I just had my first class of Interactive Design and Game Development with Jason Brown. I was expecting a sort of slow day since most first days will be about the brief and a brief explanation about the class and its projects. But apparantly I was wrong =P
We started with a group discussion about types of games, the first games, what games can teach us etc. From one discussion, we had multiple ones, I learnt a lot and noticed a lot of things about games that I never even thought of before! This coming from a person who has played games most of his life XD.
We then played Rock, Paper, Scissors with one another, like a small championship. At the end I was the champion... but was soon overthrown by Lincon lol. Shortest. Victory. Ever. We then discussed about the game and what it was about.
We also went out to play some bullrush ^^. For those who don't know the game, a row of players stand on one side of the field while 1 person stands between the players and the other side, a.k.a the finish line. The lone person can pick a player to try and pass him and get to the other side or declare 'bullrush' where everyone runs. You win by being the last 'survivor' and you lose if you got tagged and end up in the middle. Though unlike most other games, when you get tagged, you don't go out of the game, you just have to be one of the people who tags the runners. After finding an 'acceptable' place, we began playing. It wasn't long and I'm not sure everyone actually tried XD lol. Almost everyone got caught by the second round/bullrush. But miraculously, Cody was able to get by almost 8 ish people lol.
After finishing the game after 2 rounds, we sat down and Jason asked for people who were good at writing. Four people stood up, including me, and we ended up having to make up a story one by one. Starting with Cody. Whenever we felt lost, or wasn't able to continue, we handed to the next person. The story we ended up with was a little twisted and dodgy -_-" lol. Back at the class, we got some more teams, animators, coders etc. We went through the story as though we were going to create it. Animators acted out the characters and, back and forth with the writers , we started to 'smoothen' out the characters. Most of us were a little bit 'shaky' since it was our first time, but we got through ^^.
We got another small break and then went to class where we started a new story. This time the wroters were James and Jarred. We ended up with a Tuatara having to save his family. I think we decided to reject the idea of putting in Maori influence into the game. Can't remember why though. We done the same as with the first story, where people got into groups and such. But I think just like before, most of us were still a bit shaky. But it was alright, we done quite well.
After that, we went out to play hopskotch ^^. Hopskotch, if you don't know, is where there are squares on the ground and the squares form a vertical 'path' made up of single, double or triple squares. The person who's turn it is, comes up and throws a stone towards the path. When the stone lands on a square, the player must jump from square to square but has to avoid the one that the stone landed on. You win by getting to the other side. You lose if your stone or feet ends up outside a square, and you lose if you step on a square more than once. Also, I came out winner ^^. I think I had a good advantage since I was tall. Because Jason cranked up the rules a bit. Like the last round, where it was just me and Lincon, we couldn't jump the third row of three squares nor the 4th single square. So we had to do a good jump.
After that fun game (Boy, first time playing hopskotch and it was quite fun, and funny ^^ lol) we went back to class to do a small 'wrap up' and then class was over.
At the end, I really liked the class. It was relaxing, fun and educational ^^. I really can't wait until we get started on the game that we plan to make. I hope I become the story designer (or whatever those people are called) though I do hope I don't get too detailed with it since I tend to overdo it with stories XD. Also, even though I "do" want to be the story designer, or part of the story team, I'm not sure my style of story telling will appeal to everyone else since I can't really do a 'good' humurous story. *shrugs* ah well, only time will tell I suppose ^^.
