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11pm's game "Deep Deep Ocean" is a wonderful exploration into the deep sea with fun visuals, creative mini-games, and interesting characters. 

Visually, "Deep Deep Ocean" is a treat. 11pm uses three simple colors to not overwhelm the player. The colors are light blue, dark blue, and orangeish yellow. The dark blue is the sea, the light blue is the accent color and the yellow is used for sprites and the player. Beyond this simple color pallet, 11pm really excels in his pixeled design. Each of the scenes are intricately done with complex coral reefs and anemones. This design and color pallet choice adds to the whimsy and interesting details of "Deep Deep Ocean".

The mini games are also a very fun addition to "Deep Deep Ocean". Each minigame is introduced by a different sea themed character (fish, crab, starfish, etc.). These characters give the players items which are used to get to the minigame room. The minigame rooms are hidden in the different tubes of the anemone. I thought that this was a very smart addition on the part of 11pm because it imitated what sea creatures may actually do. Entrances and exits weren't just the edges of the Bitsy scenes but woven into the story and setting of the game. Additionally, the transition in the first scene demonstrated the deepness of the ocean. Rather than cutting from one scene to another, the two scenes were blended together by the player physically traveling downwards. This made the two scenes feel connected and like they were one long and narrow ocean.

The minigames were separated into a maze game, an obstacle game, and a "Dance Dance Revolution" type game. These games worked well together because they were all unique in their owns ways and utilized the different mechanics of Bitsy. For the maze, you navigated around the Bitsy-created walls to grab tiny pearls. For the obstacle game, you had to navigate around different popping bubbles and obstacles to press the bubbles that weren't popping. For the "Dance Dance Revolution" game, you had the option of 4 directions and had to follow the directions given by the sprite. These games gave "Deep Deep Ocean" a feeling of fun and made the game more than a simple exploration game. 

The sprites also added to the whimsy and interactivity of the game. Most sprites had a feature where they would move. For example, the crab's hands and legs moved. The fish moved up and down and had the bubbles around them move. These movements made the sprites feel more real and helped the game to feel more interactive. Additionally, 11pm made the game more dynamic with their use of text effects. Some text said by sprites were normal font, but others were all caps, or different colors, or wavy. These different texts effects helped to distinguish each sprite and reveal aspects of their personality. A fun text effect which I appreciated was that at the end of most minigames, there was a wavy "Congrats" with a rainbow effect which helped me feel more accomplished in my victory.

Overall, "Deep Deep Ocean" was a fun dive into Bitsy, its functions, and the world of minigames under the sea. I would recommend this game to a friend and look forward to playing it again.

Timmexy's game "Simple Chinese Cuisine" was an enticing and interesting game that taught the player how to make the dish "Scramble eggs and tomatoes". This game was made using the engine Bitsy. Additionally, there was a light-hearted guitar track that played as the dish was made. The game is the steps it takes to make the dish, from gathering the ingredients, to cooking them, to seasoning them. The different steps and the music helped to create the atmosphere of making food. I know that when I cook, I listen to acoustic or instrumental music quite frequently. 

The different steps immersed me into the game even more. I especially appreciated the recipe box at the bottom right of the screen. This created a cooking experience because when I cook, I frequently pause and take a look at the recipe to remind myself of what is going on. The color pallet also immersed me because there was a change in the colors as the dish progressed. The colors got brighter and it made me as a player feel happier. I felt like what I was doing had consequences on the game and making a change for the better. 

I was also impressed with the mechanics of the game, particularly the transitions. Every time that I successfully completed all the steps, the game moved onto the next step seamlessly. I didn't have to physically take my player to the next room. The game transitioned without player input. The game was also designed quite well. The space was constructed like a kitchen with the wok and oven fans in the middle and the ingredients strewn around in various locations. This helped me to feel like I was physically in a kitchen.

Another aspect of Timmexy's game that I appreciated was the moments of failure. Rarely do you get a dish right the first time without consulting a recipe. I didn't realize there was a recipe in the game and so tried to "speed run" the game. I put in the wrong ingredients twice and had to start all over until I looked at the recipe and understood the order and matter of what the dish required. This worked well to help me "learn the dish" as well as to do it correctly. It was like real life in those moments of failure. 

