Despite having no homework, tests, or commitments outside of class, I've found it difficult to make time to write this semester. The type of thinking I do most days leaves me drained, and whatever energy I have left is typically zapped by my evening commute home.
At any rate, today was such a good day that I can't help but write a bit. I'm working on a project at the Virginia Ball Center, which has been a very rewarding project. I've had the chance to work with some quirky, brilliant people. As a group, we've been doing game design and internal play testing for the better part of two months. Game design uses a part of my brain that I find very taxing, but today was a bit different.
As our project moves away from game design and into software design and development, I get the chance to actually write software. I'm not resentful for things taking as long as they have; at any point, I could have said,"I don't feel like prototyping any more, I'll just write some code." But I feel that I have a good idea as to the creative direction that the game is going in. It wouldn't be fair to drop someone else into this role, I have too much momentum to do anything other than hashing out game mechanics,IMHO.
With most of the game designing done, I was able to focus some attention today on a programming task. I jumped into things via pair programming. I navigated, while a team member steered. We employed the builder pattern for the section of code we were working on, which I had not had the chance to work with yet. Today was also one of the first chances I've had to make use of some of the concepts within Clean Code, by Robert Martin. The Computer Science students within the team are reading through this book together, and we've all found it very informative.
Once our code was refactored and we determined that no code smells permeated the air, it was lunch time. After some discussions around the dining room table and our respective meals, the Computer Science students involved with the project came together and put in some really solid collaborative work regarding use cases—something none of us were proficient with yet.
Overall, the project is beginning to really come into focus. The game is taking the shape of a game, and it's hard not to be excited! Throw some gorgeous leap-year day weather into the mix and it's easy to see why today was so great! I'm looking forward to the lessons I'll learn and the tools I'll pick up in the next two months.
Showing posts with label Ball State. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ball State. Show all posts
Wednesday, February 29, 2012
Tuesday, January 31, 2012
Global Game Jam and the Missing of the Point
This past weekend a few of us Ball State folk journeyed to Columbus, Ohio to the campus of The Ohio State University. The point of our trek was three-fold: to meet up with an old student, for our mentor of the group to network with a well-known individual within the gaming industry, and to take part in the Global Game Jam.
The Global Game Jam, if you've never heard of it, is a 48 hour event in which teams build a working game, based upon a provided theme. The game may be digital or analog.
The theme this year was Ouroboros. It was a vague enough of a theme that one could spin an idea (pun-bearable!) in many directions. Good choice IGDA!
I wanted to work with people that I didn't know, since, to me, the point of going was to socialize; I could just as easily make a game by myself from the comfort of my own home. Ideas spawned from the group based on the theme, and I gravitated toward a specific idea, which led me to work with people I had traveled with from Muncie. "Oh well," I thought.
However, something occurred near the end of the first night that I felt odd about. People from OSU started mentioning things like, "so and so is going to show up in a bit, and he's awesome at 3D animations." Similar phrases were mentioned 5 or 6 times. This idea popped up a few times throughout the next 24 hours.
This kind of irked me. If you feel this way, in my humble opinion, then you've missed the point of the Jam. The point was to make a game. Not necessarily a good looking, or mechanically "tight" game. Just a simple game. If you feel comfortable enough to enroll in a Jam, then chances are you don't need a lot of help to create a very simple game. And there's nothing wrong with making a somewhat ordinary game. The joy is in the creating, not the creation.
As far as my group's submission, here it is: Heads Are Tails. There is a readme and plenty enough instruction to get the gist of the game on that site, so I won't analyze it in this post (and honestly, it's very, very simple; an analysis wouldn't make sense).
Our group used the skills and tools available to us, and I'm definitely proud of what we were able to accomplish. If we were to sit down again this weekend and hammer out another game, the quality would definitely improve, but our game is an artifact that represents the sum of our talents at that point in time.
Jamming was a great experience and I look forward to participating again next year, hopefully.
 |
| Game Jam 2012 theme |
The theme this year was Ouroboros. It was a vague enough of a theme that one could spin an idea (pun-bearable!) in many directions. Good choice IGDA!
I wanted to work with people that I didn't know, since, to me, the point of going was to socialize; I could just as easily make a game by myself from the comfort of my own home. Ideas spawned from the group based on the theme, and I gravitated toward a specific idea, which led me to work with people I had traveled with from Muncie. "Oh well," I thought.
However, something occurred near the end of the first night that I felt odd about. People from OSU started mentioning things like, "so and so is going to show up in a bit, and he's awesome at 3D animations." Similar phrases were mentioned 5 or 6 times. This idea popped up a few times throughout the next 24 hours.
This kind of irked me. If you feel this way, in my humble opinion, then you've missed the point of the Jam. The point was to make a game. Not necessarily a good looking, or mechanically "tight" game. Just a simple game. If you feel comfortable enough to enroll in a Jam, then chances are you don't need a lot of help to create a very simple game. And there's nothing wrong with making a somewhat ordinary game. The joy is in the creating, not the creation.
As far as my group's submission, here it is: Heads Are Tails. There is a readme and plenty enough instruction to get the gist of the game on that site, so I won't analyze it in this post (and honestly, it's very, very simple; an analysis wouldn't make sense).Our group used the skills and tools available to us, and I'm definitely proud of what we were able to accomplish. If we were to sit down again this weekend and hammer out another game, the quality would definitely improve, but our game is an artifact that represents the sum of our talents at that point in time.
 |
| Our artist sketched us as we were between expletives |
Jamming was a great experience and I look forward to participating again next year, hopefully.
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