5th Class

Ah, yet another Gaming Class has finished today and this time it was a little bit more serious.

We started appointing the REAL teams. One by one we stood up and said what our number 1 choice was and what we hated to be in. I chose Writer as my number 1 choice of course ^^. We mostly sorted out teams, what we had to do as a team, how things will work and so forth. All the information we needed on what it means to work as a team.

At the near end, I only ended up doing writing. I thought that this was pretty "cheap" for me, having only one task and thought I would do another one so I can pull a little more of my weight around (if that even makes sense). Anywhos, I decided to join the Art team. Why you ask? Well I may not be an artist, but I believe I am capable of designing wicked characters, buildings and the such. I'm writer, so it should be natural for me to be able to design things like this ^^.

That was mostly it. Oh Joseph and I tried out a text based game called The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy game. Boy, it was hard and annoying because for starters, you sort of have to be careful of the words you type into the game and second, it was a game where you sort of required some knowledge of either the book or movie. But that's what I think XD

I think this is going to be great. I'm so excited at a couple of things. 1) I'm in the story team; 2) I'm in the art team, designing characters and such; 3) We need a name for the game (For all those who are not familiar with me (and that's a LOT) I love to make up names on the spot)); 4) I'm doing my part in creating what will be an AWESOME GAME!!!!

Also, I saw on one of the computers, above what was going to be the Game Name, a company name. Hehehe, that will be so cool if we get to name our "company". Make it sound professional and stuff ^^

Well, my task so far is to try designing three of the many characters in the game so Dino and his team can decide who's style we should stick with. Another one of my task is too meet up with the other 3 writers on Sunday to "clean up" the story and create the logic puzzles along the way.

Man, this class was WAY more than I expected! I thought it was going to be awesome, you know, working on a game. But now, it's just jaw-dropping, show-stopping, heart-pumpingly AWESOME!!!

So... excited... o.O

LMAO, I should cut down on how many times I talk about how I love this course.

Also, another contributor to how cool the class is, is the tutor Jason. No, I'm not sucking up or kissing ass... it's true. Unlike other tutors I have been with, Jason is the one who REALLY knows what he is talking about since he has been playing games for (according to him) around 30 years. So every single thing that he says is accurate and true. I'm quite impressed at his knowledge about the field as well.

Hehehehe, well until next time!

4th Class

In today's class, I, along with Cody and Joseph, got to read some of our writing to the class. Cody was first, who read a narrative poem and read from a film script he did. Well actually three classmen went and acted out a scene. I found both his writing good, especially his poem ^^. I was next and I decided to read from an old novel I had written years ago. I think it was my first one. Nonetheless, I think the class enjoyed it. Though I didn't put any "umph" into my reading, I think I did quite good lol. Last was Joseph, who read a very detailed, metaphorical passage. I was actually surprised at his writing o.O.

We soon done a "around-the-world" story telling starting with Ellie. I'll spare you the details, but the stories that came out from each of us were quite funny because obviously we all had different ideas.

After that, we started working on our story. Like before I'll spare you the details, but it took a long time to finally agree on one story lol. We had ideas thrown everywhere and at one point argued about how many fathers there were in the story rofl!

The final story so far ended up quite good. Personally I didn't quite like the story. Why you ask? Well... I'm someone who loves medieval stuff. Swords, magic, elders, villages etc. You know, like almost all Role Playing Games. Even if the game is futuristic like Star Ocean, they still had swords and magic, which is good enough. They also had peaceful villages and stuff. But I go with the majority and the majority agreed with the current story. It's probably not 100% solid but it's still something ^^. Anyway, I can probably try to add elements of fantasy to it... I think lol.

Anyway, Joseph and I were assigned to focus more on the logic part of the game. I quite like that ^^ since I like to do puzzles as it challenges the mind hehehehe.

