I think there is no one way of answering this without painting with an extremely broad stroke. For myself, I look for a game that keeps me engaged and focused. A game that has me thinking of different strategies and tactics to win. This competitive desire might not be shared though by others. Some may look for the storyline, or social aspects a game can have. Overall though, I believe games in the simplest terms are meant to be a fun challenge for people to entertain themselves with.
Collecting Game Ideas
- Player rolls 3 dice. Each dice tells how many they can move. They can choose an order to play the dice to land on spots on the board to collect people
- Climb the mountain requires players to collect people around the board to get to the next tiers of the mountain. You need a certain amount of people to get to the top.
- Collect coins to buy cars each having higher rarity points. Most rarity points at the end is the winner.
- Collect common cards, aces, spades, etc to collect clues to the holy grail. Each clue costs a certain amount of commons together.
- Collect rocket fuel around a board. 10 needed to escape and win. You can turn off the engine and move 1 space at a time if needed.
Lost Game Ideas
- Survival Backpack is a card game where players take turns drawing cards from the backpack that each have different abilities. Such as adding/subtracting survival time and stealing.
- Extract is a board game where players take turns gaining clues to eventually find the correct path and extract from the maze.
- Hitchhiker is a card game where players take turns drawing cards to gain clues to figure out where they are in the world.
- Recalculating is a board game where players take turns going to different randomized npc characters, gaining information on what is the correct path home.
- Darkness is a party game where one player is blindfolded and placed in a maze and the other players must take turns giving directions before time runs out.
Love Letter Review
Act 1: Rules are becoming clearer and with that the abilities to sabotage other players are becoming clearer. This is beginning to open up strategies for the game.
Act 2: One player has become the clear target for the next few rounds being up 2-0-0-0. I discovered it is better to go before a player you want out. It is much safer because once you mess someone you can get them out before they have a legitimate chance to. With the player who was up being targeted. It allowed everyone to catch up.
Act 3: Everyone by the final round was tied which made it interesting. There was no targeting of any specific player unless you had a vendetta. I drew the best card at the very beginning which sounds great, but actually is a problem. By this point everyone was comfortable with the stealing/peaking cards and the combo of peak and then steal or guess correct was a deadly one.
Week 2 Card Game Ideas
- Cards are numbered and can only have 7 at a time. Idea is to have the added up total the highest. You can also get cards that allow to steal randomly or selectively. Game goes 7 rounds total.
- Card game of mad libs where each card has a word/phase and must take turns piecing together a story.
- Separate into two teams. It’s a hockey card game where there are cards like pass, shoot, save, etc. The goal is to score the most times. You do that by placing down a shoot card and it not being saved. Go until cards run out.
- Red wire Blue Wire. Game where you have red and blue defusers. When a bomb is drawn it will determine which defused works.
- Geoguesser AR game. Game where there are cards in locations throughout the world. You must guess where you are on map. Correct continent gives points and correct country gives more. Correct area of country even more.
Week 1 Game Ideas
- Alike an upscaled version of the game cyclone in arcades. (Circle of lights that go around and you must time the button click with the light) With more players and instead of pressing the button when light comes, you must jump off a button that is underneath you. Much like a game of jump rope.
- Each player has a different color button. You get a pattern alike simon says/ bop it and must repeat it as a team. Time slowly goes down while patterns become increasingly more challenging.
- Shuffleboard like game with golf/hockey sticks. There are tiers of the goal. Closer to the middle is better.
- Reaction time game where each player has a button. The game says go and you must be the fastest. But it can also fake go and if a player presses then. They get a penalty.
- Game where each player has a hoop near them. Each person rolls dice to see how many shots they get to take at each other’s hoop. Start at a certain score and the last one knocked out wins.
Jackbox Split The Room Review
Describe interactions between players? – There would be more of a social interaction if we were all together instead of over meet. That would add a lot more to the game. Also having more of a connection with the players would allow for people to play with inside jokes to better “split the room”. This would allow for much more to be said if the players know each other’s barriers of what can and cannot be said.
How long did it take to learn? – It took the first round as a learning curve. But after the first round I understand this game mode fully. I may have been slightly frustrated with the learning curve if I was trying to be more competitive at the time.
Would you play it again? – Yes this is not the first time I have played and will most likely not be the last.
Artist Research by Brady Geyer
Daniel Rozin
Overview:
Daniel Rozin is an interactive artist, educator, and developer. His works are most prominent in the area of interactive digital art and often strive to make the viewer a part of the piece. His sculptures take the forefront of the pieces with the digital computerization in the background, out of site. Having done hundreds of exhibitions, Rozin is a very well known interactive artist having art all across the world.
