Assignments

Brief 1 - Intro to Games Research and Analysis

Brief 2 - Summary of Findings & Report

Project Reflection: 

1. What went well? 

The easiest part of this project was coming up with the ideas we wanted to research. I had a little more difficulty actually finding information, but when it came time to record everything went as smoothly as it was expected to go. I was able to film my piece in minimal takes, which was something I'd been worried about as I didn't want to spend hours trying to get it right. There were no technical issues this time, and communicating with the group was also fine. 

2. How did I contribute? 

I developed the structure that we agreed to use for each of our sections, making sure that we would each have an opportunity to cover the similarities and differences between DayZ and Tarkov in a couple of areas. This was fairly easy, as I like to have a specific, black-and-white structure to any academic paper I write. It was my suggestion to take a "compare and contrast" approach to the assignment, and then as a group we brainstormed the topics to talk about. Additionally, I wrote my section according to this structure and found that it worked well for what I was trying to do. 

3. What didn't go well? 

I had a difficult time finding objective information about these two games, which came up in our feedback. As a group, we suggested keeping our recorded sections to approximately five minutes each, which I ended up overshooting quite substantially. My goal was to write six or seven hundred words to meet that time mark, but I wrote almost a thousand and possibly went on for too long. It was hard to keep to a minimum time limit, as a result. A minor problem I had was trying to find academic sources to reference, so that I wouldn't be relying solely on reviews and blogs. 

4. What did I do about it? 

Because I was anxious about filming, I tried to speak slowly and clearly so as to be understandable, which wasn't a good idea considering that I was already over the agreed time limit. As for the research itself, I found as many sources as I could to make my argument with, as I started with little credibility to speak about these two games. It was difficult to find good academic sources, but when I refined my questions I was able to come up with a few. 

5. What can I do differently in future? 

Having realised in hindsight that I could've recorded my screen instead of my face, next time will definitely be easier for me. Also, I had a hard time remembering to mention my sources in the video. I had them written down in front of me, and got my quoting right, but I only realised afterwards that I had forgotten to verbally cite them.  In future video assignments, I'll have to make sure to do so. Looking back on the previous assignment, I notice that I seem to have trouble keeping to a time limit. I'll be working on that in future. 

6. Now what do I need to learn? 

As mentioned, I need to practice being concise in my assignments to avoid going overtime. In terms of referencing in-video, I'm really camera-shy and tend to leave things out when I get nervous. I would need to work on my confidence to improve. 

In terms of feedback, I was pleased to hear that our project was mostly well-done. I was nervous about how it would turn out, especially because I have never done anything like a video essay before and wasn't familiar with how to make a good one. I did my part of the assignment according to a structure that I believed the rest of the group would also be using, so I understand the cohesiveness issue that came up in class. 

The only feedback I got that I didn't think was entirely warranted was the problem of factual inaccuracy. I've played neither DayZ nor Tarkov, and I made sure to explicitly mention that in my part of the video, so I had to rely pretty much entirely on what I could read about them. I tried to find sources that weren't unusably biased, and one of my group members - who has played both - didn't bring up any issues with me during editing. 

Project Reflection: 

1. What went well? 

• working together was enjoyable 

• we didn't have any communication problems 

• the idea came to us quickly, and we had little trouble filling it out - if anything, we sometimes needed to rein it back in 

• keeping our changelog 

• had a Trello board to manage which tasks still needed doing, as well as everyone's contributions 

2. How did I contribute? 

• created the GDD site 

• sorted out map size and player movement speed - Ian and I tested this out in Unity during class 

• filled out multiple pages on the GDD site 

  • finalized the resolution of our game for artists (128x128px.) 

  • game summary, art + visual design, the software/hardware development, level design 

• made sure that all the formatting was consistent and easy to read - final page clean-up 

3. What didn't go well? What did we do about it? 

• couldn't get everything we wanted done - we took on a huge task, striving to design a complex game and write up a detailed GDD. Unfortunately, there was too much to do in our timeframe, so a few of our desirables couldn't be met. 

• minor differences of opinion - wanting the theme to be a closed-in, underground train rail system vs the outdoor, apocalyptic wasteland we went with 

  • decided to go with our actual theme because it fits with the narrative of a polluted-beyond-repair world that the players are navigating

  • also allowed for us to have recognisable resources, such as wood and meat 

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4. What can I do differently in future? 

5. Is there anything I need to learn?