Journal Entry 6 Speculation of strategies

Some ways in which games can appear more appealing to people, is through infusing daily activities into the game, so that the player's feel that they can relate to the game. By reversing the statement "infusing play into daily lives" we can actually infuse our daily lives into play, which would work the same way, yet benefit game designers as well. Since people are designed to play through their lives, infusing their daily lives into game actually allows people to "play through their lives" and hence achieve the ultimate goal of what humans were made for.

Journal Entry 6 To maximise fun and enjoyment in the game

Firstly, the design has to be pleasant, it has to appear appealing to the players by containing amazing graphical animations and appealing characters that they would be controlling. Colours should be used according to whichever emotion the game wants the players to feel.

Secondly, having simple control keys would aid in letting players feel the emotion of having control,they would not be confused over which keys to press because they are fully aware of the function whichever keys does. Having a simple and straightforward game mechanic would also help in letting the players understand the game easily, hence again they would feel that they are in full control of the game. Only then would they desire to explore further into the game and try to achieve more out of the game. Hence involving them deeper.

Finally, equipments and items that the characters use have to contain a certain special name, there has to be different grades of items and weapons, so that the players feel proud or happy, when they are using a weapon/item of a higher grade, or an item that is more rare to find than the others.

Journal Entry 6 Considering Don Norman's 3 ways good design makes you happy

Beautiful, Functional and Reflective, are the three components mentioned that causes design to induce a pleasant emotion in people.

The visceral level deals with making our sense sight and hearing, and is also about people's likes and dislikes in their subconscious, in the flow of gameplay, visceral deals with the amazing graphics which would appear appealing towards the players, the vibrant, bright cheerful colour players would see in a cartoon game, or a dark eerie mixture of colour to bring out the scariness of the game.

The Behavioural level deals with the feeling of controlling a certain object, the emotion of a person feeling that he/she is in full control of the situation is what appeals to them in a gameplay. When these interact with each other, players feel that they are in full control of the subject, be it the character they are controlling, or the enemy monster they are fighting, and they would feel pleasant by watching the amazing graphic animations that are
on-going within the game.

After which, they would feel the reflective level. Where they think and reflect in their mind, how well they have controlled the characters, how amazing the graphics
was, how good did they do in the game.

All of the factors interlink with each other, by first letting the players see a pleasant sight, feel pleasant because they feel that they are in full control of the subject, and finally letting them reflect on the subject in their minds, whether it was good or bad, or how proud they feel to own the subject.

Journal Entry 5 Metaphor of an idea

My very own interpretation of an idea metaphor is "freshly baked pie". This metaphor would mean that the resultant conclusion is fresh, and brand new, it is also hot to handle and hence an idea. Through extending this metaphor, objects that are newly created, yet does not have to be a new idea, can be a metaphor of an idea. Information becomes an object, yet do not represent an idea, images that are fresh like water, and hot to handle like oven, are ideas in relation to this metaphor. Hence the sub categories of ideas that relate to the metaphor are "water, food and heat". Suprisingly enough, there are contradictory elements in one metaphor itself. The elements of water and fire, both contained within the metaphor of an idea.

Journal Entry 5 Considering Temes

Considering Temes as an extension of Memes

Temes, as stated by susan blackmore are the techonological memes that exists in the world, they belong to another species of memes, and hence takes on the formers characteristic as well, being able to be replicated very fast, and able to spread out to people all over the world, and in the temes that spread to people, through technology(the media, the world wide web etc), even more people would have the chance to misuse memes and spread the "misused" meme.

When extending about the idea of temes in a mcluhanesque way, temes become the medium used to extend the human sense, and it evokes a whole new world of sensual perceptions in our mind, it changes how we perceive the world as and hence it is both good, and bad for temes to be present.

Journal Entry 5 Considering Memes

To me, i agree that memes are seen as a replicator, because memes are original ideas that have been somewhat changed, and re-used again. Hence it contains traces of the original idea and becomes a replicate. Many other people takes the first stage of the replicate, and transforms it by changing different elements of the idea, it becomes what they claim to be "new ideas", and hence memes are replicators as the cycle continues and what are claimed to have been "new ideas" are but the replicate of a replicate that was replicated off of another replicated idea.

It becomes a virus in this way because memes are being used as the basis for the creation of new ideas, but these new ideas would contradict the world new, as it contains nothing but different variations of the first idea, and hence thinking in this perspective, no ideas can be new, they would only be replicates of an already-existing idea. What is even more fearsome, is that this "already-existing" idea, might already have been a replicate of another "original idea" in the first place. It is also a virus as toxic ideas that would spread to other people.