Overall, I think this game is a great start for a larger game focused on cooking. In our class, we have talked about how educational games are like chocolate-covered broccoli. I think that Timmexy's game toes this line well by having a game that has real life ramifications (knowing how to cook) but does it in a fun and exciting way. The music adds to a good mood when playing the game. The game is designed with fun descriptions and visuals so that it doesn't feel like I'm learning but I am learning how to cook. It's a nice light hearted way of learning a craft. I am excited to make this dish in my own kitchen now that I've learned how to cook it!

Jdneal2's game "Potato Clicker" is a fun mindless game of potatoes, mac and cheese, and mustaches. This game is played by using the mouse to click on the giant potato picture in the center. In the meantime, there are floating and twirling mac and cheese spoonfuls that keep the player's eyes busy and gives them something to look at other than the potato. When I first played this game, I thought to myself, "is this all there is? Just clicking on this potato and watching the mac and cheese spins". There is more! On the top, there are three options to help in this game. The first is a "2x" button which, after clicking the potato 200 times, makes every click worth 5 points rather than 1 point. Then, for 500 points, there is a button with a "clicker" symbol which will automatically tap the potato for you. You can redeem up to three of these "clickers". The interplay of these two buttons is what makes the final button attainable. In this game, Jdneal2 gives the player the option of adding a fabulous mustache to the potato for a whopping 100,000 points. When I first opened the game, I didn't think it could be done. There was no way I could click 100,000 times. However with the help of the "clicker" and the "2x" button, I was able to get the mustache fairly quickly. 

There is an interesting interplay between the players actions and the player watching. At the beginning, I had to click 200 times to get the 2x button. Then I had to click 100 times to get the "clicker button". Then I had to click even less times to get another clicker, and progressively less and less times as I got more add-ons. At a certain point, I was watching the "Potato Points" going up and not having to click them as much. Just for fun, I decided to click the potato and the points started going down. I'm not exactly sure when the mechanic switches from points going up to points going down when the potato is clicked. 

I would be interested to see what more can be done with the Potato Clicker concept. By having more buttons that interplay with each other, the player could make combinations of buttons and see what gets the most points the quickest. Or certain buttons could take away points from the potato. Along with the mustache, there could be buttons like a hat or eyes to accessorize the potato further. Maybe with certain accessories, the potato's points would be affected in a certain way. I'd also be interested to see what more can be done with the mac and cheese spinning spoonfuls. Currently, my understanding is that they're just there to add more visuals to the potatoes. It could be interesting to add another layer of interplay with them.

Overall, "Potato Clicker" was a fun little gag game to play and take a study break with. There were interesting moments of interplay and buttons to press. I'd be interested in seeing where else this concept can go.

Prompt 1: Describe the central uncertainty in the game. 

plougheed's game "Life Ball" reminds me of the classic game of pool. It is set up roughly the same way where the player must push the white "cue" ball into the rest of the colored balls on a green table. However, unlike pool, the object of the game is for the player as a pink square to avoid hitting all the colored balls as they bounce around the table. There is a lot of uncertainty in "Life Ball" as the balls move very fast and seem to move randomly. I have played this game 15 times and have only won twice. Each time, I try a new strategy like moving constantly around or staying in one spot. It seems to me to be luck when I actually win. The ball's movements are random and fast. It is difficult to react to and difficult to choose a strategy without dying in the first 0.01 seconds. However, the uncertainty adds to the want to replay the game. The game keeps score of how you fare against the balls/enemies. I want to figure out the uncertainty and the randomness of how the balls move. I feel like if I can figure that out, I can better my score and beat the enemies.

Prompt 2: Describe the challenge of the game as if the designer was working to thwart you.

