Here is what I came up with:
The first one is suppose to be a flag. The second one is suppose to be a star.
I'm not sure if either one of these will work, but if not I can always come up with other things.
Thursday, February 24, 2011
Goal
So I had to come up with a concept goal marker for the level. I had to make a 3D model of it, and I have a couple of ideas.
Here is what I came up with:
The first one is suppose to be a flag. The second one is suppose to be a star.
I'm not sure if either one of these will work, but if not I can always come up with other things.
Here is what I came up with:
The first one is suppose to be a flag. The second one is suppose to be a star.
I'm not sure if either one of these will work, but if not I can always come up with other things.
Tuesday, February 22, 2011
Concept HUD & Level Desing
So I haven't been doing a good job at posting stuff on my blog, I'll try to do a better job at that.
For this spring, I was suppose to work on a concept HUD and a level. Here is what I've come up with:
This is the basic HUD. We are going to have a code window, a side bar, and a start button.
The window in the top left corner is suppose to have the "code" that corresponds with whatever the player has his or her cursor over.
The side bar has the items that the player can use in order to reach the goal of the level.
And the green button at the bottom is what sets everything into motion and lets the player see the result of what he did to try and solve the problem.
This is the HUD along with some simple level design.
I have a few more ideas, I will post those when I get a little more time. Thanks for reading.
For this spring, I was suppose to work on a concept HUD and a level. Here is what I've come up with:
This is the basic HUD. We are going to have a code window, a side bar, and a start button.
The window in the top left corner is suppose to have the "code" that corresponds with whatever the player has his or her cursor over.
The side bar has the items that the player can use in order to reach the goal of the level.
And the green button at the bottom is what sets everything into motion and lets the player see the result of what he did to try and solve the problem.
This is the HUD along with some simple level design.
I have a few more ideas, I will post those when I get a little more time. Thanks for reading.
Tuesday, February 1, 2011
Game Feedback
So I presented my new game idea today, and you can see the very short (3 slides total) power point presentation here.
I have to say that I'm not really good at speaking in front of large groups of people, so I kind of rushed the presentation. I could've done better and taken my time to explain more stuff about my game since some of the Master students had questions about the game afterwards.
I got some really good feed back from the Master students which I will write right here.
The one thing that I remember really well was that one of the students actually told me to change the game play for the game I have in mind. He said that if I really want to get the player to understand the immigrants in the game, that I shouldn't have them play as a soldier but rather as an immigrant. This would allow me to convey to the player the situations that immigrants have to go through to get to this country.
Next, I need to change the genre of the game. I shouldn't have a FPS, but more like an "adventure" type game where the player has to run away from the border patrol or whoever is after him. I don't really know the name of the Master student that said this, but he said that violence isn't really the way that I want to get this idea across in a topic that is very controversial on either side of the issue. He told me to play a certain game to get the idea of what he was talking about, but I couldn't catch the name of it. I'll ask him if I see him again.
They also told me that I need to think more about the game if I do decide to stick with the FPS genre and what would the difference be between the soldier killing everyone vs killing on the bad people. This aspect of the game might make or break the game, so it's very important to get it right.
I got a lot more feedback from some of the other students in the class, but I can't quite remember everything that they said.
Anyways, thats all.
I have to say that I'm not really good at speaking in front of large groups of people, so I kind of rushed the presentation. I could've done better and taken my time to explain more stuff about my game since some of the Master students had questions about the game afterwards.
I got some really good feed back from the Master students which I will write right here.
The one thing that I remember really well was that one of the students actually told me to change the game play for the game I have in mind. He said that if I really want to get the player to understand the immigrants in the game, that I shouldn't have them play as a soldier but rather as an immigrant. This would allow me to convey to the player the situations that immigrants have to go through to get to this country.
Next, I need to change the genre of the game. I shouldn't have a FPS, but more like an "adventure" type game where the player has to run away from the border patrol or whoever is after him. I don't really know the name of the Master student that said this, but he said that violence isn't really the way that I want to get this idea across in a topic that is very controversial on either side of the issue. He told me to play a certain game to get the idea of what he was talking about, but I couldn't catch the name of it. I'll ask him if I see him again.