Memes become a virus also because it is purely made up of ideas, and ideas. And hence, they would be transmitted into people through any possible way, speech, technology etc. And the people that comes into contact with these memes have no control over whether they want to receive this ideas or not, they have no choice but to accept these memes once they come into contact with the medium that transmit them. Therefore, there is no control over people whom misuse memes, and turn them into ideas that were not the intentions of the "original idea"(if it was truly original), it could also be turned into a toxic idea, which is able to transmit to more people again, and more people would be infused with these toxic ideas. The cycle would continue and hence it is a virus.

The implications for thinking ideas in such a way is that there would be truly no "original ideas", because anything that exists are nothing but a replicate of another idea. People would not be able to think about "different ideas" because they are merely an idea with a variation of the original idea, hence "replicated ideas". In conclusion, thinking of ideas in this way would cause mankind to stop in evolution, because it is as though they are going around in circles, replicating ideas that have already been replicated. And hence nobody would be able to create true new ideas.

Journal Entry 4 Life as a game

Considering Life as a game

Well, if i consider my life to be a game, i would probably say that the enemy boss in the game would be all the teachers i have had in the past until now, and my quests include handing up homeworks on time, not getting into trouble, and learning stuffs, sports, english language, maths etc. Of course, when i succesfully learn the various subjects and sports, i would level up as i have gained more knowledge, i would travel all over the island in search of more knowledge, in order to level up, and first i have to communicate with other people, so as to understand what i do not know, and to seek out that place in search of more knowledge. Places and the knowledge that i do not know exists, would be hidden maps surrounded by barriers and stuffs. The other island that i have heard of, would slowly be uncovered as i travel around the island. The helpers (NPC(non-playable characters)) in the games would be the people that offer me knowledge, and help me obtain them in the process, like the teachers(although it is contradictory) as well my friends and family.

I haven't really played my life welll in a game, seeking knowledge did not really appear as appealing to me before, as i did not understand how useful it would be, knowing what i did not etc. Normally i would avoid issues that seem
far too complicated to address, such as a very complciated mathematical problem, even though i do understand that i can solve it, if i spend the effort to look up past similar problems, or spend the time to ask the teachers about it, the "lazy" characteristic that lies inside me kicks in and says no to all that effort. Hence leaving some of my problems unsolved.

Journal Entry 4 Schematic Idea System

My idea system, is equivalent to going for a war.

First, you have to understand the main objective of doing this, naturally in this example, it is winning the war.

Secondly, we have to understand the hidden objective behind obtaining the main objective, which is the benefit/rewards that await when i win the war. Knowing the hidden objective behind the whole conquest is the most important part before starting to move towards the objective. This is because knowing the hidden motive behind our actions increases the morale of the people doing the quest, in this case, me and my soldiers. They would understand what they are doing this(e.g. fighting the war) for.

Thirdly, we have to understand the enemy we are dealing with, and pick the right weapons to fight the right enemies (Archers gain advantage over footmen by using range, footmen gain advantage over archers by closing in the range).
Using this example for game design activities: we have to understand what we are creating our ideas for, (e.g. ideas for characters, consider: what world do these characters live in and what should they wear in order to let them FIT into this world)

Next we go to planning for the war (brainstorming for ideas to achieve the objective), in this phrase ideas that are able to solve the objective are being dished out, and the idea that is agreed by many people to be the best, would be chosen and used to achieve the objective.

Problems that i might encounter: the ideas chosen might not be as good as it was first thought to be. Re-evaluation of the ideas has to be done.

Journal Entry 4 Journey Through the idea map

Firstly, the idea map contains all of the information i knew that i had learn. Knowledge gained through primary and secondary school, such as the different subjects, maths, english and chinese, as well as the general knowledge gained through everyday life. Besides the different subjects, my knowledge also included learning how to live with different people (in school) other than my family, learning how to co-exist with them, as well as how to work with them. During PE (physical education) in primary and secondary school life, knowledge was also taught to me in the form of sports, such as swimimng and badminton.
Hence i am fully aware of what i know, and i am clear that it is only so little when comparaed to all the knowledge in the world.

i also know what i don't know to some extent. I have learnt that what i know, that i did not know, can be conveyed to me through the medium of another person, most possibly an adult. For example, learning from my older brother that army existed and that it is an inevitable quest that i have to complete did not help much in making me understand what army is all about. i became aware of such a phase, yet is unable to comprehend the meaning of it, hence it becomes a situation where i know what i do not know.

