AET final

The core loop of a video game design is made up of three repeating parts: the action, response and result. Essentially, this is the structure that runs your game design; it is what entices your players to want to play your game over and again.

core loop

A common way to frame the initial video game design idea is brainstorming and posing a(n) design problem . This helps the design team to stay in the 'Problem Space of Design Thinking' and use research to inform designs as possible solutions. Some of the steps to be successful through the design process are to: Review: Review the project objectives, rubric and final goal and the tasks to get there. Record: Note-taking during design conversations tend to move fast and jump from one idea to the next. Notes can be messy, with connecting lines and thought bubbles. As long as you have a reference of what was shared, you're good to go. Generate Ideas: Everyone is responsible for bringing at least one idea to the table and someone's simple idea could possibly spark creativity in someone else and grow an idea into success. Unplug: Stepping away from distractions and bringing your undivided attention and A-game. Recap : A quick review of ideas and concepts to help refresh your memory and identify connections to several ideas.

design problem, recap

Arduino is a disruptive technology in the electrical engineering and software development markets. Arduino manufactures the most inexpensive and easy-to-use microcomputing boards as well as kits for Do-It-Yourself (DIY) electrical engineering and robotics. The company's motto perfectly illustrates this premise: "Buy. Learn. Share."

disruptive technology

The Feelings Wheel below was developed by Dr. Gloria Willcox and was created to help designers identify the main emotion you are experiencing within a design, how it connects it with other linked groups of feelings, and how these feelings branch off from the central circle. The wheel is used as a tool to help with analyzing the mechanics, dynamics and aesthetics of a video game, and the response that the game elicits from the user as a result.

emotion

User research is an important aspect of user-centric design and helps create empathy for who we are creating for. Entire design teams are dedicated this step of design thinking. Designers utilize user research in order to help design useful products, whether it's a game, app, or software.

empathy

Design thinking is a person-centered approach to designing outcomes and experiences to delight the user. The first stage of the Design Thinking process, [ Select ] , exists to gain an understanding of the problem you are trying to solve by creating understanding about the user. During the definition stage, the designer puts together the information gathered during user research. The designer analyzes the observations and synthesizes them in order to delineate the core problems the design team have identified up to this point. During the third stage of the Design Thinking process, ideation , designers start to generate ideas. During the [ Select ] phase, the design team will produce a number of low-cost, low-fidelity designs based on ideas generated. Testing is the final stage of the Design Thinking process. The testing stage is iterative: the design team produces a product, tests it, redesigns it, and repeats this process to create the best version of the design possible.

empathy, ideation, and prototype

he games Mortal Kombat, Night Trap, and Doom triggered the 1992/1993 video game panic, leading Congress Members Herb Kohl and Joe Lieberman to hold hearings, threatening to put video games under government regulation unless the industry developed a proper self-policing system What content did these members of Congress not find to be objectionable?

microtransactions

In a video game, dangerous fireballs that appear throughout a level are an example of a(n) obstacle

obstacle

As a game developer, examining a Player Persona can help guide you in decision making, to create the best experience for your end users, who are your players. The Player Persona clarifies who is in your target audience by answering the following questions: Who is my real audience? What are the current behavior patterns of my players? What are the needs and goals of my users? What is the player type of my player?

player type

In app design, the purpose of the problem statement is to identify the issue that is a concern for the user and focus it in a way that allows it to be solved. Basically, it's a clear, concise description of the issues that need to be addressed and it is used to center and focus the team at the very beginning to stay on track.

problem statement

Aesthetics provide users with an awareness of the experience, combining familiar technology with new technology that fully immerse the user into the design. No matter how realistic or fantastical it is, with the right aesthetics the design feels real to us.

real

n 1983, the video game market became oversaturated, with lots of companies trying to get in on the action creating poor, knock off versions of major releases. People started to lose interest due to the lack of quality control which saw the sales of video games decline heavily. This is referred to as the [answer].

the Great Video Game Crash

But mobile games also use a technique to keep their audiences playing and spending money. They include addictive qualities that get players hooked, and drive them to keep coming back again and again. In Why Mobile Games are so Addicting we examined what elements that games such as Candy Crush Saga use to get their players addicted. Below is a video of Candy Crush Saga's gameplay. A non-addictive element of the game would be the background art .