They also told me that I need to think more about the game if I do decide to stick with the FPS genre and what would the difference be between the soldier killing everyone vs killing on the bad people. This aspect of the game might make or break the game, so it's very important to get it right.
I got a lot more feedback from some of the other students in the class, but I can't quite remember everything that they said.
Anyways, thats all.
New Game Idea
So now that I've gotten to think in depth about my old game idea, I'm not so sure that I actually like it that much. I know what I want to do with it, but I just don't know if I can put it into word that express what I want correctly. So I've decided to go with a much simpler idea, but it still ties into what I had in mind earlier. Here is what I want to do:
I've been thinking about making a 3D first person shooter (FPS) that is similar to Call of Duty, Metal of Honor, or any of those FPS that have come out recently but with a twist. Instead of making it with a soldier that is in the middle of a war, I want to make him someone that is stationed at the border between Mexico and the USA. His objective is to protect the border and to catch any undocumented immigrants that are trying to cross over.
The soldier is really good at his job, and never really stopped to think about the lives of the people that he arrested while trying to cross the border. One day, he catches some Coyotes trying to smuggle in people but he is also part of a drug cartel. The soldier finds this group of people and tries to arrest them, but they open fire on him. The soldier now has to kill everyone in the group because he doesn't know who is actually hostile and who isn't.
Once the soldier has survived this near death experience, he finds that among the casualties there was innocent people that weren't a threat at all. He feels really bad about this ordeal, but deep down knows that he had to do it to protect himself.
Is from this point on that he comes up with an idea, what if he tries to only find and arrest the bad people and lets the innocent people go.
This is just an idea now, but I think that it might be better than the Angry Birds idea that I had a while back. I will present this idea tonight, and I'll see what other people think about it.
I've been thinking about making a 3D first person shooter (FPS) that is similar to Call of Duty, Metal of Honor, or any of those FPS that have come out recently but with a twist. Instead of making it with a soldier that is in the middle of a war, I want to make him someone that is stationed at the border between Mexico and the USA. His objective is to protect the border and to catch any undocumented immigrants that are trying to cross over.
The soldier is really good at his job, and never really stopped to think about the lives of the people that he arrested while trying to cross the border. One day, he catches some Coyotes trying to smuggle in people but he is also part of a drug cartel. The soldier finds this group of people and tries to arrest them, but they open fire on him. The soldier now has to kill everyone in the group because he doesn't know who is actually hostile and who isn't.
Once the soldier has survived this near death experience, he finds that among the casualties there was innocent people that weren't a threat at all. He feels really bad about this ordeal, but deep down knows that he had to do it to protect himself.
Is from this point on that he comes up with an idea, what if he tries to only find and arrest the bad people and lets the innocent people go.
This is just an idea now, but I think that it might be better than the Angry Birds idea that I had a while back. I will present this idea tonight, and I'll see what other people think about it.
Wednesday, January 19, 2011
Homework # 2
So for this assignment we are suppose to take an existing iPhone game and turn it into an alternative game. I think that one game that would be prefect for this would be one of the best selling games in the iTunes App Store, which is: Angry Birds. We all know that this game is one of the most popular in the iPhone, ranking number one in the "Top Paid" and "Top Grossing" charts. So my idea involves taking this incredibly successful game and making it into something that isn't just fun, but that also gets an idea across. But first, I have to describe what the agenda that I want to push with this game would be.
For the last class time, we were told to think about things that we feel really strong about. And while I didn't get to share my ideas, mostly because I am kind of shy in big groups, I do have some opinions that I feel really strong about. And I'm saying this because it ties into what I want to say about turning Angry Birds into an alternative game. So here is what I thought last time: I absolutely love playing video games, I hate it when people say that video games make children violent, and I absolutely hate people that want to get rid of undocumented immigrants (in particular, those of Mexican origin) in the USA.
I was really struggling on how to at least get one of those ideas across while at the same time making it fun and without it being difficult and complicated like the McDonald's game that we saw in class. But then it hit me, I can make it so that instead of being birds vs pigs in the game, I can make it something like great human rights & pro-immigration activist vs politicians & laws that aim to kick undocumented immigrants out of the country.