Appl2000's game "Quasar Rush" is designed to make the player fail. It is up to the player when they will fail. It is clear that the player will fail because there is no mechanism to "beat" the game. The game's description reads "Try to land on as many planets as you can and avoid the quasar in the center!". Quasars are essentially black holes. The more times your spaceship lands on the planet, the more points you get. But there is no end point goal. It's just "get as many as you can". The game is played by mashing the arrow keys to get away from the center quasar and in turn land on a planet. When the player lands on the planet, the planet moves to a different area and the player has to start all over. This makes the game even more difficult becomes sometimes the planet is close to the quasar and having to land there and then move to a completely different area (which is sometimes across the screen) is quite difficult. There are no bonuses or things to help you other than your own arrow keys. The game ends when either you give up or the quasar takes you. This game reminds me of the realities of life. There are black holes which are slowly sucking up the entire universe. There is also death which is the one certainty of life. Try as you may to get as many "points" or as much money or whatever it may be, it doesn't matter in the end. There will reach a point where death comes for you. "Quasar Rush" points towards this reality with its game design and idea. It is designed to thwart the player and force them to lose at some point.

Prompt 1: Describe how the shape of the space influences the feeling of play.

Aidan and Zoey's game "Space Uber" follows the story of a spaceman who is hired to deliver a rabbit to a planet far away. The entrance to space is in a little space ship. When the player goes from the ground to space, there is a clear contrast in the look and layout. In the on-ground space, it is a light area with a lot of trees. In space, it is a dark area with a lot of circular globes with different colors of the planets that one can visit. There are different miscellaneously shaped asteroids that the player can run into. When there is a collision with the asteroid, the entire screen glows red and yellow and the spaceship resets in the space it just was. These shapes and collisions make it feel as though the ship was damaged. It feels very real world because you go through this space travel experience with getting on a plane and then going into space. The one thing which feels a little fantastical is getting the rabbit from earth into space. I don't believe that our society has gotten animals into space yet. Then, another entrance comes from the actual planets in space. By hovering over them, the game transitions to the player being put on this planet. The planet I encountered in my game was tan and it made me think of a desert planet. Through the entrances and exits of the spaceship and planets, it felt like a space adventure that I was embarking on. The spherical shapes of the planets helped make this journey even more adventurous. 

Prompt 2: Drawing on Doris Rusch's account of games as expressive media, describe how the abstract rules simulate some real world system.

The role in Weihao's game "Hero" that the player inhabits is the hero of the narrative. There are different villains which prowl throughout the field that will kill you if you run into them. Additionally, there are other warriors just like you that prowl a field. The core conflict seems to be between good and evil. There are different skeletons that pop up which showcase the death and conflict that has permeated the world before you inhabited it. The core mechanic of "Hero" is running around and avoiding the enemies which run left and right at different speeds. There is one character that you can interact with at the top of the field who says "magic does indeed exist". This abstract text shows how this game is in a fantasy medieval world which believes in magic and that it exists. There is one other room that you as the player can go into. In this room, there is a flying horse which you must avoid, a skeleton chained to a wall, and a door. When you interact with the door, it says "congradulations" and are you put to the beginning again. Maybe this is the magic that was spoken about in the field which teleports you too and from worlds. These different pieces of enemies, movement, words, and teleportation all add up with the medieval backgrounds to create a fantasy realm where the player explores as the hero.

Prompt 2: Describe how the passages are organized.

Max the Runaway Rabbit is organized by giving the player different choices at crucial parts in the narrative. These choices are given to the player when the player can perform different actions. For example, the player can either take Air Jordans or carrots and his large mitten on a trip. Depending on the choice, the game changes focus to that item. In the case of the carrots, the focus is on how many carrots the player will eat. If the player realizes that eating too many carrots is bad, then the story will end by the player making friends. However, if the player eats too many carrots, the player dies. For the most part, the player can guess where a link will take him beforehand. This is due to what is linked in the game. At one junction, the player can either snack on carrots or not snack on carrots. As expected, the next panel deals with the effects of that action. The links are organized such that the player cannot get back to where he came from. This works to give weight to the player's actions as they have retrocessions on the story. 

Prompt 4: Drawing on Brian Upton's definition of narrative play, describe how your process of anticipation and interpretation.

