Final SEMR 1110 Reflection

SEMR 1110 is a course that tackles the reconfiguration of your brain and the systematic ways in which it currently thinks. It’s about re-assesing the kind of questions one might ask himself day to day. More importantly, the right questions to ask and where each question could lead you. A particular incident that stood out from the semester was a day in the first module with Dr. Hoda Mostafa, where she asked us to design paper airplanes that would fly farthest across the room. It seemed like a mindless task at first until Dr. Hoda crumbled a paper and threw at all the way across the room, bearing in mind that the rest had their (typical looking) paper airplanes end up beneath their feet. This was a pivotal moment for me at this course, an activity I would never forget 20 years from now. That’s because it challenged my ideology of accepting the norms. It diminished any boundaries  or constraints I had applied to the definition of the things around us. What is an airplane? What’s a table? What are the properties that make something what it is today? If anything, isn’t that the core of new inventions and innovation? I believe this, along with the airplane air-bin challenge, contributed most to my learning because I felt like I was tackling real life problems and that I held the power of finding the solution. I never would’ve thought to crumple a paper up and consider it as an airplane, and neglecting the wings wasn’t something I would’ve ever considered.

Because of this course, I know now where to begin if I ever want to develop something in the future. Because of this course, I’m actually hoping to initiate a project with my dad’s friend that revolutionizes the design of student desks at a typical university. I’ve always had an entrepreneurial mindset, and I aspire to minor in entrepreneurship. This course encouraged me to write more in my “ideas” book and keep all the ideas, if I thought they had the slightest bit of potential, even if they’re unrealistic. This course motivated me to begin reading a book by someone we watched a TEDX video for. This book is called “What I Wish I Knew When I Was 20,” by Tina Seelig, even though it wasn’t required. I personally favored module 1 over 2 because it taught me more about myself than I knew. It was more of a individual challenge that encouraged me to think outside the box and become a better version of myself. The better version of me can now re-evaluate problems critically and creatively, think outside of the constraints and deal with constraints head on, and creatively manipulating the situation to reach an effective solution. Although I learned a lot from module 2 as well, I didn’t feel like it was my strongest suit considering just merely the fact that I’m not game oriented and judge myself harshly when it comes to creating entertainment. (Insecurity, in a nutshell)

I would’ve learned better in this course if we had completed more hands-on activities and projects whilst probably shortening the blog posts in order to create a balance. I feel as though I did more reflecting than actual work, which could’ve had a more positive benefit on me, and perhaps I would’ve learned more in the meantime. Perhaps my advice would be rather than constantly reflecting, next semester could engage in researching something specific. Learn more about things like IDEO and the things that they do, which would definitely enhance a student’s performance along the modules.

Game Process Reflection

The process of creating the game was truly exhausting for me. Creating “Who’s up for it?” didn’t come by easily. The most difficult stage was transforming the objectives into play. We often had to reconsider whether the the player was going to directly receive an understanding of the game or whether he would indirectly receive it through the game dynamics. As I’ve stated for my previous post, we’ve had to re-design numerous times for several reasons. First, it was too complex. In the midst of it all, we were trying to complete a real game with weak aspects. At that stage, we opted for a game that was focused on a couple of majors, but had good situations. Then the game mechanics weren’t enticing to the players to win.

Personally, I’m not a big fan of failure or the general idea of working on something for a long time and have to restart all over again.. Therefore, the process of changing the idea every time was sort of annoying. However, this module taught me the significance of delivering something more worthwhile and re-prototyping rather than just sticking with one idea and trying to fix it. During the game process, I learned that I had a weakness of often deferring judgment. I have a tendency to dismiss ideas in my head as not that successful or entertaining along the way, even if I wasn’t saying it out loud. I wasn’t giving many thoughts the time and imagination it deserved. This was due to the fact that I saw great potential in certain ideas and didn’t want to see past them. I realized this half way through the game process and tried to improve by going more with the flow. The process of creating a game was enervating to me. It was tons of ideas being thrown everywhere at such a short time. One couldn’t record each one down in time, because before that was completed, another person in the group would’ve  contributed an addition to it before you know it. We settled for creating a situation-2 stack of cards game where people tried to relate certain situations with a certain major and trying to find “who’s best for the job,” as the game suggests. Luckily for me, I had an amazingly creative, and cooperative group. We had each other’s backs and we were able to meet outside of class multiple times and cooperatively work together in order to reach a certain goal. We worked on each of the tasks evenly in order to ensure equality in our work. While someone would be recording, someone else would be brainstorming, and so forth. Therefore, I think my role was blurry because each time we were doing something different.