Next, at the boundary of the whole map, lies two island i acknowledge to exist, yet i do not know anything about them. They are the "Truth of the world" and the "Knowledge of the world". Even though after i acknowledge, and understand that these phrases have answers to them, i am still unable to uncover the answer to these phrase. Hence again, a situation where i know what i do not know.

Finally, in the darkest depths of the ocean, lies an island which is able to hide its prescence from me, an island that i do not know exist, and never will unless a medium sheds light on it. It is a piece of knowledge that i would never come to know of, unless i read about it, learn about it, or an individual conveys the knowledge to me verbally. This island is the best representation of the knowledge that i don't know, as i would not know what i dont know.

Journal Entry 2 Contents of my mind during visualisation Exercise

There was not really much content in my mind during my visualisation exercise, however i can see some basic forms, during the exercise, i saw a white wall of flame first, after which the basic form of an eye surfaced on the top right of my mind, and next letters and numbers appeared, the letter Z and number 3. thats all.

The elements that allow me to distingusih these visualisations from my mind is through black and white. My mind is basically a big patch of darkness and the visualisations are like white sparkling shapes that have edges cut off by the darkness, hence i was able to distinguish its final form and categorize it as an object etc. How it works is through the colour difference, the colour of the image appears as white and slowly gets it edges eaten off by dark patches of my mind, and results in an object/shape which i can recognize.

After the visualisation exercise(i did another one at home), it felt weird because i could not find the things i was looking for, i was looking for the blog requirements as well as my blogger site, which i had opened in Internet Explorer earlier on, however i just kept switching between the tabs and took quite a while to realize i was at the page already. I kept alternating between tabs even after i had found what i was looking for(well i didn't know i had found them, it was like i kept searching for something i had found in reality).

the things i love comes as a shape and appears at the center of my mind, as a small object, it appears to be sinking backwards whenever i try to look deeper into my mind, and as for the things i hate, whenever i think about those in my mind, they appear as jpeg images(i dont understand why myself either), as though they are of a different space/dimension, imported as static images into my mind. The space in my mind seems to be treating those images as a seperate object, not of its own world.

Journal Entry 3 HTI TIE IN REPORT games design studio project

My games design studio project is about a RTS(Real-Time Strategy) game, that is meant to target casual players. And my role in the studio project is mainly as a 3D modeller, and also help with some level of programming after the concept arts, modelling and animation parts are done.


Personally, i would seperate the whole project accordingly using the game design method of making the game. They are seperated into 5 stages, firstly, conceptualization of the whole game and game mechanics has to be done in order to know what the game is about, its various mechanics and what makes the game work.

Secondly, from the conceptualization of the game, and its mechanics, the characters that are to be present in the game are then conceptualized, and thus comes the second stage, concept art, for the artists.

For the third stage, 3D modelling should start and we are to model according to the completed character concept arts for the respective in-game characters, in-game props and buildings etc.

The fourth stage goes to animating the various character models that are done up in 3D modelling, making them perform simple animations such as the walking cycle and attacking animation.

Finally the last stage is somewhat the most important stage that is always on-going througout the entire project, scripting. It is what makes the character models appear in the game, what makes them move and lets the player experience the whole game.

The stage after which would be production, where the game is produced and playtested for bugs in digital format, by many different people. After which, bug fixes are implemented to the game to enhance gameplay.

As a whole, i have become more clear about the methods to create a 3D game, conceptualization, concept artwork, 3D modelling, scripting, playtesting. And I have understood that the 3D game cannot be completed by merely one person alone, but a team that works together. Most importantly for my part, i begin to understand more about creating 3D models and what methods work best for creating organic forms, as well as what works best for creating mechanical forms.

For creative processes, currently what i am able to do is merely adding on suggestions for improvements on other peoples ideas, rather than dishing out new ideas during the creative process. As for the group, the process flows well where the whole group sits down, forming a circle, and starts discussing about the idea, each person throwing out ideas to consider, while the others critique about it and votes which is the best idea to use. What i lack currently, is the ability to throw out new ideas, i can only give suggestions on improving other people's ideas.