the background art

In video game design, {. } is a term often used to describe aspects of the game that lie outside of the dynamics and mechanics of a game. It provides a meaning, color, and reason behind why we are engaging with the game's dynamics and mechanics. For instance, Legend of Zelda is a game about a hero saving a princess from a monster; Journey is about perseverance, wonder, and allegory; Monopoly is about trying to become the biggest hot-shot real estate magnate around.

theme

since the days of the Atari, designers have used [. ] to house the digital art that will, in turn, create the gaming space. Most gaming levels on early video gaming systems, and currently in many indie games, use repeating images that create textures or interlock to create a design, which we refer to as [ ]

tilesets and tessellating tiles

A makerspace is a collaborative workspace where individuals can come together to create, invent, and learn. These spaces often provide access to a variety of tools and materials, and encourage creativity, experimentation, and hands-on learning.

tools

The particular discipline of design centered around the psychology of the end-user - or player - is known as user experience . This includes a process to ensure the gaming experience that you've designed is truly reflected in the mind of your player. It applies a true knowledge of players' behaviors and thinking processes, and couples it with data-collection, an iterative design process, and many types of testing with real players.

user experience

When designing experiences, it is important to understand your users so you can determine their wants, needs, and how they can best interact with what you are designing. This can best be achieved through user research . To best understand their users, designers use proto-personas, a profile created from guesstimates of what you think the user will like.

user research

We've worked with, reviewed, and created User Personas throughout this Unit. A quality user persona involves researching and building an understanding of the user. Part of this process is conducting interviews with individuals that fit the target audience your product is being built towards. The answers to the interview questions can help designers empathize with the user and understand their needs. However, for this to be successful, it's important to ask the right interview questions in order to get the answers that you need to build your persona. Below is an introduction video that a student made for one of her classes. Review the video and determine which type of interview question would best help to build a time management tool.

"Tell me about the last time you found yourself trying to find the time to complete an assignment."

Which of the following statements best describes disruptive technology?

A technology that creates a new market and disrupts the existing one.

The app icon that accompanies your app design must follow the specifications of the platform / platforms where you will be posting the app for download. Along with these specifications, app icons should be created as vector graphics. Identify which of the following would not be a reason to create a vector app icon.

A vector logo can not be edited by others

What do you call a musical instrument that exists within a DAW?

A virtual instrument

The trend for gaming tournaments was kickstarted by Atari way back in 1980, with its Space Invaders Championship that had 10,000 participants.

Atari

Layers are an important tool to harness when creating in graphic editors. Not only will layers assist in your design development, they will often save you time. Layers consist of individual slices of information that can be stacked or moved independently to create your image composition. What is the best reason below to use layers in a graphic editor?

Layers separate parts of an image to edit them without affecting other parts of the image.

Large video games are very often broken down into more discrete chunks. In traditional design, levels offer enemies and challenges of increasing difficulty as the game progresses. In order to progress through a game, the player-character must accomplish some objective(s) or complete some task(s). This type of organization offers flow and structure to the video game world that is being created. Practically speaking, they also serve the purpose of allowing only a portion of the video game to be loaded into the console or computer's memory at any given point, increasing performance and playability.

Levels

Examine the pixel art below. The pixel artist employed both Limited Palette and Animation techniques in its creation. Sunset with trees

Limited Palette and Animation

Phenakistoscopes and flip books paved the way for animated GIFs. While a flip book is an example of a linear animation that has a beginning and an end, a phenakistoscope creates the fluid illusion of never-ending motion, just as we see in a recursive GIF.

Linear

Examine the pixel art below. Which pixel art technique did the artist employ in its creation? Duck and egg

Outlining

Examine the pixel art below. Which pixel art technique was not employed in its creation? Astronot

Outlining

A sprite is a two-dimensional bitmap object that functions independently and is rendered separately from the rest of a scene within a video game. They are commonly used for characters and set pieces with which the player may need to interact.

Sprite and objects

Storyboards consist of a series of drawings that embody what a sequence would look like. It takes into consideration the angle of the shot, movement, actions, performances, and narrative progression. It's basically the film, animation, or game sequence on paper.

Storyboards

Raster graphics are images that exist on a two-dimensional rectangular network of pixels, the smallest accessible and controllable component of the raster image. Vector graphics use polygons, and the mathematical representation of the points of the polygons on an x/y axis to determine the image. Vector information may also include mathematical information describing curve, color and more. Below are examples of different types of graphics. Which image would be best suited as a raster graphic?

