Feedback Thoughts

   

The first article I read this week was about 'Silencing the critical voices in your head' by Sabina Nawaz.
    I really enjoyed reading this article for many reasons. The first being, Nawaz talks about how we can get very bogged down in our thoughts and the negative comments we receive on our work. Recently I have found myself doing this more and more, zooming in on the bad things, rather then focusing on the compliments that we receive on our work, the praise for a job well done.
    Sabina Nawaz's writes ' we need five good voices for every one bad voice'. I found this very heart hitting. I felt like I had just been slapped in the face with realisation. Studies show that negative comments stick in our brain much longer and stronger then positive comments do.
   Nawaz's plan for overcoming these critical voices is a very practical one and something that, after some thought, I have seen in my everyday life from the people that I look up to and aspire to be like. These people range from lectures, who will ask you what you found helpful in an assignment, workshop or lecture, to my manager in work, who asked what really helped when I was being rained in, some that she could apply this to the future when she has to train in new staff.


    The second article I read this week was called 'Seven ways to crush self-doubt in creative work' by John Spencer
   
    Self doubt is definitely something I have struggled with my entire school career, having never been very good at taking tests, I began to doubt that I could every actually do the work, because all of the grades I came out with at the end of learning were not usually on the upper side of the scale. I doubted that I actually understood what was going on, and I began to doubt my ability to learn.

    I have noticed that this has carried over into my college education, when I sit down to do assignments and start to believe that I will not be able to finish them, even though the point is to learn as we progress through these assignments.

    Spencer addresses almost all of these points in his article, writing about how to avoid falling into this pit of self doubt. The first way is to stop comparing yourself to others. This is definitely something I have found myself doing. I can clearly remember spending an entire morning for a pitch just the other day, wondering if my pitch was as good as others, if the way I was presenting it was the same or up to scratch in comparison to others. Now that I am aware of this, it is something I can work on in the future and hopefully try and avoid.

    Another point John Spencer makes in his article is about avoiding perfectionism. Perfectionism ha always been my downfall. Although, having studied art for 5 years, I understand the process of creating things with mistakes so you can improve and make the final piece better, I still end up trying to perfect things as I go along. Even as I write this post, I am thinking about another assignment and shooting down ideas because they aren't perfect, even though they aren't supposed to be! forgetting about making things absolutely perfect is definitely going to be something I am going to have to work very hard on.


    I have always enjoyed receiving feedback but I always find myself fishing for the negative things, rather then what I've done right, and what I should be doing the next time round. I hope that having learned these new techniques, I will be able to believe in my work more ad understand that the feedback is to help me, not put me down!

    Signing off
    -Ak

image found on pinterest

Game Brainstorm

   

    You have no idea how hard coming up with some game ideas was.
I didn't realise it before but I honestly do not play enough games. I will certainly have to fix that at some point.
I've come up with four game ideas, somethings that I may possibly make using unity over the next coming weeks.

Game idea 1: Tomb Town

    Your character is a witch/wizard, who has recently moved to tomb town, home to witches, wizards, ghosts, ghouls and all the ghastly creatures you can recall from your childhood scary stories.

Customise your character and make your way around the town, collecting items, coins, learning spells and gaining XP by completing tasks and quests  to help your fellow town members.

Level up and complete more difficult tasks and quests as you gain more XP.

    The final boss of the game is the 'Skelezard', an undead wizard straight out of the towns dusty old book of legends. Along with the help of your friends and fellow towns people, use your items and spells to make your way into the skelecave,(which turns out to be a huge underground castle, with an undead army) battle the final boss, and bring as much peace and tranquillity as there can ever be in a town full of spooks.

    The game is a basic RPG with the main character able to explore the town and the different terrains surrounding the town like caves and shops. The final boss is a skeleton wizard and there are other main NPCs such as witch shop owners, a man with a pumpkin head named Jack and a ghost who doesn't know what doors are.

    The main tutorials I'll be following for most of this game would be Jimmy Vegas' 'how to make an RPG' videos.

Game idea 2: Tree house climber

    Playable character is a forest elf who has lived on the forest floor his whole life. He decides he wants a better life and begins to work really hard to help people and earn money so that he can live higher up in the tree.

    The main goal of this game is to reach the top layer or the tree community. the game is based on a platformer game but with elements of RPG. There are plenty of NPCs to get to know and complete tasks for and then once the player has enough coins, they can move up the tree but through a platform based section of the game. There are different obstacles during these levels that the player must overcome.

    Different NCPs with different levels of importance. some are more difficult to find then others. Talk to these characters to complete task and increase player level with coins.

    The tutorials I would use are 'How to create a platformer game in unity' by Jimmy Vegas and also the video mentioned in game idea 1

Game idea 3: Rumour or Truth

    The main playable character is  a detective just starting out in the force. They are given different statements by their superior officer and must investigate then. the goal is to figure out if the statement is a rumour or true.

    By going out into the playable world, talking to the city people and collecting the relevant evidence and information the character builds up the needed knowledge to be able to decide if the statement is correct.

    They then must return to the superior and decide if it is rumour or truth. the correct answer earns them XP and they can level up, the wrong answer docks XP points and the player must complete the task correctly before moving on to the next statement.

    The game is a puzzle of sorts but works based on RPG.
I would use the same tutorials as stated above.

Game idea 4: Art Shop Mayhem  

    You start as a Christmas temp in an art store, thrown in the middle of the Christmas present rush! you must quickly learn the skills and techniques of the different art materials, such as the arts, clay, paper-crafts and more, to be able to provide the correct information to the customers.

each customer you help earns you XP points, and each customer that buys something brings money into the shop.

    As you progress up the levels from Christmas temp all the way up to managers positions, you build up your XP.

each satisfied customer gives XP each unhappy one removes XP.

    Some customer tasks will require the player to find the right co workers to speak to, to ask for help and to bring in the coins for the shop.

    Like the previous games it will be RPG based and follow the Jimmy Vegas tutorials.

Signing off

-AK

Art found on Pinterest

Brainstorming images by me

What is a Game??

   

A game by definition is some with 'play activity, formal rules and conflict'. From this there are many other definitions and not every single one is right but they are also, not wrong.

    Games are made up of the several principles:

-It is separate, set in space and time but separate from our world,

-Voluntary, The player chooses to play the game,

- Harmless, the user does not come into actual harms way,

-Unproductive, the payer does not earn wealth nor lose it,

-Closed formal system,

-Has an end and a means

-Representation or simulation of events,

-Decision making and

-Uncertain outcomes

    The games themselves present with these properties and are completely voluntary to play, the player does not gain wealth nor lose it in the process, all decision making is voluntary and the outcome is unknown to the player while it is effected by how they choose to play the game.

    There are still questions in relation to this though, as to whether or not puzzles, such as the Rubik's cube is a game, or role-playing games, both with multiple endings or outcomes.

    An important aspect of a game is the formal rules that they have. These make order for the game and how it should be played, stopping users from playing all actions at once and winning the game without any real effort.

Signing off

-AK

images:

Dice images found on pinterest