A critical review of Farm Blitz 

The game that I played for this week was called “Farm blitz”. The game company that created this game was Doorways to dreams. Thought this game was extremely fun and i enjoyed playing it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P08PXNFPCgM

Learning Elements

The game is trying to teach low income adults on how to manage their money well so they won’t get into any financial problems. The learning experience the game is trying to attempt to the player is managing your money well. The dominant form of interaction the player has with this game is that you control everything that goes on. This helps the learning objective because it teaches the player that nobody is going to help you with your financial problems. The cognitive processes is most affected by the game design.

Formal Elements 

This is a single player game. The primary objective of this game is to make money off your crops without going in debt. The resources that are in the game are money,a farm you own,crops,rabbits, and trees. Money is being spent. Also you get to govern the exchange of the resources. The conflict between the game elements are included by every round that you pass the game becomes more difficult. There are no boundaries in this game which makes the game very fun.It contributes to the objective by you learning how to manage your money well. This game doesn’t end you can keep playing as long as you want.

Dramatic Elements 

The main character in this game is you as a farmer. The relationship between the character and avatar is that you’re a farmer trying to make money off of your crops. The challenge that is being presented to the player is that you have to make money off of your farm without being in debt. The game takes place on a farm. There is no main storyline behind this game. The game is playful because there are no boundaries to the game. The type of play that is prevalent to this game is the main player learning a new skill. 

System Dynamics 

A farm is used to build the game system. Some object properties required in this game is a farm, money, and crops for your farm. The relationship between the system elements is that you control every aspect of the game. Yes there is a exist economy, but it doesn’t change over time. Asheville and dynamite emerges from the gameplay when you get to later rounds. Everything in this game is exposed to the player right off the bat nothing is hidden from the player. Players interact with the system by clicking the help tab.

Functionality, Completeness, & Balance

Yes this game is fully functional. Yes the game is complete and there is no voice being represented in this game. The game is also balanced. There is no dominate strategy to approach this game.

Fun and Accessibility 

This game was very engaging. This game was fun because as you continue to get to later rounds the game became more difficult so it wasn’t a cake walk. There are no parts of this game that are broken. Also no parts feels like it needs micromanaging. I don’t think that any parts of this game was boring. It is very easy to play this game because it has a help tab. It didn’t take me long to learn how to play the game. The players learn how to play the game by the help tab they provided.

The game I played this week is called farm blitz. The objective of the game is to earn money to pay off your debt and keep your farm. The player earns money by matching three or more plants in a row. The job is to also make sure that none of the plants spoil and the rabbits don’t eat all of the plants. I enjoyed the game at first but the more I played it the more bored I got. The game was listed under the 18 and older category but seems as though it can be meant for children of the age 7-8. The game was very simple. It did not take much time to complete the game. You do not need much skill to play this game. The game was made to teach good saving habits and introduce the harsh realities of debt. At the end of the game, by the creditors taking your farm because you failed to pay off your debt. No it actually shows you can happen if you don’t take care of your debt. One thing I disliked was the fact that the game did not acquire levels for the player to move up in. I believed that would have contributed to the fun aspect of the game. The game was also slow. I would have liked for the game to move a little faster. The game system took a little while to acknowledge the match. That slowed the game down and contributed to its lack of fun. Overall, the game was very educational.

A Critical Game Analysis of: The End by Preloaded

http://https://youtu.be/tiL5-ptWXBE

Introduction: The following will be a critical analysis of the flash game “The End“. The End is a learning game intended for teenagers with the goal of helping them think about and understand how they feel about controversial topics involving philosophy, morality, and science.

Is it possible to be happy living in the now?

Within this analysis I will address several topics including but not limited to learning elements, formal elements, and dynamic elements.

Learning Elements: The main objective of this game is to help teenagers deal with philosophical concepts that their upbringing may not deal with like death, morality, and things of that nature.

There are a few primary mechanics carried out in two different worlds in which the player plays. There 4 main mechanics that exist as one traverses the levels. There is a jumping mechanic the scale obstacles, a pushing mechanic for large objects like rocks, climbing mechanic for ladders and vines and lastly a shadow solidifying mechanic that makes shadows solid objects that the player can use to interact with the world.

The other world in which the player functions is a card game called Death Cards, in which the main mechanic and clicking and dragging tiles and power-ups.This game’s design encompasses all four processes of learning. It has the physiological effect of helping teens understand their world better which will affect how they function on within their daily activities.

The Death Cards game helps sharpen one’s ability to plan, strategize, and carry out simple mathematic equations. The traveling through maps allows for a player to grasp and experience simple physics mechanics mostly dealing with gravity. Social and behavioral processes are affected by the philosophical questions the game asks. Once the player answers one of these questions and finishes the map they are shown a pie chart with the answers of everyone else in the world which can help them learn social habits and behaviors without having to interact physically with other individuals.

