Assignment 9a: Video Game Reflections

For this week’s gaming assignment, I was actually pretty excited. I’m not a conventional “gamer”—Call of Duty and Assassin’s Creed aren’t exactly what fill my spare time—but I do love video games. And I become easily obsessed with any invention that even approaches the border of that scary island, Addictive. So when we were assigned this game development task, I actually looked forward to it. Reflecting back on the game that my group designed, Caelum, it’s easy for me to pick out what parts we could have expanded upon. 

Character Design:

With the minimal time we were given (and the burnt out motivation we had coming straight away from that Pencil assignment), our group didn’t really expand upon our character once we decided who he was. I think in our minds, we already understood the game well enough without constantly having to remind ourselves who did what for which reason. Perhaps if our group had clarified our own personal versions of the hero, Alixis, it would have been easier to convey him to the class.

Presentation:

I love, love, LOVED the group that presented their game, Et tu Dragon, today in class. I think what was most refreshing about it was the obvious effort displayed. Despite the looming end of the quarter and previous mind-boggling assignments that came before this one, they clearly put a lot of effort into the content as well as the presentation. My own group worked really hard for the concept work, but we ended up just flinging our work together in a strung out powerpoint and calling it a day. I wish we had gone that extra mile and made our presentation as kick-ass as our actual game design.

The most difficult aspect of group game design would have to be objectives. At least with our group, we were brimming with ideas. Annalisa and I were a little out of our element when it came to approaching our design, as Dan and Ashton pretty much had the gaming world covered. But despite our lack of game world understanding, we all worked together to create a serious and complex storyline. This is what made pinning down specific objectives so difficult. With all of us so invested in our own versions of the game, we were forced to negotiate different levels and how they were to be passed. In the end, the objectives of the game became clearer and we were all almost on the same page. But I have a feeling if you asked each person specifically what the goal of each realm was, they’d have a varied answer. In the end, being too passionate about ideas isn’t exactly the worst flaw we could come across.