Anthony Bonfiglio opens up his "metallic angels" game with setting up an anticipation of mystery and wonder by having the first words be "Nothing... nothing... more nothing" on a vibrant blue background. The next page lulls the player into an uncertainty by having this featureless ocean and completely blue sky. However, there is more anticipation built because there is "nothing except us". Who is this "us"? Delving further into the story, Metallic Angels sets up a narrative where there is a plane flying with bombs, but the plane is lost, running out of fuel, and has no hope. Metalic Angels heightens the player's initial uncertainty by adding stakes and danger. At one point, Metallic Angels gives the player the option of choosing between throwing all hope to the wind or picking up a map. I picked throwing all hope to the wind to see what would happen. Metallic Angels rejects this initial suggestion by encouraging the player to not give up hope. This builds anticipation that there may be a way out of the dire situation the game has set the character in. There are two possible endings to this story. The first is that the player flies in the direction of safety. The second, the player finds their target and releases their bombs. In both situations, the player does not find out what happened. Metallic Angles builds this anticipation as to the fate of the characters but leaves their ultimate fate left up to the interpretation of the player.

Prompt 2: Describe something you really want to do, but can't.

In Zoey Zhao's game "Vines and Flowers", there are three brushes. The first brush "green line" is a green line. The second brush "Colorful Brush" is a "spray" of multicolored circles where you can change the size of the circles with a function on the right of the screen. The third brush "pink flower" is a line of of white dots with pink "petals" surrounding the dots. If you press down your mouse for long enough and don't move it, a pink flower will appear. As the name "Vines and Flowers" suggests, you can create the look of pink flowers on a green vine by combining the brushes "green line" and "pink flower". After working with this game for a little bit, I wish that I was able to change the color of the flower. Working with the "Colorful Brush" brush with all the different colors shows me that there are other colors that can be made with this program that are constantly changing. I wonder if the programmer could take the randomizing coloring from the "Colorful Brush" and apply it to "pink flower" so that the flowers created are also multicolored. I also wish that I was able to change the size of the "pink flower brush" so that there are varying sizes of the flowers that I put on the "green line" vines that Zhao created. This would contribute to a more realistic creation of imitating life because not all flowers are uniform sized or pink. However, there is a beauty to having a uniform sized group of pink flowers. It is quite calming and not at all overwhelming which contributes a serene feeling when painting with the "green line" and "pink flower" brushes. So although I would like to add more features to the "pink flower" brush (size and color), I can see the merit that comes from having it stay as it is.

Prompt 1: Describe the game as if it were a physical object.

Yiyi Zhao's game "Illusion" has three distinct brushes with imperfect ways to recreate them in the real world. 

Brush 1 is the most complex and hardest to describe of the brushes. It seems to be a collection of white lines that is connected to an axis that goes diagonally down from the top left corner to the bottom right corner. It creates quite interesting patters that look like a spirograph. There are two ideas I have for creating this experience in real life. The first is using a spirograph to give the overlapping line feeling with physically drawing. You could also imitate "Illusion" in real life with buying some Halloween webbing. When you stretch out the Halloween webbing, it looks similar to the overlapping lines of "Illusion".

Brush 2 is a collection is hollow outlined circles that creates a tunnel. These circles look like a builder's diagram where it is a draft of how a tunnel would look like in real life. Another way to think of it would be creating a slinky. The slinky grows bigger as you draw more. To recreate this experience in real life, I would use a slinky and expand it or shrink it.

Brush 3 feels like a stretchy pearl necklace. When you press down your mouse and move it, lines with little circles that are apart based off mouse speed are put onto the canvas. The faster that you use the brush, the more the brush "stretches" and the farther the "pearls" are apart. To recreate brush 3 in real life, you would have to grab an elastic string and put beads on to it. Then you would stretch and pull the string to make the beads seem farther apart. To recreate the experience of drawing more or "lengthening the string", you could have the elastic string with one end still attached to a spool that could become longer or shorter as needed. The other part of brush 3 is that when you are not pressing the mouse, little circles appear where your mouse is. This would be similar to dipping your finger into finger paint and touching the canvas. Anywhere you touch the canvas, a mark would be put.

Prompt 4: Describe what it was like solving a single level (level 4).