Formal Elements: It is a one player game normally, but players can play other players in the Death Cards option. Players compete in the Death Cards game, high scores among friends who play are displayed as well. Players also interact on a cultural level by seeing other player’s beliefs on important controversial philosophical matters. The game objective complements the learning objectives. This game has found a creative way to engage players in physical challenges for their avatar to get their brain working and then after they succeed they are presented a question that requires them to use their brain to answer a very important question that may change how they view the

world. Having the player solve rather difficult challenges and then challenging their views on the world seems like a great way to empower teenagers to be an active participant in the shaping of their world; something they may not have in their normal everyday lives.

DEATH CARDS

The rules for the player controlling the avatar include how they can interact with the map (movement how they can manipulate the map) and how they lose—by falling long distances, landing on spikes—which will require them to revert to a previous checkpoint and lose some progress. In Death Cards the rules are simply control the majority of the board by the end of the game. Each player plays one tile at a time and if one side of the current player’s tile is higher than that of a tile that is currently owned by the opposing player they gain control of it. It is very similar to Othello in how the tiles are taken. You do not gain any tradable resources but there are artifacts in the game to collect that accompany the philosophical questions the player is asked. The primary conflict/challenge traveling through the map. There are smaller side challenges for the achiever players to collect a certain number of stars before finishing and finishing in a certain time to get extra trophies. The obstacles are well placed so that the players cannot jump to places that require more complicated ways to reach, like ledges in the distance that require casting a shadow to travel across. Another interesting boundary that was built in to control the shadow projection is that if a player is in a light source—which are usually between areas the designers do not want a player casting a shadow—lose their active shadow and cannot cast any while in the light. They also limit the amount of shadows a player can cast at a time to 1.

The game is a pretty long game if you are aiming to get all of the accolades so I have not completed it yet. I have completed a good portion of the game though and the level design is creative enough to keep most players interested if they enjoy manipulation their environment.

Dramatic Elements: The main character is just an avatar for the player that the player can customize, and acts as their medium to interact with the world. The motivation is the player’s interest in these questions and the answers of theirs compared to those of player around the world. The main storyline is not too difficult because the real reward is the artifacts that come with the philosophical questions and where people around the world stand on the issues. There are little challenges like the time challenge and the star collecting challenges that was mentioned earlier in this review to keep players busy. As for the Death Cards the NPC’s difficulty ranges from easy to hard at the players choice and players have the option to play against other players.

From my experience with the game the world consists of portals to alternate dimensions where the biggest question in each world is centered on whichever philosophical question will be asked at the end of the level. The main concept is that the player is a teenager in another dimension trying to get back home and along the way is faced with very important questions. Essentially the player is on a journey to figure out who they are on a deep moral intellectual level.

This game has a linear story because the player does not interact with the game to cause any significant changes to the story itself, they are more of passive navigator than an active participant. This game can appeal to two different player types. It has challenges and ways to increase difficulty for players who are achievers. It has creative maps with fun challenges for explorers. The most the killer play type can engage in is the player versus player in Death Cards and the most a social type player can do is look at the responses of other people.

Functionality and accessibility: I think this is a complete game. The objective and point of the game is made very clear and it is expressed very coherently and fluently. The competitive Death Cards is well balanced. The way the game is setup there is no dominant strategy—at least none that I have come across. The power-ups are well balanced as well and do a great job of counteracting one another. As for the more domineering power-ups they take up more slots which limits how many extra powers a player can use so I would say it is well balanced. The traveling through the levels is fun for a player who likes to manipulate their environment in a creative new way, with the shadows and all. I think the challenging puzzles are a good warm up for the questions that follow and do not obscure the learning aspect. At the point I am at I just want to compete in Death Cards and get all of the questions without traveling through the levels.

Conclusion: This is a very easy to play game that gains difficulty as you get to the higher levels which is good for all payers. With the Death Cards players can actually set the difficulty they prefer. The setting is fun and colorful to keep attention and above all the question that are asked are great for personal development. Add in the Death Cards and you have a game that can entertain 3 of the 4 player types while having a great learning bases that does not take away from the game. If you have the chance it is a good game to experience. Below is a link to the actual game. Thank you for reading my analysis and I hope you come back to read my next blog about the game that I will be working on.

Link to “The End”: http://www.playtheend.com/game

Week3Rubric

I played the game entitled a Cheyenne Odyssey. The game could be found at the website www.mission-us.org. This game has a very strong learning objective that teaches the player about the history of the Amerindian, more precisely about how they lived in the past.

In term of the primary game mechanic, the player has to make choice while he or she is learning through a conversation engaging him (the avatar) and the other characters in the game.

The game design also has an affect on the player. The systems most affected are the cognition, the behavior, and the social life of the player. These aspects are affected simply because the game was designed for this purpose.

The game engages only one player. The objective of the game is not to win, but to learn how to behave in a community specifically by showing good manner toward elders. In term of rules and procedures, the player has to answer to questions asking by the others characters. He also need to read all the other possible answer in order to choose the best one for which he would get a reward.

in addition, the resources spent in the game are horses. You have to give horses in exchange for other items like powder, and guns.  There are two ways of resolving conflicts in the game. Either they are solved by dialogue or by war. However, to maintain the boundaries in the game, the player has to follow the rules that have been set buy the designer.