Taking a screenshot of a tourist attraction photo to use as wallpaper for your desktop.

Review the character sheet below. Identify what Character Archetype best fits this character. Ron

The Best Friend

Of the options below, which one best describes the leitmotif being used in both scenes that we associate with the shark in the Jaws films?

The Jaws music

Color is one of the most powerful tools you have when you're designing a video game. Analyze the list below and identify which way color should not be used to enhance a video game design.

Using as many colors as possible ties the entire game together cohesively.

Chris Milk uses virtual reality (VR) to produce astonishing films that delight and enchant. But for Milk, the human story is the driving force behind everything he does. In his TED talk about VR and empathy, Milk says, "[Virtual reality] is a machine. But through this machine, we become more compassionate, we become more empathetic, we become more connected, and ultimately, more human." Which of the statements below is an example of how VR can foster empathy?

Using virtual reality to experience what it is like to be in the body of another person.

View the clip below. After analyzing, determine whether this would best be described as a virtual reality, an augmented reality, or a mixed reality application. Bioshock VR

Virtual Reality

[ Select ] , sound, space, and design coming together to create an emotional response is known as [ Select ] .

Visuals and Aesthetics

A(n) artist statement is a written description of your work that gives your audience deeper insight into it. It may include your personal history, the symbolism you give your materials, or the issues you address; it should include whatever is most important to you and your work. There are three elements to consider: the "how ," the "what," and the "why." There should be enough information in it that someone can begin to imagine the product that you created without having it in front of them. Your aim should be to present the basis for the work.

artist statement and How

We all can think of apps that hold a permanent spot in our canon and others that we deleted after a day's worth of use. We all have an intuitive sense for when a mobile app is good or bad, essential or forgettable. When creating a successful app, it is important to design an app that creates something new, does something better , or makes a task easier.

does something better

From a designer's perspective gameplay starts with the base actions that are known as mechanics. When the designer combines mechanics to form gameplay events and opportunities, it is known as dynamics .

dynamics

One can expect many creative tools to be available for use in makerspaces. Which of the following would you expect to find at The Foundry?

3-D modeling and printing equipment

Traditional approaches to sound design often involved recording, manipulating and mixing various audio files to create new sounds that are meant to create a certain mood." As we discussed, when Ben Burtt designed the sound for the lightsaber in Star Wars, he layered different sounds together to create the specific tone that was needed to make the lightsaber feel real and alive. Below is a video of the Light Saber in action. Listen to it carefully a few times. What sound was not layered together with the others to give the lightsaber the sense of reality?

A car horn

A character sheet is a useful tool to help understand a character's attributes and what you need to know about a character beyond their background. Which of the statement below is true?

A character sheet should include rendition of the character to be used as a visual.

Which is an example of a game set piece

A floor tile releases a deadly arrow and an enemy character smiles and says, "There is more where that came from."

When crafting visual design ourselves, either physically or digitally, it's important to consider not just how the design looks, but what the narrative is telling your audience. Visuals created for designed experiences can tell as much of a story, if not more, than any dialogue or text.

A party was happening on or around the time of the inciting event.

DAW stands for Digital Audio Workstation. This is the digital tool that musicians can use at every stage of the music creation. This video shows the Cockos Reaper 5 DAW in action. Listening to the music experience that has been created in this demo, explain what you would use a DAW for in the mixing phase.

Adjusting audio levels for each individual sound

Examine the pixel art below. The pixel artist employed both [ Select ] and [ Select ] techniques in its creation. Old man cowboy with cards

Anti-alias and Outlining

Below is a video of the Light Saber in action. Listen to it once with the video, then a few times with your eyes closed. What emotion is Ben Burtt was trying to stir in the audience with these sounds?

Anxious

Subversive art could best be defined in what manner?

Art intending to overthrow, destroy, or undermine an existing system.

view the clip below. After analyzing, determine whether this would best be described as a virtual reality, an augmented reality, or a mixed reality application. Park with super mario

Augmented Reality

The parts and pieces that form the movable and interact-able portion of a game's design are referred to as Bits . This includes game boards, tiles, tokens, cards, etc., and are directly influenced by the game's core dynamic and mechanics.

Bits

Below is a trailer for an expansion to the popular free-to-play MMO RPG EverQuest 2. When EverQuest 2 originally launched it started as a subscription based game, then became completely free-to-play, relying on microtransactions for revenue. Review this trailer and identify what type of microtransaction would not have a negative impact the basic core free-to-play gameplay.

