Reading 2: Planning my Approach!

Reading 2: Planning my Approach

Welcome back to my blog!

It’s exciting to get back into the swing of things, especially now that we’re planning on creating a book on game design together. I’m excited to work with you all again and to learn more about academic writing and further into the topic of game design!

For my writing topics I picked two from the storytelling chapter- “mechanisms for advancing the plot” and “scripted conversations and dialogue trees”. Many players tend to connect with games through their plot and characters so I’m excited to explore this further.

To help me conduct my research, I had to think of a research question. To do this, I thought of my topics and asked myself who, what, where and why to narrow down and focus on topics to research as part of my literature review. There are lots of questions that could be explored with these two topics; here are some I thought of:

1.       Is it necessary to have complex characters to aid a plot-line?

2.       How does character dialogue impact the plot of a game?

3.       How does character dialogue impact the player?

4.       Do players connect with well developed, complex characters more than simpler characters?

5.       Does something bad always have to happen to advance a plot?

6.       Do dialogue trees personalise and enhance the player experience?

7.       What are the effects of choice in scripted conversations?

8.       What are the most common ways to advance a plot-line?

9.       Does player choice matter in dialogue trees?

10.   How do unexpected twists affect a plot and its players?

Taking these questions into account, I refined them further. I combined some questions to give way for deeper analysis and research potential for both topics, and I think they would be interesting to explore!

For mechanisms for advancing the plot, I picked the question “What are the most common ways to advance a plot, and how does breaking the norm affect the player?”

For scripted conversations and dialogue trees, I picked the question “How does character dialogue impact the plot and does player choice in dialogue matter?”

Research illustration

Source: Wikimedia Commons

Readings in the past such as the hero’s journey plot structure stuck out to me when thinking of the first question, while my own experiences in games such as Telltale’s “The Walking Dead”, “Detroit: Become Human” and “Until Dawn” inspired me to explore the effect of player choice in dialogue and how it can impact the plot.

I have mentally ticked off the research question checklist for both of my questions and they all fell under “yes”, so I think I followed the steps in coming up with my questions well.

Some keywords that I can use to help me research are:

• Dialogue
• Dialogue tree
• Dialogue affect
• Dialogue impact
• Scripted conversation
• Character conversation
• Character interaction
• Butterfly effect
• Plot
• Game plot
• Plot mechanics
• Advancing plot
• The hero’s journey
• Common plots
• Plot twists
• Plot importance
• Plot impact

Tools I could use when conducting my research are the TU Dublin library, the library on our own campus, Google Scholar and other journals and reviewed articles available on the TU Dublin library site and on the internet.

I’m looking forward to getting a start on my research and exploring my chosen topics further!

Thank you for reading my blog!

Time Strategies

Time Management Strategies

Time management is generally something I struggle a lot with. I am very prone to procrastinate on every little thing, a bad habit I've picked up over the years. I believe that I procrastinate and leave things late due to the fact that I work better under stress, but I realise that it's not healthy to constantly stress and that it would be way more beneficial to learn some time management strategies, especially for this semester.

Last semester I feel that I fell short on a lot of my work due to the little time I allowed myself to work on it. I did well in all my results, but felt I could have done better if I had planned and managed my time more.

I read two articles; one about procrastination and one about the benefits of making checklists.
You can find them here!

How To Beat Procrastination by Caroline Webb

How Checklists Train Your Brain To Be More Productive And Goal-Oriented by  Lauren Marchese

Time management photo 

Source: Needpix.com

Getting tips on beating procrastination is really useful to me since I struggle with it a lot.
I particularly liked the idea of starting with even a small task; breaking the overall goal up into several manageable tasks. I'm often very intimidated with assignments and big goals when I get them, and tend to put them off. Breaking what I need to do up and getting a start on the smaller tasks helps motivation and the reward of completing a task makes you want to complete more.

The article about checklists also links into this! Ticking tasks off a checklist releases dopamine in the brain which raises motivation and increases happiness- a reward for completing the task. The dopamine released upon checking off things will increase productivity as you strive to check off more for the feeling of being rewarded.

Creating a checklist also aids in helping against procrastination; it makes a big goal less daunting and helps get a start on it instead of putting it off.

I also never thought to look at how avoiding procrastination would benefit myself in the future. I never really thought of that while I was procrastinating, but it makes sense that if you look ahead and see how not doing it would benefit you it would motivate you to not procrastinate.

These articles were quite useful to me as they gave me new insights on things I would not have even thought about before.

I think my biggest challenge will be keeping on top of everything this semester since there is a lot of workload with the group project on top of all the other modules- but I think that taking some tips from the articles on board and making a checklist will help me overcome it!


Thank you for reading my blog!