What causes this would be having low self confidence, an example is when i think about an idea in my mind, and decides that it is not viable without speaking it out to the others. The other reason could be because of not going to many different places. Because i feel that a person that travels to many different places, is able to see many different amount of things and gain many more inspiration than a person that keeps visiting the same places over and over again.

To improve these problems, firstly i would probably have to speak out more in presentations in order to gain more confidence, and learn about the different ways in which we can gain more confidence. I would also have to meet and speak with more people in the future. Secondly, to solve the problem of not being able to offer new ideas, i would have to travel to different places, more places places that is unknown to me in the present.

Journal Entry 2 What i think of when i tot about HTI2

NEW ADDITION>> Well at first thought, HTI2 would obviously be studying about the history and the theory of ideas bla bla bla. And i decipher it as studying about how the theory of the ideas come about, who it originates from and where. The theory of ideas itself is one global topic because it encompasses every single thing in this world that has a meaning, words, languages,objects, hence i always felt that it is too large a topic to comprehend by myself. Sometimes, i got lost somewhere while answering what HTI2 is all about that i can only give one or two lines when explaining, it is as though merely re-thinking about the meaning of HTI2 gets a person more and more lost.

What HTI means to me, is probably the opportunity to think about things that i never would have touched on if i did not learn HTI. Stuffs that requires a deeper level of thinking.



The most important reason that the blog entires had not been done would be because after reading the requirements for each entry, the first thought i would think of would be how troublesome it would be to try and interpret what the teacher wants, and secondly how troublesome the thinking process would be if i were to spend time to think about this subject, then the next thought would be to leave this troublesome process for another day so that i can do other stuffs like playing and doing other assignments that are more urgent.
And the day to think about this troublesome process kept being pushed back until it was forgotten.

Other than trying to explain that i am just too lazy to do the journals through a whole paragraph, the other reason would be because i felt that most of the other people are not doing the journal as well and that nothing would happen if the journals would not be done.

Something that would motivate me to do the journals. Presently, i really could not think of something that can motivate me to do journals, except to do the journals in order to let my mind think about more complex things. However that motivation would contradict the thought that would de-motivate me in my mind, because the thought making me not do the journals would be being too lazy to think about complex things.

The second thing that would motivate me in doing the journals would be when i know that majority of the people, has done up most of their journals, however this thought would again not succeed because the fact is that most of them had not.

The interesting thing that i notice is that the thoughts for motivating me, actually links directly with the thoughts that de-motivates me, and thus i have reached a conclusion that only when the thoughts that de-motivate me dissapears will i gain the motivation to do the journals.

Journal Entry 1 Metaphors

Metaphors allow us to understand certain complex systems such as cultures, or personalities, through the terms of another object, which is much easier to understand. Metaphors are useful becausethey shape reality in our complex world by applying information that is easily understandable.

Jumping for joy
Apple of my eye
It is raining cats and dogs.

Journal Entry 1 Comparison of the idea of an idea

An idea in normal terms would be a thought, or new concept that a person thinks of in his mind. The same idea might change when there is people that think differently than others, for example, thinking out of the box.

According to semiotics, the sign is used as a basis to make meaning, it is differentiated into the signifier, which is the materialized form (can be seen) of a prec-onceptive thought in a persons mind, and the signified, which is the pre-conceptive, already present idea in the persons mind.

Therefore from semiotics, an idea is present in the mind, which forms the signified, and works together with the signifier to create a sense of meaning for every object in the world, even characters, that we use in our daily lives.

Journal Entry 1 Structuralists

Structurlists believe that any informative form of object like writings, or signifying systems such as signs, do not have an origin but it exists due to structures that have already existed, such as language and science. Structuralism analyzes complex objects or items, as a system that contains interrelated parts. These parts are more than often, simple or commonly used knowledge in our daily lives. Structuralists believe that the signifying systems are able to be changed culturally, however the most in-depth meanings of these system, the signified part of the sign, is already rooted into the structures of the human mind, and is unchangeable.

The structuralists believe that because language produces what is known as reality to us, we can only think through this medium, and as such our perceptions about reality are affected and determined by our structure of the language. They seek to uncover how meaning is created rather than understanding the actual meaning as understood by words.

As a game designer, the ideas of structuralists teaches us not to constrict our thinking by using only language as a medium and origin to think from. Because if this happens, the resultant would be something that is confined by language alone. We understand as well, that complex objects or systems are purely the combination of simple related parts that we commonly use in our daily lives. And as such, to understand complex systems such as games, we can break them down into simple components and analyze them one by one.