Puck'd

Digital Prototype based on "A Midsummer Night's Dream"

Design Practice

A walk-through of logo design and application.
One-on-one feedback on our work so far.
A blinder of an AI lab from John with hands-on, task-based learning of useful techniques through logo reproduction.
What's not to like?

Lush in browser 3D coming soon to a plug-in you and everyone else already have!

Plug-in free, standards-compliant,flash-like RIA WYSIWYG builder prototype

Cool Flash Catalyst-like WYSIWYG for HTML 5 using JQuery

Posters and pressos.

Coming in to Paula's class yesterday I was pretty happy with my poster(s).
Until I saw everyone else's!
That and the technological quantum leap that separated most of the other game reviews from mine on Wednesday has made me realize I need to use next week to SERIOUSLY up-skill. Although until they develop some sort of design sensibility organic transplant, I think my stuff will always be pretty utilitarian (there's that word again).

Puzzles and problems

Well, a certain assignment is in and I , for one, can now think about doing what I like.
In the heat of pushing that thing together I took a break and treated myself to 4 hours coding last Friday. I had a particular functionality I wanted to implement (based on a problem I overheard in class).
Man I had a blast.
It wasn't pretty, it isn't commented, it wasn't elegant and it's not polished yet, but it works.
This leads me to conclude that while I don't like puzzles I love problems (preferably other peoples....no dire consequences).
Oh yeah, in case you hadn't gathered yet, though I'm only a newbie, I LOVE this coding lark.

Auditorium

Preso here

Auditirium Review

cs.google.com/present/edit?id=0Ad5l68JkBSDYZGc1NnEzZGhfMGdndHZqcmdz&hl=en

Can I have my degree now please?

My understanding of the word "semantic" was very reasonably called into question in a comment on another post.
My understanding of the meaning of the study of meaning was questioned.
The possibilty of meta-semantics arises.

1) I've gratuitously and probably erroneously used the prefix"meta-" and he word semantics.
2) I've documentary proof (in another post) that I've been involved in a process of successsful development through process of intense reflection for at least 7  hours.

This raises the possibility that I might already have developed enough to earn my degree.

If, in response to the question posed in title of this post,  I don't  get at least one comment composed of two letters, one of which is "N", I'll know I'm wasting my time writing all this.

The bad news---mismanaged expectations RANT

Also known as the post I may regret in the morning.
I love Authoring Principles, Design Practice and Ludology.
I do not love Design Principles.
Like dietary fiber it good for us but hard to get enthusiastic about and " gets in the way of" the fun stuff.
There.
Having slept on it for 2 hours I've changed this post.

The good news

Great Design Principles session today.
Loved the stuff about composition
Loved the posters.
Am really looking forward to the poster assignment (if I get a chance to spend any time on it with theprinciples assignment).

Puzzles Warning DRY post!

I am reading a good book of puzzles (King Arthur in Search of his Dog and other curious puzzles) by a chap called Raymond M Smullyan.
He writes logic-based mystery books and his book "Lady or the Tiger" is cited on wikipedia as worth reading for its explanation of logic puzzles (it was actually this book for which I was looking when I bought King Arthur....)
The puzzles in the google doc here are recontextualized plagiarisms of his logic structures. In some ways they are "new" puzzles as altering a word here and there in a given structure can clarify/obfuscate the structure significantly without invalidating it.
Actually substituting the variables and keeping track of them, all but forces you to explicitly abtract the structure from its initial context (particularly when it comes to refactoring the solutions and explanations).

I want more life......

Last night was great.
Drink and wine on tables scarcely relevant. Five groups attention focused. Not all that enticing on first impressions.
Until I joined a group.

The board-game cards pretty, similar but different.

I LOVE Rock Band.

I wish I'd tried all this years ago.

You're in a desert, walking along in the sand, when all of a sudden you look down...

Wednesday's class was challenging.
We had to do and analyze a lot of puzzles. Of course it was challenging!
I don't do puzzles but am willing to give them a bash. I REALLY wanted to have five minutes on my own in a quiet room with a piece of paper to analyze each one.
To categorize statements. To check for ambiguity. To analyze the assumptions about the system and to look for origins of these assumptions.
Under pressure (yeah I felt under pressure) I got frazzled.
I was running to stand still. A couple of times when task B assumed understanding of puzzle A (that I was just intuiting) I didn't like it at all.

Now, apart from crummy design principles assignments, I've got the week-end to think about the puzzles.

And that I'm looking forward to....

All these...moments... will be lost..in time...

Is there an option in games to capture and replay your gamespace triumphs?
Or for that matter, the moments when it all started to go wrong (for the purposes of postmortem)?
Would/do you get much use out that functionality?

HATE is a strong word

I spend alot of my mealtimes trying to explain to my kids that HATING french beans just represents a waste of energy (they can afford it, they have a lot of energy to waste but that's not the point).
The reason I don't really play games has much to do with HATE and patience.
You see I like to portray myself as not-really competitive. You don't see me get too het up about competition. You can't be competitive if you don't compete. Right?
Nah..
I don't game because I really, really HATE losing.
And anybody to whose heard me snarl at the workstation during the tutorials can see that many aspects of my life already become competitive without games adding additional adrenal gland squeezing tension. In fact I have to take time to dissipate the stuff just to become functional again.
Maybe sandbox games might do it for me. Maybe the option to wander wraith-like through a game before playing might help.