If I could go back in time and change the game one more time, I would definitely add more situations. I’d re-evaluate the points that would be awarded to each major for each situation. Had time been in our favor, I’m sure the end result would’ve been much more appealing. After working with our group, I realized our capabilities and creative thinking skills could’ve created a much better result for kids to play with. However, honestly, with finals and everything else going around, we couldn’t give our 100% power into the project itself.

Overall, I’m proud that we were able to reach this far in such a short period of time whilst undergoing a lot of stress from other areas with such great cooperation. Although it had it’s down points, it was an eye opening experience that opened my eyes to how difficult game designing can be, and the different motives each game could possibly contain.

 

 

 

 

 

Re-assessing, re-modelling, and re-protyping.

Talk about prototyping and re-protyping over and over and over again. We’ve probably had about 50 ideas. Introduced tons of new game mechanics and had them fail. We’ve gone from being an over-complex game, board-token-card game that combined two topics and incorporated three popular games we know to a two stack card game. For the last two final prototypes we’ve eliminated the board, tokens, and we’ve went from a group-based game to an individually won game, with completely changed dynamics. The game is now solely based on situations and majors that compliment the situation itself. The first major idea, which we’ve created a prototype of, allowed the players to represent a life situation to the group with a random major (through performing or drawing it) and having the other players guess what major they were representing.

However, we’ve received feedback from the first prototype that players found that they ended up just acting the major itself and not relating it to the situation itself. Furthermore, another problem we encountered was our our unsuccessful game dynamics in the sense where players didn’t have an incentive to win the game or the rules hindered the process of allowing other team members to win. We’re currently developing a game where we’ll allow a situation to be presented between a team and have the players put down the most relevant major to the situation itself. The idea is for players to receive a good understanding and exposure as to the different areas/life situations  a certain major can be of use and then indirectly affect them in giving a better understanding of the major and if they like it or not. Please await our game, “Who’s task is it again?”

*This is just an update*

Coming soon! Thursday December 15th, 2016.

Rawan El Masry

Noreen Abdel Rehim

Amr Alaa

Mai Amr

Clubbing, the Narrative Game

My partner, Noreen, and I have decided to create a game that garners awareness the the different kinds of extra curricular activities that exist in AUC. The idea of the game is to give the place the player in situations where they’re supposed to answer with their preferences. We realized during interviews that most of the people didn’t know certain clubs existed, let alone realize they could be interested in these extra curricular activities. So our main focus was exposure. The feedback we gave ourselves is that it might resemble a personality test a little, but the goal of the game is to unlock as many rooms (clubs) as possible whilst being honest in the same time. The situations are supposed to resemble what the club is about a little without being too boring.

The hardest part of the game was creating the questions. They were either too boring, too detailed, yes/no questions, or not entertaining. We had to change them like 7 times and deciding on a  way to execute the rooms was hectic. We had a lot of fun completing the game once we decided how we were gonna go create it. Another constraint was time constraints and the long list of different kinds of extra circulars. We also had a lot of research to do on what each club did. We also tried to make it more realistic with ensuring variety rather than focusing on the little details of the dynamics game which would’ve complimented it much better.

https://docs.google.com/a/aucegypt.edu/presentation/d/1WxFewfKeNDdqx0_PBZrU9fANjfJpHVQQogQnEsqeGQw/edit?usp=sharing

 

Feedback & Re-Prototyping

In all honesty, my partner and I at first weren’t at all satisfied with our first prototype. I didn’t really find an incentive for the player to stay invested in wanting to play the game. I learned the significance behind the coining of user centered design, especially since Games are entirely about pleasing, entertaining, and captivating the user without any other considerations.

My partner and I took different paths and set to interviewing people. I took the AUC Steps as my audience earlier this morning, and I discussed with them my aim to create an educational game that represented knowledge about AUC’s extra curricular activities. Between interviews, I realized that first of all, many people didn’t care to know what happens within a lot of extracurricular activities/clubs. So the first thing I had to keep in mind my possibly highly indifferent audience. I aimed to make them want to know what every club did and be able to differentiate between each club, clearly recognizing the aim and distinction between each club in order to win/complete the game.