Work:
Daniel Rozin in his work finds an idea and explores it through many ways often repeating a concept. He has done many works like kinetic sculptures, proxxi prints, and glass sculptures, but is most known for his many mechanical mirrors. Rozin uses many different items and mechanically rotates them to display the reflection of the viewer. Daniel stated, “The two main ideas that my work investigates are viewer participation and image creation”, and the mechanical mirrors do exactly that. The three works I will be highlighting are Self Centered Mirror, Yves and Marilyn / New York Skyline Proxxi composite, and Wooden Mirror.
Self Centered Mirror –
- 34 panes of mirror, Wood. Size – 120 Inches W 30 inches H 25 inches D.
- This piece puts the viewer in a position where all mirrors are focused on them and removing anyone else from their view. Displaying a sense of narcissism to the viewer.
Yves and Marilyn / New York Skyline Proxxi composite –
- Digital print. Size – 24 inches by 30 inches Print
- This work utilizes Rozins proxxi print method. A method that allows the user to see different images depending on the distance from the piece. From far it is the Yves and Marilyn Photo, and when closer the New York Skyline photo. This interactivity allows the viewer to discover this interesting print.
Wooden Mirror – In Depth
- 830 square pieces of wood, 830 servo motors, control electronics, video camera, computer, wood frame. Size – W 67” x H 80” x D 10” (170cm , 203cm, 25cm).
Overview – The first mechanical mirror Rozin had ever built, now displayed in the Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh. Utilizing a camera, computer, stepper motors and wood blocks, this piece allows the user to see themselves in an uncommon way.
Interactivity – The user faces the piece and discovers slowly what it is by noticing the reflection. In the picture displayed, the camera is set up so the discovery is quick with the user instantly realizing it is them being displayed. Inside the Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh I noticed children often try to make it move a lot by running back and forth triggering the steppers to switch and make noise.
How it Works – At its simplest the Wooden Mirror uses a camera, computer, stepper motors, wooden blocks and a light. The camera sends the video image of the viewer to the computer which decides the areas of the image are light/dark which sends messages to the stepper motors to turn the wooden blocks in a certain direction to replicate the light and dark areas. There is also a light that will help promote the bright areas by having the brightest parts of the image have the wooden block face the light.
Conclusion –
Daniel Rozin is a well experienced interactive artist that looks to explore concepts deeply. Finding a concept that utilizes the interactivity of a user along with displaying an image. His works in the Self Centered Mirror, Yves and Marilyn / New York Skyline Proxxi composite, and Wooden Mirror execute his philosophy perfectly. Certainly an artist to study and look out for in the future.
Review 4
For my final review, I decided to choose the website www.awlins.com. It is the site for the A.W. Lin’s restaurant that serves a fusion of Chinese, Sushi, and Thai cuisine. To start off, the layout of A.W. Lin’s is very typical of other restaurant sites. On the main menu page, it features a top navigation bar with their logo to the top left. Then as you move down, there is a title area. In this area there is a static photo of food with a box of type featuring the restaurant name and also a summary of the style of food they make. This title section is a nice touch, helping users like me who have never heard of the restaurant before, have a general knowledge of their food. It is something our site lacks currently but after seeing it I will add. The rest of the navigation consists of slideshows and noticeable buttons to take throughout the site. The sites menus feature the consistent static photo with title at the top with a centered list of menu items. This list of items is clear and noticeable but becomes very boring when scrolling through. This gets me to the color portion. The color pallete consists of white, brown and several shades of red. While the the red and brown have a big contrast on the white background with helps with navigation buttons, it becomes boring in a few spots throughout the site. One of the things I might add to the site would be the use of texture. A.W. Lin’s has very little, if any use of texture in the site. With its plain white background and bars of colors the site has no texture at all through the site. I would likely add a subtle background texture to the white and also add more of a textured line to the thin rules that separate sections of the layout. The navigation of the site is very consistent of many restaurants. The global navigation consists of menu, order now, private dining, gift cards, locations, promotions, and news. These sections I believe clearly order the content in a logical manner except for the gift cards page. The gift cards page is very small only having a line of text saying you can buy a card at the store which I believe to be unnecessary for it to have its own global navigation section. This restaurant has many items on the menu and also seems to focus on ordering take out and delivery which makes it necessary for the full menu to be available. Therefore with all the menu items, the site broke the menu into five sections with a drop down bar on the global navigation. I think this is necessary for this site specifically because of emphasis of ordering from the phone and its large menu. Lastly, while I believe the site can effectively guide a user through the content, I think there are a few places where the user could become confused. With the contrast of the site, the user can clearly find what is clickable and what is not, I believe there are some places on the main menu where a user can ask “Why is this button here?” Overall the site has an effective contrast use that helps with navigation, the overall design feels boring to me with its lack of texture and interesting features. A.W. Lin’s site did point out things like a main menu title that I need to add to our fusion site, but I believe overall our fusion website will be more effective with more use of texture and photography to interest our users and make them starving for out food. Our sites navigation will also be smaller, taking bigger logical chunks of content to put on each button of the global navigation bar. This I believe will help the user navigate to the page they need to be on much more than that of A.W. Lin’s.