At the end, Jason helped us on what we should research and guess what mine is? I should play more point-and-click games and study the type of puzzles presented to us! lmao! Awesome! Well that and I think also about the other things that's gonna be in the game like English Victorian stuff (the ones related to... ... ... something punk... ... ... dammit, I forgot what it's called lmao), clothing, dialogues etc. Anything related to London because apparantly we start in London -_-"... That doesn't really bother me, but the fact that the parallel dimension is so related to Earth bothers me... ah well *shrugs*. I can adapt hehehe.

I hope this game goes well and becomes a great hit! XD

3rd Class

Ah the 3rd week... and this class just gets better and better. Today we got to see and play Defender, a VERY old game. I thought I probably won't like it, but after playing it... lol... it was a little addicting. I can see why Jaso said that "it was the world of warcraft of that time" XD.

We talked more about games as usual but mostly brainstormed on our game. The genre, theme, the feeling we want the players to have etc. It was a pretty good brainstorm, I quite like the idea so far, of a person who gets teleported to another paralell dimension and his quest is to get back home. It's not original, but hey, it's very hard (or near impossible) to be original these days =(

Sadly as before, almost the same people were the ones talking during the brainstorm =S. Those who didn't I'm a little worried. I mean I used to be all quiet as well when I was younger, but like Jason said, if you don't say anything, you're ideas won't be written down or be noticed. Plus they could end up working on a game they didn't like.

Also, this is probably just me, but during brainstorms, a couple of people tend to talk to eachother about ideas instead of saying it to the class. It's not always the same people of course, but this usually happens.

Other than that, can't wait for next week! I, along with Joseph and Cody, nominated ourselves to be writers... for now... and we have to bring samples of our work next week. I'm excited because as a writer, I want to get feedback on my work to see if I'm doing well ^^. I just hope I don't get such a bad comment that it ends up me feeling like not continuing my writing XD. But hey, guess I have to prepare myself for some bad critics. Not every novel gets a good review ^^.

Man, I really want Wednesday to come soon, it's like the most fun class I have ever had in my life!... *thinks back to other classes*... ... ... yeah, my Game class is the most fun ^^ lol.

I wonder if 12 weeks is enough to make a 'decent' game...

2nd Class

Just had another class of Interactive Design and Game Development and it was as fun as last weeks ^^. We first started playing chess with the LOTR theme. I challenged Cody but at the end he beat me, ah well, I'm not surprised since I was under pressure, we couldn't take our time to think. Which makes sense since it was during class time hehehehe.

We talked more about games and Jason told us new things like how things can relate back to fear. The different motivations and things like Risk&Reward or Fight or Fly. I think I have learnt more in Jason's class than the other classes I have had during this course. Maybe it's because I'm listening more since it's about games XD.

We also played Texas Hold'em. I was excited to play since I enjoy watching the world series championships on SKY. But when Jason said that the chips are our marks, I backed out. The game was so fun and interesting when people started betting big. At the end, Jesse and Jarred ended up with nothing whilse Dino had some and Cody and Ellie having the most. Ellie though came out victorious hehehehe. The thing that I got annoyed at was the fact that at the end Jason said that it wasn't for keeps ><. If I had known I would have stayed. But then again, if there wasn't a risk, the game wouldn't be as fun heheheeh.

Near the end, we had a taste of the 3 briefs we got and we began discussing about the game we were going to make in the future. I'm really excited about this, even though I know that there will be times where I will screw up and become stressed due to deadlines. But hey, it's making a game! My passion is much stronger than anything else =D. I do hope that everyone joins in when we do discussions. Because like, Eugene, Jason, Carter and a couple of others are usually in the back and not saying anything. I used to be like that I have to admit, but like Jason said, if I don't say anything, my ideas won't get through and I may end up making something I will hate =(.

But I think we will all do well on this project. Personally I hope they do a medieval/fantasy quest type of game. But that's just me, I usually go with the majority of the people. So far, 4 hours of this class is really worth it.

Though we are currently going on a bumpy road, once we all really get into it, I think our road will be a lot smoother.

I'm feeling rather nervous about 2 of the briefs, but it's probably because I don't understand it lol.

Come on week5... get over here now!