The game is playful in the sense that it puts you in an environment where you have do different tasks including interating with people. To build the game Land, forest, and animals are used. And, trading is the object behavior being used.  It is well balanced  game in which there is no dominant strategy. However the game is not so easy to play. It requires time and patient in order to learn how to play it.

The game I played for this week was called Mission by David Rust-Smith. Overall the main objective of this game is to introduce players the difficulties and obstacles that were confronted through their lives as homeless people. This game was both very helpful and interesting because of the real life experiences being told through a game. In One setting I was given an avatar of a rust looking shoe, this shoe, however, played an important role in this persons life.  As the game advances you reach different types of people and obstacles that either meant something valuable or significant to the persons life or just ultimately destroyed them. The functions of this game were used through three simple buttons (left arrow, right arrow, up arrow). Some of the conflicts introduced in this game were obstacles such as people are simply finding food. However, one technically difficulty that delayed my game play was the up arrow which was used to jump. when trying to jump it never almost worked. The avatar would either buffer or just freeze up. Overall this game was still very informational because of its story-line. Some of the most important things I learned fro this game was sympathizing with homeless people a bit more. No one truly knows what they have been through because to us every day may be a passive day in regular routine. But to them everyday is one more day at a chance to survival.

Review of the game SweatShop

This game was created by LittleLoud Studios. Some background info:

Channel 4 was eager to create a game that challenged young people to think about the origin of the clothes we buy.

Our solution was a strategy game that casts the player in the role of a clothing factory’s middle management. The player is responsible for hiring and firing workers, ensuring that orders are completed in time and balancing the needs of demanding clients with worker welfare.

http://littleloud.com/work/sweatshop/

Learning Elements 

The game gives you insight on what it is like to work in very harsh conditions. The things that we are not exposed to as much but very much so occurs in certain factories that create well known products. It opens peoples eyes to how extremely dangerous/unfair some jobs are. Also, to be appreciative of how some things are created. When playing this game you use physiological, cognitive, social, and behavior processes. Physiological:in the sense that you get frustrated when the work load gets intense. I felt a little worried about if my boss was going to fire me if I made one mistake. Cognitive: you have to think about which worker goes where and make sure no one gets injured. Social: you need to choose and hire people, if you do not communicate you do not know who is good at what. Behavior: especially because the work environment really affects how you react.

Formal Elements 

I played as 3 people. The little boy who was in charge, and the other 2 were workers I hired. The rules are to follow the boss’s instructions and meet the goal for the day. It compliments because as you go up in levels, the goal of the day increases and the level gets more challenging and it makes you really think about what you need to do to complete the game. The whole point is to not get fired. Each time a product is created, you gain money. When you do not fully create the product, you lose money. There are workers that you get to fire and hire depending on their skill.

Dramatic Elements 

The little boy on the cover of the game is the main character. He got promoted because everyone else left, he used to be a regular worker. The little boy has to figure out how he would like to set up the factory. He must master finding a faster,cheaper way to get the job done. It shows that this game has a linear narrative because you don’t affect the story, you just go through it. An achiever player would most likely want to play this game since there are different levels.

System Dynamic

All you need in this game is workers, machines, and products. The setting is at a sweatshop. The levels get harder as you continue.

Fun and Accessibility 

The games is engaging. You do end up learning about sweatshops, however, a person can get so competitive that the only thing they care about is killing whomever just to get a job done and that and they forget the real meaning behind the game. This game is fairly easy .

Free rice is a game that tries to teach gamers vocabulary words by giving the gamer a word in which they have to figure out the meaning. By doing this, it causes the gamer to inquire new vocabulary words into their life and also brush up on the ones they already know. Not only is this game teaching new vocabulary words it is also donating rice to the World Food Programme (WFP) to help those in need. Each question that the gamer gets right, 10 grains of rice will be donated to the program. The learning
experience the game attempted to create for the gamer is to be able to help support the needy and develop their vocabulary . This teaches both vocabulary and the value of helping others in need.

It only takes one person to play this game. This game is design so that there wont be any interaction with other players. The interaction with the game and the player is very competitive. This game is competitive only because the gamer is trying to beat the game or get to a high level.The primary object of this game is to help the gamer donate rice to people in need by getting the definition of a given vocabulary word right. The game objective reinforces the learning objective because the gamer was able to learn new words and also allow the gamer an opportunity collect rice for the needy.

This game can go on forever but there is an end to this game. It is hard to get to the end of the game only because  the game becomes very difficult each level the gamer moves up too.The challenges presented are the word that are given to define. The gamer must be able to master they vocabulary skill. They must be about to see a word and figure out the meaning.This game is extremely easy. It do not take a long time to learn this game. In the beginning of the game the player will be giving instructions on how to play the game.