Technology Tools Thoughts

Technology Tools Thoughts

I like the idea of using a variety of different tools in this module - using lots of different tools will help build my skillset and allow me to have a variety of methods to complete my assignments throughout the course.

A lot of the tools mentioned on the website are unfamiliar to me; for example, I have never heard of Cheezburger, Automotivator, Padlet etc. Some of the tools I have heard of but have no idea how they work, such as WordPress. I am a little overwhelmed at the thought of getting to know all of these new tools to use since it tends to take me a little while to get used to new programmes and applications- but I am interested in learning them because I think it will really benefit me in the future.

While I am quite familiar with things such as bookmarking and wordcount, I did not know that browser tools that could help improve these features and add more to them existed. I do not often use browser extensions, but now would be a good time to look at them!

The use of Pinterest is also very appealing to me as I tend to use 

Pinterest a lot already for art references and inspiration- so I am familiar with it and using it would prove useful to me in finding images to use in my blogs!

I am particularly interested in using the graphics tools and exploring how they work since I enjoy creating designs and layouts for various things. 

I have used Canva for many things throughout my time in this course, so I'm really looking forward to learning new graphics tools in order to put more variety in my work.

Though, the tool I am looking most forward to using is..

Unity Logo

Source: Wikimedia.org

Unity!

 I'm very interested in creating games since I am a huge fan of playing games myself and have always been curious about how it is to actually develop a game. Though I am slightly overwhelmed at the prospect of learning how to develop a game using Unity- I'm excited for the challenge and I can't wait to make my game! It'll be a great experience.

The online environment of this course is very helpful to me- I like how everything is laid out and it has helped me a lot already with my assignments so far. It's unlike anything I have used in my other modules, and using blogs is very useful to compile my thoughts, to look back on, and to interact with others!

Overall while I am slightly overwhelmed and unfamiliar with a lot of the tools, I'm excited for the challenge and to learn new things to further improve my work!

Thank you for reading my blog!

Thoughts about the class assignments

Thoughts about the class assignments

From reading through the different types of class assignments that we will be doing in this module, I have come to the conclusion that these assignments are very different to the ones I have done in previous modules. They are a lot more interactive than other modules- and I feel that writing out our thoughts about the various things we have to do throughout the weeks will help me remember things better rather than just reading the content. 

I am new to blogging- I do have a Tumblr account but all I do there is lurk or repost, so I have no experience in actually blogging regularly. The idea of compiling all my thoughts on everything I do for this module along with my hopes and difficulties will be useful to look back on to see how I've improved on the future and how I've developed over the course of the module.

Having something new to read every week and to write about in the blogs will excel my learning- I learn a lot more when I write about my readings rather than just reading the content. Keeping all these readings compiled in my blog will prove handy in the future- it'll be a good refresher and it shows how much work I've done throughout the module.

Unity will also be completely new to me- but I am very excited to start using it! I have always had an interest in game development and have been seeking to learn how to get started with it- which this module does with Unity. I feel that I'll be a bit overwhelmed at first using it- which comes naturally with all new programmes and applications- but with lots of practice and reflection I'm sure I'll get used to it.

I love the idea of commenting and interacting with other peoples posts as part of the assignments; this way I can get to know other people in my group better, and if someone is having difficulty or is feeling overwhelmed with the work I can lend a hand and a ear. Interactivity will also make me more at ease with people I haven't really talked to. I think it's also good in order to get/gibe constructive criticism and feedback!

I am very excited to get started on my project! I already have some ideas in my head... but the brainstorming session we will have in the future will really help me narrow them down and out me in the right direction. I absolutely loved creating my Twine game in Semester 1- particularly the item pickup part- so I'm excited to actually make a game where the player can walk around and pick things up as they please. 

Giving and receiving feedback from other class members will prove very beneficial. I tend to draw a lot, and I often receive constructive criticism from those around me or from people in art groups across the internet. It has personally helped me improve a lot with my art- so I imagine to have a similar result with the feedback I receive on my project. I hope that my feedback will help other people this way also.

EXTRA CREDIT

I love the idea of having extra credit opportunities! That way, if you miss a blog post or don't have time to complete it, you can make up for it by doing extra credit and get some points back. The variety of choice in extra credit tasks also makes it seem less like a task and more enjoyable. I am interested in the growth mindset extra credit, as I found Dweck's thoughts on the subject very intriguing and I relate to it a lot. You can find my blog about the Growth Mindset here!

Overall I am very excited to learn from this module as it is much more interactive and contains a lot of content that I have interest in!

Image Information

All images used in this blog are from the MD2019 CDMOnline Website, which can be found here!

All images contain icons relating to the assignment content.

Thank you for reading my blog!