My second and most important was asking people what they hoped to see in the game, and what would excite them. While 2 of my friends opted for having time constrained game, 2 others completely disagreed and stated that playing games with time limitations aggravated them. 3 people also agreed that they enjoyed the thrill of reaching the next level or generally getting rewarded as they went along. This inspired me to possibly insert hints or suggestions for the player as an incentive for them to continue the game without feeling bored.

Furthermore, I went into more detail explaining how we saw the game being structured, the fact that it was going to be through google slides, would have a template similar to that of jeopardy’s and the such. They four people I interviewed were generally intrigued with the idea and suggested I use pictures rather than all words, and include mysterious elements into the game. They hoped it wouldn’t be too easy, but not too difficult either to the point where its mind-bobbling to figure out what extra to insert in each category. A particular interviewee made a particular statement about how she’s not interested in those kind of games, “I’m more of a Sudoko and word puzzle kind of person.” That was my inspiration to incorporate a paper along with the virtual game which included a list of the end result of the names of the clubs, and where each one belonged. The paper list represented a goal that they would eventually unlock. I don’t want to reveal all the secrets to our game and hope that this is enough to get you excited to hearing about my game.

Photo Reference: (Google Advanced Images)

1. http://www.pearsonpublishing.co.uk/resources/mobile/previews/eng_sh/module-4/assets/drafting_and_redrafting__icon.jpg

International Games Day

First off, I should give some insight about myself and state that a) I’ve never been to an escape room, 2) I’m not really a game person, but 3) one of the best days of my life was spent at Universal Studios. Yet I still didn’t expect to have fun in class last Monday. Ironically, however, international games day at the library was one of the funnest things I’ve done in a while. I didn’t get to play half of the games there, and that was for a specific reason. I learned that a game’s appearance, outer design, completely changed my perspective towards the game itself. I was a victim of judging games based on their appearance. The more something complicated and intensive something looked, I wasn’t really attracted to it, and decided to neglect it. Something I realized in common between all the games I played was the simplicity of each. Nothing was out of the box or crazy innovative… they were ordinary, but with a twist. That in itself was creative to me and appealing. I didn’t want to have to look through a lot of instructions in order to begin playing the games. This influenced the way I design my game in the sense where I now know what little details to pay attention to most. Also pay attention to the visuals is key because a game could be really thoughtful and creative yet the delivery of the game itself not be really promising.

Poor and Proud was SUPER creative despite its simplicity. I loved the idea and the delivery wasn’t bad. It teaches us to be empathetic and it was an A+ for me. I just couldn’t play it because there weren’t any dice. I proposed downloading dice on the phone and playing along, but there was bad internet so I moved on. Same goes for the one right next to it with the black and red cards. It was addictive, I didn’t want to leave the game. It was clear, fun, and relevant. Would’ve been more fun if there were a larger variety of red cards. 

Poor and Proud Game

After completing the two hours of gaming, I realized the techie-simulation games are definitely my favorite. (which makes sense considering I’m an aspiring engineer) Of course, this was a winner for me. First off, I understand how difficult it is to create this robot, with the sensors, micro controllers..(all the different tools to create this product) so I genuinely admired it. It was interesting to try to move the can bottle from one place to the other. Although I’m not entirely sure of the educational benefit, but the precision of moving the controller, and the patience it takes to finally get to the result you want is something that can be taught from playing this game. Also, like any video game, learning to use the controls enhances your sensual capabilities.

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The Winner

The roller coaster simulation was also obviously the one I wanted to play most. I felt like it was the most realistic, and that was what made it so special. In the videos below, you’ll be able to see that how my reactions whilst playing the games. I felt like I was going to fall a couple of times and had to assure myself that my balance on the ground wasn’t gone.

 

And finally, regarding the escape room, I just read the instructions of the game and opted to creating the model by myself and leave the rest of the group continue with figuring out the rest, as a method of splitting up and achieving more. This game was all about observation and connecting the dots. It could’ve been better if it had a certain theme or something to it. Otherwise, it seemed a little obvious. I hope I do well on my prototype. 🙂

