Dirty Dance Fighter

I love this comic from Scott Rodger’s book Level Up!. I also highly recommend it for anyone interested in designing games.  For my final project this semester I wrote a Game Design Document or GDD for short. Although there is no official way to write a GDD I used this book to help me create one.

This GDD is for my new game concept, Dirty Dance Fighter. Dirty Dance Fighter is a Street Fighter one-one fighting style game but in this game, the player battles their opponents using sexy dance moves instead of martial arts.

This GDD is not complete and will not be 100% complete until the build of the game is complete. GDDs should not be static, they should be a living document, allowing for iterations and improvements. The GDD should change and grow with the game. So this example of a GDD is just my initial thoughts of what should be included in Dirty Dance Fighter. Once I put together a development team, I would hold some brainstorming and collaborative sessions and create the next version of this doc.

Gameification Can Be Used For Good

I think Gamification is a pretty great concept. Gamification can make boring things a little more fun to do or at least offer an incentive accomplish them. I read the article Gamification is Bullshit by Ian Bogost, I don't agree with everything he writes about but  he does point out some things I find valid. Specifically when he writes about gameification being used for marketing. I believe that gameification is pretty powerful and with things that hold power they can often be used for good, evil, or a little of both. But what is an evil use of gameification? Using game elements to sell things to people? Well then gameification is no more evil than advertising, but it is a lot more engaging. Don’t get me wrong here I not trying to promote or discourage the use of gameification to sell products or services. I think it’s can be easily used be bullshitters to do bullshitty things but I don’t think it is all bad. I do also think that it is a clever and smart way to get consumers to connect with brands.

Gamification can play an important part in education and teachers have been using gamification (without calling it that) in the classroom for years. When I was in elementary school we had a sticker chart. You did something that was kind of boring to do to, like homework and you got a sticker. A sticker is pretty much a badge, some stickers even say things like I did my homework, or I lost my tooth, right on them. You then added your stickers to the chart and once your chart is complete you earned a prize. I really enjoyed earning stickers and prizes for doing my homework. The thought that I would miss a sticker if I didn’t do my homework motivated me to get it done. So without that badge reward, I might have been held back a grade.

  

Simple and Effective

A simple review of some effective games for my third blog post.

 

Dys4ia tells a personal story of going through hormone therapy. It does so with a narrative and mild game play. What I find interesting is how with little interactivity and text in this game was able to produce a strange and comfortable feel in me. I am sure my mild discomfort is nothing compared to the actual trials of going through hormone therapy. Games like Dis4ia that can produce a strong emotional response in a player are very powerful.

Canabalt is another game that evokes an emotional response in me with little interactivity and text.  The game play is simple, run and jump, but the background happenings of destruction and chaos make me feel nervous, worried, and generally panicked.

The game Passage, makes me think about life, partners, games and growing old. The game play is just walking.  I have read many game design books that say that walking is never game play but I think Passage is the exception to this rule.  Passage makes just walking a thought provoking experience.

Everyday the Same Dream is another thought provoking game. It takes the everyday experience of the workday and twists it into a freaky, morbid situation. This game makes me think about life but entirely different than Passage does.

Don’t Shit You Pants. This game makes me laugh. I love the simple objective of the game paired with the crude illustrations and simple text interface. Simply a fun game.

Game Lab 1

In the first Game Lab I played two card games, Cards Against Humanity and One Thousand Blank White Cards. There were four members in my group, me Bob, Sklyer and Alyssa.

Cards Against Humanity

The first game we played was the game I brought in to share, Cards Against Humanity.  I printed my own copy from here .This game is simple to learn and to play. The basic discription from the Cards Against Humanity is “The game is simple. Each round, one player asks a question from a Black Card, and everyone else answers with their funniest White Card.” This game is basically  rated R version of  Apples to Apples 

The mechanics of Cards Against Humanity are selection and prediction.  You are selecting cards and predicting which card might be selected.

One Thousand Blank White Cards

This was the second game we played. One Thousand Blank White Cards  is a game about creating, creating rules, creating cards and creating fun. Winning is not really the point of the game it is more about the process of playing. This Youtube video has a pretty good overall description of this game and how to play it.

The mechanics of One Thousand Blank White Cards is building. You are building the deck and the game.

Welcome to my games studies blog!

Welcome to my games studies blog!

Here I will share things that I learn and do in my games studies class at SJSU as well as other related game topics.

A little about me:

 I am not a hardcore gamer but I do love playing games and I really love making games.  I am taking this games studies class to become better at making games.

 I have created one board game that was a combo truth or dare/charades/ drinking game combo.  I have also created some video games, both on my own and also produced a few with a small team of people.

What I like best about game is how they can be used to tell stories. They have such an awesome interactive nature that connects with an audience/player in a way books, movies, and radio cant.

You can find some of the games I have made here