"Morandiphoria" by Parker Lougheed is based off the Sokoban base rule of pushing blocks into a target. Parker takes the base Sokoban rule a step further by making it so multiple blocks (cans of paint) must be pushed by the character (paintbrush) into the target (big paint jar). In this level, the idea of portals were introduced in the previous level where paint cans can be pushed by the brush into the portal to teleport to a different area. I first tried pushing the paint cans to the top of the page and pulling them down. Unfortunately, I had to restart because while you can push paint cans, you can't pull them. So, I had to maneuver around the paint can to push it. But I had to restart again because there was not a way to have pushed the paint can up without getting it back down. So, I had to push the paint can down before moving it over. The next paint can I worked on was the one in the lower right. Again, I had to restart because I locked myself into a corner where I could not push the paint can down into the portal. To get this second paint can in a portal, I had to push the paint can out of the initial constraint and then maneuver myself to the top of it before pushing it down into the portal. The third bucket of paint on the bottom left used similar rules to the paint can on the top left. So, I was able to get that one without any undo bottoms. In reflecting on my experience, I think I had to hit "Undo" quite a bit because Parker seemed to set up the levels so that there was a "obvious" first step but those first few steps were actually the incorrect way to go. By creating these tricky first steps, Parker was able to create a pleasantly frustrating Morandiphoria level for me.

Prompt 3: Describe an interesting interaction between two rules (or a rule and a goal).

The base rule in "Bricks" by Weihao Xu entails moving blocks. You can move a block by pushing it in one direction. This is the base Sokoban rule but Weihao takes it a step further by including a method to take boxes out of the corner. Another method to move the boxes is to have the player icon stand in-between two boxes. If the boxes are on top and below the character, the character can move both boxes up or down. If the boxes are to the right and to the left of the character, the character can move to the right and to the left. The goal of the first few levels of "Bricks" is to find a staircase hidden somewhere in the maze of boxes. Weihao introduces an interesting interaction between the two box rules and the goal because not only do you have to move boxes to find where the staircase may be hidden, you have to move the boxes to be close to the ones in the corner so that you can move the corner boxes out of the way. I felt very excited whenever I completed a puzzle because it is a game of hide and seek. I was on the lookout for the stairs and so had to move every box, according to the rules I outlined, to find it. When I found the staircase, the game had a high-pitched sound effect that made me feel like I had solved a mystery. Through this interaction between the two rules and the goal, I felt satisfaction and like I had solved something worth solving.

The rooms are organized such that the player/character has constricted movement and cannot explore every tile within the rooms. Many rooms are organized where the player can only move forward  if they speak to a certain sprite in the room. The player is then teleported from that location in the interior room to an outdoor location. In this outdoor location, the player can only go horizontally to the next interior location. This cyclical nature of room transitions creates an atmosphere of similarity between what the character has to do in each room. This helps the player get used to the game format in a faster way. Additionally, this will help the player to notice finer details in the game design since it is clear what the path forward is.

The rooms are also constructed in a linear format where the player can only go from room A to B and then C and so on. It is not an open world format where the player can go from room A to C. I believe that this restricted closed world format could work to showcase the restricted nature of immigration and how it is not an open world for immigrants but rather a narrow path that they must traverse in order to move forward. 

With transitions between rooms, the player is moved to a different location on the physical layout between the first room's exit and the second room's entrance. This could work to show the disjointed nature of immigration and how it is not a smooth and clean transition but rather a confusing change.  

Prompt 4: Describe how text is used.

Text is used to convey dialogue and information revealing the player's objectives and findings. The first text that the player interacts with is a cat that introduces the player's mission. Although it is not required to interact with the cat to leave the room and start the game, it is a helpful kickstart to the player's experience and worldbuilding. The cat describes different necessary objects to find and important sprites to converse with. 

As the character progresses through the game, the dialogues concerning the different objects become more chaotic, especially after the player has had coffee. This shows a progression in the character's feelings and attitude and perhaps the fact that a bunch of cups of coffee has made them a little jittery!

Another interesting use of the text is showing the progression of time. When the character has their final battle, nothing happens other than clicking through the text dialogue. However, by clicking through the dialogue, time passes and we are able to read the fight as it plays out until the monster is vanquished.

"Adventure" uses text to convey dialogue, information, as well as the player's attitude and progression through time.