In studio 3 (and later my internship), we designed an educational app with Ralf Muhlberger, CEO of The Latest Tricks and 89Friends. He was looking into creating an AR gardening app for school students to fulfils their curriculum requirements in a fresh and interesting way. We called it Project Sapling, and it was by far the most interesting project I’ve worked on. Designing an application that fulfils a curricular and experiential goal was an interesting challenge, as well as positioning the app for funding grants and prototyping with mobile devices in mind.
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What is Tokenism? Tokenistic characters exist in a product by virtue of representing its creator’s virtues - like including certain races, genders and sexualities for the creator to connect with sympathetic customers and represent a more broad consumer-base. We like to see people like us in games and I’ll admit, it's endearing seeing a game … Continue reading Tokenism in Games
Like Gambling, drinking, drugs and other compulsive and addicting behaviour, gaming can be a form of escapism. Life can be a drag but it's nice to have the options to focus on something achievable, like beating the other team in Team Fortress 2 or grinding to get that next tier of loot in games like Runescape. But … Continue reading Addicting Design – Are Game Developers Responsible for the Addicting Mechanics in Their Games?
I’m passionate about making games. Many people are. We want to go to work every day and make them from 9-5, and show them off at trade shows. We want lots of players to enjoy our game the way we intend and for as many interested parties to see our game as possible. We want … Continue reading Making Games Ethically
Interactivity is both a blessing and a curse in game development, because giving the user control over an entity in the world means that the designer must relinquish control over that element, and you can’t always force players to do what you want them to. So, how can you encourage players to naturally make the … Continue reading Choice Design in Games
Window’s device manager is an ancient tool to allow administrators to monitor hardware attached to their computer. Device manager has been around since Windows 95, and over the years its tried and true design hasn’t changed much at all. However, with Microsoft acknowledging that the present and future of UI design doesn’t promise a mouse … Continue reading Redesigning Windows’ Device Manager
This trimester, my team and I have been working with a client to product an Augmented Reality educational app for young students to learn about gardening. Over 13 weeks, we created a product for Android devices that teaches students about gardening processes and tries to engage them in and out of the classroom. The project … Continue reading Project Sapling Postmortem
This trimester I have been fortunate to work on an Augmented Reality project for a client in Studio 3. The AR app, which we called Project Sapling, is an entirely different product compared to the game we normally make. Serious Games - games with a purpose outside of entertainment - are a category that we … Continue reading Testing Methodology
This week in Studio 3 we have been looking into the business end of managing a game development studio - how to manage yourself and others when money is involved.
Prototyping is one of the most important stages of your project early in development. Your prototype is the simplest and quickest demonstration of the spirit of your game. It's what proves that your concept works to investors and stakeholders. Prototypes are commonly created in entirely separate development suites to the final product, and are intended … Continue reading Week 5 Update: Prototyping