Review 3
For Review 3 I decided to explore and compare no9park.com and burgatorybar.com. No. 9 park is a self described flagship restaurant in Boston’s Beacon Hill. Overall the look and feel of the site makes No. 9 Park to be a very high end/fancy restaurant. While I have never been here, this feeling the site gives you seems to be for good reason, with there being private dining and a menu with some very high prices. The sites layout mostly consists of a background of photos of the restaurant with headlines in each photo followed by sections of text separating the photos. There is a clear sense of unity with the site with every page having a very similar layout and the same global navigation bar being at the top of every page. The hierarchy of the site is clear and well defined with a its site name at the top of every page and then headlines to sections of text. No. 9 Park’s site is well designed making it clear what is clickable in its global navigation, breaking up of pages into logical sections, and keeping the site very simple and quiet. The next site I looked at was burgatorybar.com. The website for Pittsburgh’s small burger chain, Burgatory. The site’s layout is very similar to that of no9park.com’s, making the photos of the restaurant be the main emphasis. The sites global navigation bar takes advantage of drop downs more so than no9park.com did. Where No. 9 Park placed there entire food menu on one continuous page, burgatory decided to separate each sections of the menu into a page itself. With Burgatory’s customization options, I believe this separation to be purposeful in order to minimize having a crazy amount of content placed on one page. While this separation works for Burgatory, I do not believe it would have been as effective on that of No. 9 Parks site. Their menu seems to be much smaller, only needing 5 sections of separation where Burgatory splits the menu dropdown into eleven. Burgatory also has a clear sense of unity with its color palette similar layout among each page. The hierarchy throughout the site is clear with each headline having a line under and over making it more as a graphic of the page. The site is much alike no9park.com; being very simple thus creating a very visually quiet site with its use of hard edges to each section of content. Overall I do not believe one site is more effective than the other. Each of them take advantage of conventions to convey the feeling of what the restaurant is like. With No. 9 Park being a much fancier, private dining and reservation type and Burgatory being a more casual sports bar restaurant.
Review 2
For my OnePageLove review, I decided to look at the Green Chameleon 2018 Year in Review website. Green Chameleon is a design agency based in Bristol, England and they decided to create a one page site looking back on their best designs of that year. This site requires the user to use the scroll wheel to navigate it creating three dimensional zooming effect. Separated by months, each one has several designs from that time allowing you to click and look closer. Each month has its own two color palette allowing the user to understand exactly what month they are on. The colors are very saturated throughout the site and often use complementary colors. The design element I would most associate with this site is contrast because of its use of extremely saturated colors and hard edge vector like graphics. I would the site is well done. It has a clear purpose of showcasing the best designs from the agency throughout the year and makes navigation in a clear and fluid manner.
Review 1
I choose Fab for my review. Fab is a ecommerce site with a wide variety of products from technology like usb phone charging cables to home decor items such as candles. Overall the site has an upper class fashion approach to everyday items.
The sites navigation is standard placing its global navigation both on a bar across the top of the page and in its footer. Each global nav button is separated into broad categories that once are hovered over then show a dropdown of narrowed options. The first global nav button is the “All Collections” that once clicked shows all eighty-three product narrowed categories presented in alphabetical order. My first questions to this was “How many are there?” and “Why are there two identical bowls and plates options?”. This makes me feel the site is not managed and kept up to date, but overall did not hinder me finding anything. This thought was also supported by the zero items in the flash-drive section, where it also questions me to why it says “Showing items 1-0 of 0’. This made me think slightly that the site was bugged and was not showing the one flash drive that they have. The other global nav categories ar mostly self explanatory, except for a bit of confusion and searching for differences in the “Home Accents” and “Dining & Entertainment” sections where there could be sections swapped interchangeable.
Overall the website Fab did not make me think in a critical way when it came to navigation. Only quick questions of its management and updates. The sites theme of clean black and white colors, seems to match with the intentions of being an outlet for fashionable options for everyday items.
Chapter 3,4,5 Response
What information can ethnographic tools give you to improve the interactivity of an online banking website? (pp. 48-54)
Ethnographic tools are very important to designers trying to find out why the users do what they do by completely immersing themselves in the user’s mind. For a banking website this could be effective in order to find out why a user takes a certain path to get somewhere on their website. Instead of finding what the user wants in banking, it would find why they want to maybe deposit or make a transaction.