Bonus side-quests

No one reads manuals anymore, so when designing a game, it is important for the design to be as intuitive as possible. In a way, game designers are teachers, we introduce new concepts to the players, then put them into situations where they need to use those new skills until they've mastered them. Numerous examples of this can be found in the first level of Super Mario Bros. This first level introduces the player to many of the basic concepts through gameplay. In the example below, what is the level teaching the player about the game?

Boxes with Question marks [?] contain rewards

If you regularly play App games, you're no stranger to Microtransactions. In this Unit we reviewed how game developers can manipulate the users to spend more on microtransactions than intended. This screenshot is of the in-app store for the popular game Candy Crush Saga. Based on what we see here, what is one way the developers are getting the audience to spend more than they may have realized.

Buying virtual economy to spend on in-game items

What type of artist creates 2D and 3D digital assets used in developing video games and digitally animated films?

CGI Artist

Along the Hero's Journey, the Call to Adventure is an event or a character that presents the hero with a problem, challenge, or an adventure.

Call to Adventure

What is a trope of women in video games with which Anita Sarkeesian might take issue? women in arcade

Cassie, a schoolgirl in the main village, is cowering behind a tree when the player character approaches in Dragon Age

inside a DAW many musicians use a base for their music that includes a harmonic set of pitches consisting of multiple notes played simultaneously. What is this known as?

Chord Track

At the beginning of the song it is just the voice of the singer (Nathan Evans) as he beats his fist creating a rhythmic thumping sound. Soon he is joined by more voices. They are singing the same song at the same time, but making different sounds. What music theory term is a combination of two or more notes played at the same time?

Chords

PFP NFTs are a collection of avatars, usually about 10,000, where each avatar has a combination of unique attributes that are randomly generated and combined. PFP stands for Profile Pics as these NFTs are often used as profile pictures on social media sites such as Twitter.

Correct! Non-fungible

Below is a clip of a Video Game Sound Designer's demo reel. Watch this video and determine which part was created by the sound designer.

Create a mix of different crashing noises for when the car smashes into different surfaces.

We've explored the differences between User Interface (UI) and User Experience (UX), and how the two come together to create a helpful and satisfying app, software, or tool for the user. Below is a video demonstrating the social media app, BuddyBoss. Review the video and identify an element that focuses on User Experience (UX) design.

Create an account from the app

Crowdfunding is defined as the following: A manner in which individuals or groups can raise capital to fund a project where the goal is to raise money in small increments, given by a large amount of different people rather than one or two big backers. It allows for the democratization of technology in that projects which may never have gotten off the ground can now be put out into the marketplace of ideas, as it were, where all individuals from all around the world can view the potential product and can vote with their dollars. What is a way that developers can positively coax investors into supporting a crowdfunding campaign?

Create rewards / tiers of support that encourage investors to feel as though they are personally benefiting from supporting your project.

Degrees of Freedom refers to the movement of a rigid body in three-dimensional space. The simplest VR systems all incorporate 3 motions: rotation about three perpendicular axes, often termed pitch, yaw, and roll. More advanced VR solutions incorporate 6 motions that can also track the location of the headset as it moves through space. Specifically, the player is free to move forward/backward (surge), up/down (elevation), and left/right (strafe). Often this accomplished by the use of external sensors that help to track the headset.

Degrees of Freedom

Below is a clip of a Video Game Sound Designer's demo reel. Watch this video and determine which part was not created by the sound designer.

Design the layout of the space for optimal gameplay

Throughout a video game, there are a number of in-game occurrences which serve to heighten emotion, to drive narrative, and/or show the consequences of player choice. Often, these occur when a player-character reaches a certain location on the map, reaches the end of some internal timer, or interacts with some item/character in the game world. Set pieces can also be known as events .

Events

Based on the game trailer below, what theme would be accurate to describe this game?

Fear

Game aesthetics is an expression of the game and refers to the sensory phenomena the player encounters in the game. This is usually the initial experience that the player encounters when they first play a game. Core gaming aesthetics include all of the following except:

Fear

The future of video game design includes the implementation of Interaction Design , which is the design of the interplay between users and products. The goal is to create products that enable the user to achieve their objective(s) in the best way possible.

Interaction Design

rtist Kelton Sears' novel way of storytelling via the art of Vine-like loops has led to a long-form animated comic called Trash Mountain. This type of file is a lossless format for image files that supports both animated and static images, better known as Graphic Image Format, or GIF.