The agenda is actually quiet simple and nothing new, simple to get people to realize that undocumented immigrants aren't all as bad as the media makes them out to be. While we constantly get bombarded by information from both sides of the issue, I think that if the information is told in a different medium it might be able to reach a lot more people. In particular, the younger generation that tends to be oblivious to current events and the news. While I'm not saying that the other people don't matter, I just think that the younger generation needs to be informed of what people are talking about and maybe a game wouldn't be a bad place to start.
Furthermore, I think that aside from the game, we can also include links to organizations across the US that are pro-immigration and maybe even update the players in events relating to immigration and immigration laws. This can be included in a separate part of the game, kind of like a credits window or something of the sort. This would be so that people don't get confused about the game and to not annoy the player before he or she even gets a chance to play the game.
URL : http://www.rovio.com/index.php?page=angry-birds
For the last class time, we were told to think about things that we feel really strong about. And while I didn't get to share my ideas, mostly because I am kind of shy in big groups, I do have some opinions that I feel really strong about. And I'm saying this because it ties into what I want to say about turning Angry Birds into an alternative game. So here is what I thought last time: I absolutely love playing video games, I hate it when people say that video games make children violent, and I absolutely hate people that want to get rid of undocumented immigrants (in particular, those of Mexican origin) in the USA.
I was really struggling on how to at least get one of those ideas across while at the same time making it fun and without it being difficult and complicated like the McDonald's game that we saw in class. But then it hit me, I can make it so that instead of being birds vs pigs in the game, I can make it something like great human rights & pro-immigration activist vs politicians & laws that aim to kick undocumented immigrants out of the country.
The agenda is actually quiet simple and nothing new, simple to get people to realize that undocumented immigrants aren't all as bad as the media makes them out to be. While we constantly get bombarded by information from both sides of the issue, I think that if the information is told in a different medium it might be able to reach a lot more people. In particular, the younger generation that tends to be oblivious to current events and the news. While I'm not saying that the other people don't matter, I just think that the younger generation needs to be informed of what people are talking about and maybe a game wouldn't be a bad place to start.
Furthermore, I think that aside from the game, we can also include links to organizations across the US that are pro-immigration and maybe even update the players in events relating to immigration and immigration laws. This can be included in a separate part of the game, kind of like a credits window or something of the sort. This would be so that people don't get confused about the game and to not annoy the player before he or she even gets a chance to play the game.
URL : http://www.rovio.com/index.php?page=angry-birds
Wednesday, January 12, 2011
Homework # 1
So after playing some of the games from the websites that you gave us, there are a few that I found to be interesting, to say the least.
Game 1: Border Patrol Game
URL: http://www.aztlan.net/racist_anti-mexican_game.htm
The motive of this game is actually quiet simple, its to spread hatred towards Mexican undocumented immigrants. They do this by classifying the people that are crossing the border in three different types: Mexican Nationalist, Drug Smuggler, and a Breeder. As if those were the only types of people that were crossing over to the USA.
The whole point of the game is that you get to shoot the people that are running across your screen to keep them from getting to the USA. Then at the end, you get rated on how well you did. While this game is really messed up, I have to say that it does a good job at convening it's message.
First, they try to make you belief that every person that is crossing over is a bad person. So it's a "good" thing to shoot them to avoid from getting criminals into the USA. Then, they encourage to keep playing the game to try to beat your own score.
I really hate this game, but it does a great job at doing what its suppose to do.
Game 2: McDonald's Video Game
URL: http://www.mcvideogame.com/game-eng.html
This game is similar to the game above in the sense that they are also trying to spread a message, but in this case is of trying to raise awareness about the business practices of McDonald's. While a lot of the stuff on the game is bias and/or objectionable, they are trying to portray McDonald's as an evil corporation interested in only profits. While I'm not saying that either side is correct, I think that they do a good job at trying to convey that message.
The setting of the game is that basically McDonald's has hired you to run the operations of the company. This involves growing the soy to feed the cows, slaughtering the cows, running a McDonald's restaurant, and keeping the people at the corporate headquarters happy by keeping profits up and using different marketing campaigns to boost profits as well as corrupting certain officials in the community.