At what point is a design finished? What makes it a success? What is its purpose? (pp. 54-62)
When finishing a design it is important to go through a process of synthesis, creation and refinement. These three steps represent the idea of finding a solution, creating variations, and refining them to find the best one. A success of the refinement phase is determined if the designer looks and finds that it has solved the problem efficiently and simply. Success also means that it stands up to critics of the user field while going through testing. It is also important for success to continually focus of the purpose of the design. It can be very easy to stray of the mark when you are brainstorming ideas, but is necessary to hone the solution to the problem in order to succeed.
Identify a product family you use regularly (can be anything from technology to consumables except for coffee). How has its branding affect your use, relationship and experience with the product? (pp. 78-84)
Gatorade is a product I use that branding has most certainly affected my relationship with the product. To start Gatorade is known to push marketing as the best sports drink, that replenish lost electrolytes. This alone has got myself to almost always have a Gatorade when I play sports. Their bottle is known to be slightly thicker than most bottles making it feel sturdier and that is shown in commercials always having the bottle slammed down. This makes it feel like you need a bottle of this when you are involved in any sort of activity to replenish what was lost. Overall Gatorade is known around the world as a sports drink and even though it may not be the healthiest one out there it is known as the most popular one that tastes good.
Objectified Response
Objectified overall has changed my opinion and thoughts on design, both as a whole and in the details of what makes good design. My beginning definition or thought of design was the idea of making something look interesting in order to sell or display. Mainly only thinking of the products that caught my eye. Instead, through many of Objectified ‘s featured designers statements, it made me not only broaden my view of design but also focus on what successful design is.
Throughout Objectified there are many designers that throw out statements that seem slightly outrageous, but instead requires a bit of thought in order to understand. From thoughts on how design should look to thoughts on how design should live. One of the first statements that I noticed was the idea that a designer should focus on the extremes rather than the normal, when it comes to potential customers. Originally I would have said that you would want to focus on the majority of your consumers, making the product work best for them. Now I realize that design for the extremes, it can make a designer focus on possible problems the design will run in to. For example if you are making an app and focus on designing it for older people, it can make the designer create it more intuitively so that the app is read well for the extreme part of their consumer spectrum. Another big idea discussed by several of the designers in Objectified was on the lifecycle of a product. My idea before would to make a product live for as long as you can, long lasting materials, and a design that would look appealing for years to come. While it is discussed that a product should stand the test of time when it comes to the looks of the product, it also is said that each product should think about after it is thrown out. This is mainly focused on material selection, predicting how long the consumer might use the product before throwing it out. Karim Rashid specified that he would was his phone to be made of cardboard because of how often they are replaced. This radically changed my thought of design and made me think design as a whole lifetime instead of just getting it to a customer. Finally, it was stated that a design should make a user think of how they will apply it to their life rather than make them marvel on how much work was put in by designers and engineers. At first I always thought it was interesting to think about how a designer or engineer thought of a solution to a problem. Instead this statement made me look back at products that I thought had great design, making me realize that I never thought about the design and just applied it to my life.
Objectified changed my opinion and thoughts on design in many ways broadening my vision by now looking at extremes of the consumer, to the lifecycle of a product. Also showing me the keys to what makes good design through simple intuitiveness. Many of the statements seemed off putting at first but soon changed my thoughts of how design works.
Reading Response Ch 1, 2
What makes up interaction design and what are some of the industry’s challenges?
Interaction design is made up of process of the consumer relationship with a product, whether it be a software program, or a physical product. It focuses on the study of human interaction with a product to push intuitiveness, efficiency, visual design, etc. The main industry challenge is overall predicting the consumers thoughts. This can be how the user will think when traversing through a program, making the designer predict and create an efficient and intuitive path for the user. For the example of a physical product, it can be the thoughts the user has on what the do and do not like on the products look, feel, intuitiveness, etc. Thus challenging the designer to improve upon those aspects of the design.
What is interaction design, how its evolving. What fields does it draw knowledge from?
Interaction design is making a product intuitive for the user, making sure that a consumer flows through the product without questioning choices of the design. Interaction design is evolving now more then ever, with the industry pushing software that is “smart”. “Smart” devices are software that makes physical products in your life easier. From a fridge to a light to a coffee machine, “smart” devices are designed to improve upon physical products by using computing software.
Fields that interaction design pulls from includes philosophy, marketing, and engineering. Philosophy of cultures can help interaction designers predict what different consumers will and will not buy based on culture. The marketing field brings the survey, questionnaire, and overall consumer research data that designers can use to help a business push specific products a certain way. Engineering often help interaction designers make a product that embraces the function of the product whereas marketing is said to push the brand of the business.