Extracurriculars Game Ideas

Although it’s vital to care about your education, prioritize your future, and focus on your major studies, but becoming a well rounded person is essential, and the road towards becoming so is having extra curricular activities. They help develop and enhance various skillsets through your interests that aren’t obtainable within your classes such as leadership, teamwork, and communication. My partner Noreen, and I, have decided to create an educational game that delivers the the significance of extra curricular activities, the benefits one would extract from each committee, and a general awareness of the various types of extra circular activities that exist within the AUC. The aim of this game would be to take the student through the journey of the engagement fair that happens in the last two days of FYE at AUC. It will be comprehensive of the educational-major related extracurriculars, sports, community service, individual interests…etc. It will showcase the kind of roles one could partake in different committees like financial director, project manager, head of fundraising, entertainment…etc. Therefore, aside from just showcasing the AC (academic committee), it would also provide insight to the OC (organizing committee) in case one isn’t interested in certain projects. We’ve decided to use Google Slides as means to develop the game itself. It will have a jeapordy-like theme where the player will be directed to different slides according to their interest and beneath a topic and then the subtopic. Rather than collecting money, you’re collecting different committees, clubs. The final slide would be the name of the committee, and a sign up page for the committee. The player’s goal is to generally unlock all the extra cirricular activities available at AUC under each topic. 

The things a player unlocks first would typically be the things the player is interested in or suit his personality most. Such active learning is expected to enhance the players willingness of joining a community. The idea is still currently under construction, and could definitely develop along the line with criticism and taking more questions into consideration. We just hope that the player is able to discover themselves and their interests through the game whilst gaining insight to the various opportunities AUC provides.

 

Picture References: (In order of appearance, both from Google Advanced Images Search)

1. http://vignette2.wikia.nocookie.net/gameshows/images/c/c6/Jeopardy!_Board_Templatea.JPG/revision/latest?cb=20130209233809
2. http://vignette1.wikia.nocookie.net/gameshows/images/4/4f/Jeopardy!_Board_Template.gif/revision/latest?cb=20130209235327

 

Games of Awareness

To be honest, I was expecting this to be much more boring all together. First off, Spent represented the hardship of being an average adult. I’ve always known adulthood is stressful and constantly having to worry. One thing they didn’t teach me was the spontaneity that came with having responsibilities. There isn’t a schedule that you get at the beginning of the month which you’ll have to abide by.

Spent taught me to truly expect the unexpected. Along the way, I’ll make good choices but unfortunate circumstances will occur which could economically benefit me. I learned the true value of sacrifice in order to maintain balance. Sometimes I’ll be put into situations where its going to be all about the survival, but other decisions like buying ice cream for my kid and her friend. Neglecting your happiness is sometimes necessary and taking a risk is also essential to make it through the days. I ended up playing about 4-5 rounds and it was honestly most impressive…I could see this win big with teenagers who are going through the transition stage into adulthood, it would definitely prepare them more. I wouldn’t change a thing, except add extra levels and go month after month.
On the other hand, the BBC Syrian Refugee game I truly disliked. It was depressing, wasn’t a win-able game, the chance of risk is too high. No matter how many different decisions I tried to take, there was never a right one and in reality.. God knows what could happen and I don’t believe in a right or wrong choice. However it was a good awareness activity for anyone uneducated on the matter. This game could improve by having more steps to it, more choices, and no dead ends right away. I believe in situations like these there’s always more than two options.
Little Alchemy, was the most addictive. It tested my basic knowledge skills and opened my eyes to new compounds I hadn’t really connected together. I reached a total of 40+ new elements. The mechanics of the game were able to stimulate my curiosity as to how I could reach more compounds. As I went along, I created new strategies in the game of testing things together and trying to mix more than one element. It’s interesting that its not focused on a certain educational aspect or just materials. This is probably my favorite one yet. I wouldn’t change a thing except possibly have hints and have additional instructions as we go along.

Liyla was appealing choice of game for me and the first one I chose because I’m a Palestinian myself. Again, this was an awareness inducing game that tried to develop emotional context between the player and real life events. The journey through the war zone was engaging and and triggered a little bit anxiety within me as the odds weren’t in my favor throughout the course.

The Depression Quest seemed the most interesting game for me to begin at home. I’m interested in psychology and the description was catchy. However, it was less of a game and more of reading a story.Although I could relate to A LOT of the feelings the character felt, which was alarming,  I wasn’t engaged and nothing about the graphics, options, or game attitude was appealing to me. I felt like it consisted of reading a story and deciding the pivotal moments. I learned that the heavy weight of your emotions weighing down you isn’t always something in your hands to change. Something I’d change is the way they kept eliminating options. A lot of times there were options I would like to take but I wasn’t given the opportunity so I would choose things I didn’t want to.