This game is actually very fast paced, and it took me a few times to actually last more than just a few minutes. I think the last time that I played it, I lasted around 10-15 minutes before I lost and the game was over. But like I said, it does a very good job as casting McDonald's as an evil corporation.
Game 3: Airport Security
URL: http://www.shockwave.com/gamelanding/airportsecurity.jsp#NONE
This game actually made me laugh a little. I don't know when this game was made, but it seems perfect with all the stuff that's been on the new about the TSA. This game basically puts you in a setting that is like your first day on the job. They tell you that your going to be in charged of making sure that no one sneaks anything in that they aren't suppose to.
The funny part is that they switch what is allowed and isn't all the time while your playing. For example, one second you'll be in charge of making sure that the passengers can't take water with them, and the next you'll have to make them take of their pants or shirts. Most of the time, is a combination of things that they can't take with them, like they can't have hats and shirts, or something like that.
But you also have to be quick in this game. You have to make sure that you don't violate anyones rights and that your doing everything correctly while at the same time making sure that the line doesn't get too long. You get points depending on how well you do your job, but if you violate too many of the rights of the passengers or you let to many things go by that shouldn't, you lost and the game is over.
I don't really know what the point of the game was, besides highlighting how stupid some of the real rules of the TSA are.
Game 1: Border Patrol Game
URL: http://www.aztlan.net/racist_anti-mexican_game.htm
The motive of this game is actually quiet simple, its to spread hatred towards Mexican undocumented immigrants. They do this by classifying the people that are crossing the border in three different types: Mexican Nationalist, Drug Smuggler, and a Breeder. As if those were the only types of people that were crossing over to the USA.
The whole point of the game is that you get to shoot the people that are running across your screen to keep them from getting to the USA. Then at the end, you get rated on how well you did. While this game is really messed up, I have to say that it does a good job at convening it's message.
First, they try to make you belief that every person that is crossing over is a bad person. So it's a "good" thing to shoot them to avoid from getting criminals into the USA. Then, they encourage to keep playing the game to try to beat your own score.
I really hate this game, but it does a great job at doing what its suppose to do.
Game 2: McDonald's Video Game
URL: http://www.mcvideogame.com/game-eng.html
This game is similar to the game above in the sense that they are also trying to spread a message, but in this case is of trying to raise awareness about the business practices of McDonald's. While a lot of the stuff on the game is bias and/or objectionable, they are trying to portray McDonald's as an evil corporation interested in only profits. While I'm not saying that either side is correct, I think that they do a good job at trying to convey that message.
The setting of the game is that basically McDonald's has hired you to run the operations of the company. This involves growing the soy to feed the cows, slaughtering the cows, running a McDonald's restaurant, and keeping the people at the corporate headquarters happy by keeping profits up and using different marketing campaigns to boost profits as well as corrupting certain officials in the community.
This game is actually very fast paced, and it took me a few times to actually last more than just a few minutes. I think the last time that I played it, I lasted around 10-15 minutes before I lost and the game was over. But like I said, it does a very good job as casting McDonald's as an evil corporation.
Game 3: Airport Security
URL: http://www.shockwave.com/gamelanding/airportsecurity.jsp#NONE
This game actually made me laugh a little. I don't know when this game was made, but it seems perfect with all the stuff that's been on the new about the TSA. This game basically puts you in a setting that is like your first day on the job. They tell you that your going to be in charged of making sure that no one sneaks anything in that they aren't suppose to.
The funny part is that they switch what is allowed and isn't all the time while your playing. For example, one second you'll be in charge of making sure that the passengers can't take water with them, and the next you'll have to make them take of their pants or shirts. Most of the time, is a combination of things that they can't take with them, like they can't have hats and shirts, or something like that.
But you also have to be quick in this game. You have to make sure that you don't violate anyones rights and that your doing everything correctly while at the same time making sure that the line doesn't get too long. You get points depending on how well you do your job, but if you violate too many of the rights of the passengers or you let to many things go by that shouldn't, you lost and the game is over.
I don't really know what the point of the game was, besides highlighting how stupid some of the real rules of the TSA are.
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