I might see if I can get Chrystal Edge for Android.

Holloway ludologyminitalk

Check out this SlideShare Presentation:

Holloway ludologyminitalk

View more presentations from GPHslideshare.

What about strange attractors?

While lamenting the loss of books (stuck in storage behind the sofa and kitchen chairs)
It occurred to me that chaos theory must have a lot to offer games analysis and modeling.
A game might be a system with states that tend to aggregate around attractors (perhaps one of dynamism that would favor the heroes and another of stability that would favor the hoards, schemers and strategists).
If a game could modeled to approximate that sort of system the parameters that need to be manipulated to approximate the desired system of states.
Similarly a game modeled on a system with sensitive dependence on initial factors could be used to to take similar but subtly different inputs to a variety of significantly different outcomes.
I'm sure there's a body of research on this out there and will Google it when I get the chance.

and you burned so very, very brightly Roy.

Jaded idea I know and possibly insulting to some.....
Having achieved a catharsis in gamestate does sometimes life appear a little grey and muted by comparison?
Are you left looking for 11 on the dial?

Yesterday's excercise

Possibly following the reference to Steve McQueen my game yesterday added a physical skill where you flick your rider into the quarterpipe and into one of three foam pits to gain access to scoring/gambling potential. Apart from that it was pretty boring and derivative.And no real playing against others. Buckaroo anyone?
Group work was good but challenging. Our problem for me centered around choosing the game with the most ultimate potential and the game we could deliver on schedule (if it doesn't ship, it doesn't win). I'm glad we picked the one we did.
There was a slightly surreal quality to Veronica's interjected tasks in her game that I liked. Like when when the Jets break into song in Westside Story. Definitely worth another look.

It seems you think our work is not of benefit to the public.

Further to lionheart's post on why we play games and my question of could we survive without games/play?
A cynical non-gamer might, on a lazy day, dismissively answer the question of "why do we play games" with reference to the fact that "Every man thinks meanly of himself for not having been a soldier" and that it must have something to do fantasy and wish fulfillment.

As a non-gamer I can see the potential that games may share with the other arts to allow underlying patterns to be discerned.

Personally when this happens to me (with music, literature, maths or code) I feel comforted that all is not chaos.

Its not a big leap from pattern to meaning.

I like my patterns to be indifferent to me (my taste in music tends towards plinky-ploink electronica). In light of this and following Alan's review of Halo Reach I feel this one may have something to offer me.

Feelings about games I've played

Shear Madness Fairly Odd Parents online Flash game on Nick.
Good: Easy to understand, visuals and audio in keeping with the wacky aesthetic of the show.

Spongebob Invasion of the Patty Snatchers again flash on Nick.com.
Bad: Lame strategy game where you place "artillery" around a board to maximize its effect on the advancing hordes. Different artillery strengths not explicit , couldn't be bothered playing to find out. Culinary themed artillery link is lame.
Link between a strat game and SpongeBob is tenuous at best.

More SpongeBob game reviews later.

What's in a game?

Further to today's discussion I'm not sure I'm  completely in agreement with the drift towards defining a game as anything that can be treated as a game or be fun.

It seems that a game should possibly be a metaphor/practice  for a "more important" struggle.
In that sense a game is "false" or at least "life-lite".
I thinks games cannot have "dire consequences" if you lose.
A game should perhaps still potentially be fun (although obviously not as much fun) even if your losing.
Obviously then the "status of being a game" is influenced by the attitude of the agent to the game.

Is Russian roulette a game?
Is losing the family home, your family's livelihood and inheritance in a poker hand a game?
Is it appropriate to treat life as a game ie as of some diminished significance?

  Brian Eno (while cultural embassador for the EU) defined culture as "everything we don't actually need to survive".

Games certainly are part of our culture. They may be regarded as "life-lite".

But could we survive without them?

Games I've known

From my last post it will be apparent that I am not an avid gamer. The last game i played with any real intent was Scramble (loaded from a tape onto a Vic 20)!
I have (very occasionally) played a few flash games on my phone with my girls when they needed distracting.
The closest I've come to a first person shoot'em up has been to chase down the soundtracks of the last three Halos. I didn't even chase up the opportunity to see an early version of project Natal in action 18 months ago.
So why am I here (in Ludology)?
Well I've always liked looking under the hood. I've an interest in making elearning  engaging, in simulations for training and expert systems and modelling for decision support and game theory and pattern recognition and I'm hoping Ludology (which I don't think I afford to take formally) might provide insights into these areas.

Ludology Wednesday 22/09/2010

General thoughts:
As someone whose compulsive streak already manifests itself while coding in a tendency to iterate countless variations of the same fundamental error into the small hours only to wake up the next day with a solution I've always avoided games as a way to limit the demands made on my time by my small but tenacious collection of enthusiasms.
As such, today I gained an insight into what it would feel like to be an untested alcoholic teetotaler at a brewing conference being encouraged by a group of sommeliers to sample the wares "for academic purposes".
Specific thoughts:
Its harder than it looks.
It gets complicated very quickly.
Multiplayer Strategy>>Choice>>Chance
Sometimes the fun comes from unplanned directions..? more so in multiplayers with flexible/ambiguous rules and consensus/compromise interpretation?