The Mom-Sleep Deprived Game was relatable even  as a student. Maybe I wasn’t losing time to a child, but as a student some things are equally as demanding. I constantly find myself at battle between wanting to get a little more sleep and wanting to do something luxurious after a hectic day. It’s hard to choose between what you want to do when your body is depleted of energy. I especially relate a lot to this lately  because no matter what goes on through my day, I feel exhausted. I also have little sisters, so again, a lot of this is relatable. I learned how extra exhausting being a mother is, having to juggle various different tasks. All which require extra effort.

 

Twitter Hunt? What?

Before class started, I honestly had no idea what to expect. I couldn’t picture what I could possibly be “hunting” for on Twitter. You could say that I’m a regular Twitter user (more like addict/lover) since 2009 and I could say that I had a coherent idea on how the system works. Twitter is a place where I get to relate to my followers and feel a sense of unity within my community. My general experience with Twitter is tweeting random/funny things, retweeting things I like… and occasionally replying to someone’s question or anything. However, I wasn’t expecting that the Twitter scavenger hunt would be so interactive. The purpose of Twitter wasn’t to say anything likable, that gets more followers. It was to engage those around me in conversation, inviting different people to participate. I honestly didn’t understand the purpose of the mysterious picture, and how that benefitted me in anyway. I did like some of the answers I’ve received from the questions I’ve answered. Some of my other questions were “What makes a game addictive?” and “are hands-on games not popular/successful between kids anymore, in an age now so technologically occupied?”

My two favorites are..

 

Whilst researching for articles related to educational games and Egypt, I stumbled upon this article which genuinely caught my interest. It’s an Egyptian board game developed to entertain kids whilst teaching them about the geography of Egypt. In a country with a high illiteracy rate and little motivation for kids to get an education, I think this is a great way of introducing educational content within a game.

https://t.co/jHSWmlLfve Brilliant initiative!!!!!! Why doesn't this have more exposure? Well done, Cairoscene! #gameseg #gbl #gchangers

— Rawan El Masry (@rawanandseminar) November 13, 2016

Gaming and Learning

When one usually thinks of playing games, one would regard them as things that pass by time for leisure purposes. However, games serve much more educational purposes than one than the eye meets. It’s vital to recognize that the benefits are usually indirect. They could challenge several areas of your brain simultaneously whilst stimulating your creativity, imagination, and problem skills meanwhile being entertaining. They’re mental contests with objectives, restricted by rules and a target. They don’t necessarily have to deliver complex content whereas they could be synthesizing economic concepts whilst challenging your time efficiency, like monopoly for example. During our introductry class for module 2, we were asked to pick a different candy from the table and then group according to those who chose differently. I’m not quite sure why that was so, but I assumed so that my geoup would be diverse in terms of its preferences and way of thinking. Furthermore, we tested our memory abilities and time efficiency by thinking of all the games we know, recording them down and playing them out.  I found it interesting whilst researching games that there was such a broad category of types of games, and so many could be considered educational.

http://www.caihongyigou.com/group/games/index.htm

This takes me to discussing serious games and serious play. Serious games are an example specifically designed games with an objective to deliver an educational benefit to the player whilst also engaging him in the game and appealing to his entertainment. This benefit is not limited various industries such as healthcare to city planning, politics, management…etc. Such games we’re introduced in the 70s as arcade hand-held games when kids weren’t recieving good scored on standardized testing. The intention was to engage the kids into more meaningful excercises and educational content into their leisure time. Research shows that there’s positive correlation between health-related behavior and playing educational video games. The unique thing about serious games is that it equips the player to actively make choices as they go along the game, and disc0ver different approaches or consequences as they goes along in order to reach the objective desired. Furthermore, they are more common with adults in the sense that they’re used in training situations and real life coaching.

Serious play on the other hand is a methodology created by LEGO that adopts a radical process of collaborative problem solving and design thinking throughout assembling legos. It stimulates healthy discussions and room for cultural, social connection between the members. It’s a strategy used by businesses and organizations to implement great team building experiences and creative journey for finding solutions to the task required or consensus between many players. By enticing a tangible, entertaining, story-building strategy to the field, people are more likely to be more engaged with the team and offer more fruitful contributions to the group.

http://www.tested.com/art/454213-modern-board-game-bestiary/

Links:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2189579/

http://www.designingdigitally.com/what-we-do/serious-games#axzz4PQzt0l8s

http://seriousgamesnet.eu

https://www.lego.com/en-us/seriousplay/the-method

How to commit teams on organization’s 2020 vision with Lego© Serious Play© ?