Sam's Uni Blog.

Oh shit I forgot to make post yesterday

I need to fill in stuff I have thing to update but I need to post them. 
Going to do it shortly ugh

Ill be filling in the blanks here later @___@ so much fucking work.

Some paper prototyping for one of our mini games! It was actually really helpful to see how the games would work out when being played.

It was good to understand how the leaning outcomes could come from our mini games and game over all. As well to see how much fun was to be had when playing the games. I can’t begin to tell how helpful it is to have Josh with us. Just having someone outside of our group to give ideas and fresh perspective on game and how fun things should be.

An example with the game I have pictures for we talked about how drag and drop might not be as fun as flicking the items to be sorted. The fast place and quick timing could help keep people on there toes and make the game more challenging for the player!

I cant keep up with this blog we meet at lest 3 times a week so its hard to remember to post what I do.

But just to get something up here this is part of the back log I need to get working on, there is more but its all starting to pile up.

Yesterday we got a chance to speak to Brian from Kansas State University! He was really brilliant to talk to and its always awesome to meet people from overseas! He showed us ways to detect types of damage to plants as well as anomalies in the growth of the plant. First you really need to know what the normal plant looks like and what types of damage can look like, eg what chewing damage looks like on different plants. He talked about making it like CSI! It sounded like a really great way to teach the method he was trying to get across he called it the 5 S’s, it was all about investigating the Scene.

We recorded and video recorded this meeting for team mates that where not there, so we have the opitunity to view this over since there was so much helpful stuff that was gone over.

Have some uni work! :D 

We need a poster for the room we are going to be in for the rest of the year so that people don’t try to poach it if we are not there.
One team member sugested a name for the group “Why so - Serious Games Group” As we are working on an educational Serious game for the group CABI and there Plant Doctor inishative. The image with the man over a microscope is one from CABI’s website which we have been okayed to use in our project, its not finished as I would like to draw over him to fit it in more. The other is heavily referenced from this image of a Joker figure: http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a339/maglorsregret/Show%20Your%20Shelves/NurseJoker.jpg

I’m really unsure about the text but there is so much colour in the back ground that it was hard to find something to fit that wasn’t glaring.

Anyway please feel free to leave feed back, okay?

Meeting with another Mike

So today we met with Mike Tompson, I’ll add the recording in when I get home but it was a really great meeting and solidified a lot of the questions we had about the cabbi project. We now know we are focusing the game on teaching the diagnosing skills required in the abc method cabbi used to teach its plant doctors. It’s all about teaching the critical thinking process to determine what is wrong with a plant.

I am so excited about this thought I am growing more worried with some group members. But I guess that happens with any group.

So here are some photos taken when our group headed to P-block to check out the room we will get to used while working on these game pitches. I am so excited, the space is really awesome the lunch room is brilliant, the lounge areas are all over the place. Ah I am so excited to work there! Everything is really brilliant and its mostly for post grads, I say mostly as our group will be the only under grads there! 

Everyone involved in the group is so nice as well I am really excited to work everyone. :D

We have a group!

Tumblr keeps eating my posts.

So Friday was so productive, we went from 2 group members including me at around 1pm to having 8 that night! We have a really good spread of people as well. We have some of everything which is great, we have someone who wants do all the management tasks (fewf!), we have three designers but they all seem so willing to work together on ideas with everyone else as well one specialises in level design! I am really pleased with them I must say they seem like they will work great together. We have a 3d modeller and he seems really cool will have to take a look at his work more closely, but he seems like a pretty awesome guy and he can do video editing. We have one person who seems into the marketing side which is really great news. He also sounds like he will be really helpful with design and sound design! We also got a coder, I haven’t met him but I am so glad we have one dedicated coder, it’s just such great news. Then there is one person I am not the most keen on but he’s an animator and we needed that since I have a hard time with it so its a good void that needed filling. Then there’s me haha. I’m in charge of the art assets what ever they are as well as any web design and research we might need. I’m really ecstatic to work on this project! I’m feeling so good about it now, and can’t wait to get back into posting here.
Next thing to post I think will be some research into what educational games are seen as good to people I know and the wider game community.

Group Woes

Having trouble getting into a group for this class. I already have a friend I would like to try and work with but that’s it. I’ve known him for a while so I am sure it will be fin its just finding the rest of the group when we don’t have any ideas we want to work on or cant find a group with an idea we would like to work on. Its not for lack of trying, we have come up with many game ideas we think would work to pitch but it just doesn’t feel right. We know you don’t get to chose what you work on and feel like we should be given something to work on with a team we are mostly unfamiliar with.

Thankfully things seem to be looking up. Earlier today we spoke with Peter about possible industry pitches to work with. They both sound really interesting and I would love to work on both if I could. I mean I see doing art assets for both as a task I would be capable of but I don’t think that really fits into my major or the 379 objectives.

The first industry task is to work with an existing character, Fiscal the Fraud Fighting Ferret, to develop a game that insensitive children to be safe when using the internet and money services  It is a brief from the Queensland Police to incorporated there character into an educational game. 

The second is with the CSIRO and CABBY(I believe?). It is to do with there plant doctor program, as well as other programs including seed banks and sustainable rural farming. The brief sounds very free and open, as it sounds like they are looking more for a prof of concept than a full fledged game.