Monday, April 28, 2008

Journal Entry # 9: Reflection

The process of designing and developing a game is not easy, especially when designers are working on the process by themselves. According to Rowland (1993) the design process depends on the designer and what he or she wants to design. This means that the product or artifact to be designed will reflect the designer’s abilities and skills. In this study, the designer was not only working conceptualizing the idea of the game and how it would work, but actually developing it. Therefore, some limitations of this game are indicated as below:

  • Time

Due to time constraints, the designer did not have sufficient opportunities to work in depth on other possible strategies and game aspects that could be approached for this simulation game.

  • Programming skills

The programming skills are essential when developing an online game. Mulligan and Patrovsky (2003) discuss about the need of balancing the creativity aspects of design over the technical skills, since there is usually a gap between the intended development and the actual one. Regarding this fact, the game developed lacks more interactivity and simulations because the designer had limited skills to develop the program.

  • Subject Matter Expert

Since my knowledge about the content of this game was limited, I depended a lot on my client to help me to understand and realize the subject of the game. Unfortunately, since we had different schedules and my client had never experienced the process of the design and development, it was hard to maintain a regular pace of communication regarding the project.

Although there were some constraints, I believe this experience was very helpful for me since I learned a lot of new things such as preparing a healthy meal, watching out for portion size of food intakes and also I learned more about the technical part, which is not my strengthens - Action Script.

References

Rowland, G. (1993). Designing Instructional Design. Educational Technology Research and Development, 41(1), 79-91.

Mulligan, J., & Patrovsky, B. (2003). Developing Online Games: An Insider's Guide. New Riders Publishing.

Sunday, April 27, 2008

Journal Entry # 8

The showcase night was a great and fun experience. However, I have to confess I was little nervous about my project and people’s response to it. I was really surprised to see that people enjoyed my project and had fun playing. Some people gave me more advices and feedback if I would like to continue working on this project.

Also, I really enjoyed looking through other people’s project. I noticed that a lot of people were very creative with their project and I think they did very well in their final product.

Regarding my project, I plan to keep working on, even though I’m not required. The reason why I would like to do this is because I know that the subject that I’m treating in my project is very delicate and it needs a lot of work. I know that the time constraint and my skills were a limitation for this project. However, if I don’t have any requirements to be completed, I’ll have more time to work on this on my own pace.

According to Salen & Zimmerman (2005), in the design of games, there are three parts that defines this process such as: context, designer and meaning. Regarding this fact, I believe that the role of the designer is essential for the process of developing a game. During the process of the developing my game, I realized that designing a game is not an easy task since I have faced problems not only during the design process, but also during the development phase. Another thing that I realized while reading this article is the importance of engaging players in the context. However, the context needs to be very well-elaborated. Barab et al (2007) have pointed in his study the relevance of balancing the context/narrative with the content; otherwise learners will be deeply devoted to the context, failing to appreciate the subject and content of the activity.

Regarding these points, I think my project has a specific context, but it lacks in the narrative part (story folds). Since this was only a prototype, I have been taking notes of every single detail that I should make to the project in the future.

This semester was not my best, but I’m really glad that I was able to have my project done for showcase.

Reference

Barab, S., Sandler, T., Heiselt, C., Hickey, D., & Zuiker, S. (2007). Relating narrative, inquiry,
and inscriptions: Supporting consequential play. Journal of Science Education &

Technology, 16(1), 59-82.


Salen, K., & Zimmerman, E. (2005). Game design and meaningful play. In J. Raessen & J. Goldstein (Eds.), Handbook of computer game studies (pp.60-79). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Service hours # 3

I committed to design logos for the Studio community. So far, I have developed one logo for the studio wiki. For this graphic illustration, I spent 2 hours working on. Here is the final result:
Organization: Studio
Contact: Dr. Michael Orey

Service hours # 2

I developed some graphic illustration for one of the 6210 team. The graphic illustration was a sequence of pose of a whale. I spent 3 hours and 30 minutes working on this illustration. Here is the graphic illustration:
Organizations: Imaginative Designs (6210)
Project Manager: Carrie Bishop

Desk Crit Received #7

From: ki-hyun Koo
Date: 04/23/08

I think that your project concept is very useful and creative. Because it deals with health issues that we all are mindful. I myself also try to calculate calories when I eat Italian food.
I think that game approach would be on of the easiest and most comfortable way to learn the subject. I guess learners would understand the subject easy compared with other strategies (ex> book, homepage, etc)


However, I would like to suggest you few points after experiencing this program. Hope my suggestions would be helpful to you.

1) To me, colors of the above picture look a bit dark, and the objects are not quite related to Italian food, or preparing meal (ex> cook, or person who preparing his/her meal in the kitchen) will be better.

2) I think there are many words with same emphasis in this page, so it’s hard for me to recognize what is the important in the page. How about using bullets or images to improve the readability of the page?

3) There isn’t “back” button, so learners can’t see previous page as they proceed the program. So, if the learners want to know “instruction” part (the first page of this program,), they have to finish all the pages and start again.

How about making navigation menu? next, back button >

4) Since I have no idea of making Italian food, learners like me may need more information what is the best way to cook Italian food. I think the learners also need more information, or tips for this program. How about presenting specific examples? For example, explain advantages or disadvantages for each one when we cook Italian food.

5) After completing this program, the learners were to get feedback. I think it’s a great idea. I would however give more specific feedbacks such as good advices or so.

Desk Crit Received #6

From: Amy Wright
Date: 04/17/08

Given to Daisy at the dress rehearsal. As I went through the module, I noticed that the nutritional informaiton did not come up immediately and people may not realize that it is available if they don't put their cursor over the box so you might want to just have it up versus having it appear. A back button would be nice so people can change their choices after seeing they are not making good choices, but I know that requires more difficult/in depth programming. The serving size is a little confusing or portion size so you may want to rephrase that so people understand how they should be counting the calories. I think providing people a reference of what an oz. is would be nice since most people don't look at their food and think of it in that quantity. Its hard to visualize how much is 1 portion or 2 ozs per serving size. You may want to include some information about how that is listed on the nutritional information of foods and what it all means.Most people don't know how to read and interpret it.

I really enjoyed playing with it and it surprised me the number of calories in one kind of cheese or bread versus the others.

Thanks for sharing,

Amy