Category: Game Design Studio 2

Flowers

The trip starts with empty green land — the mountainous valley and peaks without grass, its protagonist is flying petals whose mission is to seek other magical petals to get connected that will restore the exuberant landscapes. It is an impactful game because it educates us that collaborative decisions can fulfill the dream toward reality and that each process of environmental protection matters in determining how large amounts of grassland can be recovered.

Journey

The trip starts in a desert environment where the protagonist has the courageous confidence to overcome the upcoming obstacles and is willing to take opportunity costs; the main character believes that faith can be everywhere and is feasible if he dares to explore each solution strategy. If he thinks he can fly over the sky to dive deeper into his real insight, and fulfill it to become a reality. It is an impactful game because it not only demonstrates how faith can become the greatest power fuel for depressive periods of struggle but also proves that miracles do happen if you can accomplish each set of obstacles and challenges of life’s course; in other words, think barriers as the opportunity to gain weapon of creativity that defeat the confusions.

I like how this class picked up from last semester and how most of the class wasn’t taken up with reading the syllabus and doing introductions. I was also interested in the Painstation because I had no idea that game existed and how many people wanted to play it. During class, we talked about how some people are completionists and want to fully complete the game by getting all the achievements and checking every box, myself included. Another question that was asked was why this was, why do you feel you need to complete the game to that extent? I feel I want to get everything out of the game that is possible. I want to find all of the hidden elements of the game and check all the boxes. During class when Max was playing the flower game, I felt a little frustrated with him for not hitting/collecting all the flowers. Although, I don’t think you needed to get every single flower, just the flowers that glowed around them. The user experience wouldn’t change from not collecting them and you would continue to open/brighten more areas of the game. When I played Journey, I liked the aspect of the game by just following subtle paths that were presented and how easy it was to pick up on the game.

Today’s first class was pretty successful I’d say. Feels like we picked up where we left off in the first semester, but added some more intriguing ideas. I enjoyed the Calvin Ball demo. Although very loose and abstract, my dad read me Calvin and Hobbs before bed when I was little so I’ve always like it, so that connection was nostalgic for me personally.

The Painstation presentation was interesting to say the least. I had never heard of that until today, and was curious about a lot of the morals that surround such an idea. I asked in class
“how is that even allowed?” and Prof. Ames explained that there are waivers involved. Also, taking it a step further I tried to get into the rules and objective of Painstation, asking how you win, and questioning whether there are points involved or if the winner is the person less injured in the end. It helped spark an interesting thought and brainstorming moment in my brain for future projects: the idea that there doesn’t necessarily need to be points involved, but maybe things you can feel such as emotions. For example, the winner of the game is somehow determined by a certain level of happiness achieved through gameplay. I think that would be an interesting thing to play around with this semester.