouldn't have much competition as they are the undisputed best team in the Bundesliga, narrowing it down again, to the Italians. After about an hour of analysing each of these teams we opted for AC Milan, mainly for their incredible attacking talent (Ronaldinho, Alexandre Pato, Zlatan Ibrahimavic, Robinho) yet they still have a questionable defence and midfield, so that was something to work on.

 So we started our manager mode campaign and named our manager Robert Higgins (as it was nice and easy to remember). We discussed who we wanted to bring in and which players were surplus to requirements, so we swiftly sold Filippo Inzaghi and 11 year Milan vet Gennaro Gattuso. This ruthless move showed our intent but also made room for some new faces; Jose Bosingwa (28) from Chelsea for £12,000,000 and Daniele De Rossi (27) from Roma for £18,900,000. After this we agreed that our team was strong enough until at least January to match the big teams in the league.

 We started pre-season in exceptional form  winning 4 out of 4, all decent results with the pick of the bunch being a 1-4 victory away at White Hart Lane to Tottenham Hot Spurs. This confident pre-season lead us to believe that we were serious title contenders for this seasons Serie A Trophy..... we thought wrong. Slumping to 2 straight draws as the season kicked off, this wasn't the start we were looking for but still, we had to give it time. As we predicted, we picked up the pace going on to win our next 5 matches, a 0-0 draw to the European Champions and our arch rivals Inter Milan wasn't so hard to take, but this triggered a fall in our form as we then drew 3 in a row and then loosing our first of the season to top of the league Sampdoria. This defeat seems to have snapped the players back into form though as we have gone on to win the remainder of the matches in December.

 It is now January and the Transfer window is open so we're looking to bring in some new faces and maybe get rid of a few. There are a few players that we have in mind;

• Arjen Robben (Bayern Munich)
• Franck Ribery (Bayern Munich)
• Diego Forlan (Athletico Madrid)
• Gael Clichy (Arsenal)
• Emmanuel Adebayor (Man City)
• and we're looking into bringing the iconic Brazilian midfield ace, Kaka, back to the San Siro.

We're 3rd in the league at the moment with 11 wins, 7 draws and only the 1 defeat, but our position as manager is already in question as we're not top of the league, so the question is.. Do we stick with the current crop and hope our good form continues, or move quickly to sign up some more players??

more on our AC Milan season soon...............

Paidea vs Ludus

Whilst discussing Paidea and ludus we decided to use resident evil and the sims as examples.

Resident Evil - Ludus: Resident Evil is a game in which you have to progress through stages using weapons (guns, knives, bombs etc) no matter how resident evil is played it will always have the same outcome making it more limited (that doesnt mean less fun) as an open and free game like the sims. There are rules that you have play by in order to progress through the game, and if you try to play the game in any other way it simply wont work. In a game like resident evil once you've reached a certain level of skill theres not really any way of getting better, where as in a game like the sims players are given the option of playing however they want too and there really isnt any skill involved.

The Sims - Paidea: The sims is basically about creating family and living there lives for them. You can get jobs to buy neew things, have children to extend your family tree and have plenty of fun along the way. Its a very easy game to get into, as i said before it doesnt really take any skill so you can just pick it up and play it giving it a much broader target audience. In recent editions to the sims you are able to venture out and explore the whole city rather than be stuck to the constraints of your own household like in the previous sims.

Agon, Alea, Ilinux, Mimiery - The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion

Agon - In Elder Scrolls you don't have any direct competition, but players can set themselves tasks so it becomes  a personal competition. From my experience of playing Oblivion, I set myself mini tasks of getting to certain places within in a time limit without usig fast travel. Completing the game itself is also a major competition with yourself, as it took me one hundred and sixty hours to finish just the main story alone... its a test of whether you can be bothered to stick at it and get to the end.

Alea - Elders Scrolls IV is such a massive game and is full of randomness. You never really know whats waiting for you round the corner, even after playing for such a long period its too hard to predict what will happen next. When you've played the game for a while you begin to notice that there are alot of caves and buildings that have the exact same layout, but they keep you on your toes by throwing in different sets of enemies. Some caves/builings wont have any villians at all and then some will have a massive selection, I remember one cave in particular that at first seemed just like the other caves when you first walk in, but had a variety of enemies that were to be seen nowhere else in the entire game, such as the Giant MudCrap. In my opinion this is a great way of keeping the player interested.

Ilinux - The Elder Scrolls IV is an RPG so theres tonnes of movement, the whole game is just one big exploration. For me, its the best part of the game. You can travel anywhere you want (obviously it has to be on the map) at any time and something new and interesting will always happen. An example from when I played the game; I decided to travel from one side of the map to the other on foot so that my character could level up. Along the route I was approached by a strange man that asked me whether I wanted to join his guild, and that I would have to complete a small mission if I wanted to, I decided to take him up on his offer (not knowing that I had to kill an innocent man in order to complete it). Then,  half way through my journey my character  levelled up but you need to sleep in order to adjust his skills, so I fell asleep on a near by roll out bed and when I woke up I had been infected wih vampirism. Theres only one way to get rid of this pesky virus and thats a whole other mission.

Mimiery - Though theres a massive variety in the Elder Scrolls there is still a main plot, and I think thats probably the funnest part of the game. Knowing that you've created a character that will eventually save the world keeps the player playing. All the other side quests and mini games are all there to help you build your character up to the final mission, and the fact that you can do it all at your own pace makes this game too good.

   

Paidea vs Ludus

The Shape Game

This Blog is about the KS1 game... The shape game.


Interaction: as this game is KS1 it is aimed at young children so the interaction is very limited. You are asked to find the described shape from a selection of 3 shapes, if you get it right then you move on to the next shape and if you get it wrong then you have another try.

Goals: The Goal of the game is to get all the questions correct so you get a peek of what is behind the curtain and see what the scientist guy is working on. For young children this would create a great sense of achievement.

Struggle: There isn't any struggle in this game, as there is no lives so you can keep on going until you get the question right. I think this is a major flaw in the game, as a child could complete the game without actually knowing what he/she is doing thus not learning anything (which is in fact the point of the game). There is however, a slight element of Struggle as you can adjust the difficulty level which does make it considerably harder.

Structure: The rules are as basic as they come.... read the question and answer accordingly by clicking on the shape. The only other way of playing this game is by getting the answer wrong so you can see the slightly more intereting animation (in which the poor little scientist gets shocked).

Endogenous meaning: I think that the main meaning behind this game is so that the child can learn and feel good about him/herself.

Evaluation: The problems I had with the game were;
                 no way to lose so you dont care if you win.
                 a more entertaining animation for when you win.
                 It should read out the question instead of just showing it in text (some children may not be able to read)
   
           ...besides that I think it was a pretty awesome game and I would definitely purchase it.

Alex Hartley