itch.io

Hey Mikey

It seems like most of us were kind of caught off guard by the pitch time. I understand what you mean when you had to speed-run the pitch, I had to delete almost a third of my script. 

Sup Ben

I think we would have made a really good management simulation though because I think you had some good ideas. Scope wise, maybe a management sim was more within our timelines who knows. I agree with you that having a short pitch time, or having them shortened out of nowhere is realistic in a way. We never know what's gonna happen in our workplaces, so I guess it wasn't a terrible experience. 

Hey Josh,

I'm glad to hear you had a smooth transition from research to game design. I think you chose a topic that is actually really interesting and worth exploring in a game. It's a shame that we only had 3 minutes to pitch our games because I could tell you had a lot to share with us during your presentation. I was especially focused on the topic of a flamethrowers being the player's only weapon, and how it tied in with the core gameplay loop  of the entire game experience. I'm very excited to work on this game though, so let's do our best to make it as close to what you envisioned. 

I had the opportunity to come up with a game idea and pitch it to my prof. and class. My game was about simulating the life of a teenager on social media, where players could develop friendship with their peers in-game. The core gameplay mechanic wasn't that complex because I focused heavily on the message my game is trying to deliver. I created a pitch document containing the story and programming of the game, which made me realize just how simple and barren my game actually was. There wasn't that many features that I could call "gameplay" asides from the main objective of creating friendships. This realization actually motivated me to add some more content where I can. 

A part of me wishes that I wasn't restricted to creating a game that was related to my research topic. I had some really interesting ideas (at least I thought they were interesting) for games related to healthcare or ammortality, but I had trouble narrowing down the topic to a specific aspect. 

Overall, this experience made me realize that the gamification process takes lots of thinking and design iterations. It's difficult for me to go straight from research to ideas to actual game design. I may have limited myself too hard on the message I was trying to deliver and my research topic, because some pitches from my class had a good balance of gameplay and message. I learned a lot about what is considered an effective pitch such as the selling points of a game and what the "investors" would be looking for before they give the green light. 

Hey Stewart, 

You've done some great research about your topic. It feels like I learned about what your topic  just by reading your devlog. I can understand where you're coming from when you say that inequality of wealth is not something that affects the rich and the poor, but everyone in between as well. As sensitive of a topic this could be, I think it's definitely worth making into a game to send a message of the issues we face today. Excited to see what you'll come up with.

Hey Ben,

You chose a very interesting topic that I was not very familiar with. Now that you've brought up this topic, I'm curious whether overfishing happens a lot in Canada specifically. I think I remember learning that Canada catches many different kinds of fish in large amounts too. I'm a big fan of management sim personally so I think a game based on overfishing would be really interesting. Can't wait to see what you come up with. 

Hey Joey, 

I also did my research on social media, so it's really interesting to compare my experiences with yours. I think your idea of creating a game that reflects the social comparisons has lots of potential to be both entertaining and meaningful. I can see it turn out to be a game where players are first engaged and attracted to the gameplay because of the action, but then afterwards when they think about the message, they realize what all of the gameplay actually meant. Can't wait to see what you come up with for your pitch and good luck man.

Over the last 2 weeks, I've conducted research on the impact of social media on today's youth. As a heavily debated topic, I expected to find a lot of relevant academic journals. My research taught me a new perspective on the matter, that social media is not always detrimental to the development of youths. There are aspects of their lives where they are benefitted by the presence of social media.  For example, in a study conducted amongst approximately 12,500 Canadian Elementary school students, it was revealed that active and intense users of social media were more likely to reach the recommended daily physical activity level. But the downsides of excessive use of social media included the possibility of developing anxiety, stress from FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out) and forming shallow relationships with friends and families.

After my research was completed, I began to ideate on how I could "gamify" these findings. One finding that I thought was interesting from my research was that there are a few methods of spreading false information on social media platform. This included highlighting the bad (ex. harmful side effects of a medicine rather than its clinical use), or including personal testimonies which are not scientifically backed, but sound convincing as the voice of the average population or audience. "Identifying false information" could be an interesting game mechanic, where the player is tasked with choosing the right answer in a series of elusive and misleading questions. Another possible game mechanic could be "forming genuine friendship". This approach is a bit harder to ideate upon, simply because the scope could get out of hand when deciding how to measure a "genuine friendship".