Interchange

In what way does character development not provide an enhanced video game experience?

It helps to fill up empty space in the video game level.

Iterative design is a methodology that positions your work as a living project that you should regularly tweak and improve upon as you go, rather than building it in one fell swoop and being done for good. Think of it as a continuous cycle of creating (prototyping), testing, and making adjustments and refinements. What reason below is not a benefit of prototyping?

It takes more time in the long run

All of the follow works can be considered subversive art, EXCEPT:

Leonardo da Vinci's painting, Mona Lisa.

Along the Hero's Journey, the hero is reluctant or frightened to accept the call and begin the journey. The hero feels the fear of the unknown and tries to turn away from the adventure, however briefly. The hero comes across a character who provides training, equipment, weapons, or advice that will help on the journey. This event is referred to as the Meeting with the Mentor .

Meeting with the Mentor

What tool inside a DAW is used to combine different audio signals?

Mixing Console

The following is a storyboard sequence from Jurassic Park. Review this sequence and identify how this storyboard is helping the designer.

Movement of the character in the sequence

Critiques can consist of both positive and negative feedback of your work. When is it okay to ignore feedback you receive from a critique?

Never

When creating an app, software tool, or interactive experience, it's always important to be considering the user, and have the user's needs and habits guide that design. The best way to identify the elements that will work best for the user is through User Research. In this unit we identified two different types of User Research - Qualitative and Quantitative. Below you will find information about Users. Identify which of the following would be defined as Quantitative user research.

One out of three users have a typo when composing a message in the app

The process of generating random environments in real time used by games like Beneath Apple Manor, Rogue, River Raid and Elite: Dangerous is known as Procedural Generation .

Procedural Generation

Below is a famous sequence from the classic horror movie The Cat People, directed by Val Lewton. This sequence is so famous that the audio technique used when the bus pulls up is known as the Lewton Bus.

Psychological: Effects your emotional state.

Photoshop originally started as an image manipulation tool, but is also used by digital painters and design professionals. The resulting art/graphics are sometimes referred to as bitmaps, but are they most commonly known as:

Raster graphics

An integral part of design thinking is to reflect upon your process. Without doing this, the experience can quickly be forgotten, or it's learning potential lost. Insights from your project work are written into your Design Document to give a personal view about the work you did and what new learning you gained from going through the design process and creating your project.

Reflect

When creating a case study of podcasts, which of the following metrics would NOT be used to create an analysis?

Sound quality

The Hero's Journey is a common story structure that takes place in three stages. First, the hero's ordinary life is disrupted by a call for adventure. Second, the hero has to overcome ordeals and defeat enemies during their quest. Finally, they return home transformed. Which of the following statements about the Hero's Journey is true?

The Hero's Journey can be found in a wide range of media and forms.

In both videos we don't actually see Darth Vader until then end, but we know he is there. That's because there is a specific leitmotif that lets the audience associate with Darth Vader. Of the options below, which one best describes the leitmotif being used in both scenes?

The Imperial March Theme

Review the character sheet below. Identify what Character Archetype best fits this character. Gandalf

The Mentor

Below is an image of a hand sketched prototype for a mobile app. We've explored how creating simple and fast prototypes that mock up the app can greatly benefit the design, planning, and creation of high quality interactive digital products. Based on what we've learned, identify the benefit in making a mock-up prototype such as this.

The designer can iterate quickly to refine ideas

The apps we use everyday utilize key triggers that form habits with their users. These habits tend to be unconscious drivers that compel us to go back to the app repeatedly. There are two categories of triggers, External Triggers and Internal Triggers. Below is an image of Facebook's mobile homepage. Examine the layout, content, and UI of this app and identify which element is an External Trigger.

The menu icons at the top of the screen

Which of the following is likely a reason that podcasts have become increasingly popular?

They allow for a more flexible listening experience, as they can be accessed at any time.

Games aren't just popular to play, but thanks to eSports they've become major spectator events. As eSports have grown in popularity, professionals gamers, organizations, and enthusiasts alike have campaigned for eSports to be acknowledged as a form of aesthetics, a professional sport, and even an Olympic event. However this has not sat well with traditional athletics organizations, especially the Olympic committee. From the list below, identify an argument that an organization such as the Olympic Committee has used against identifying eSports as a professional sport and form of athletics.

Video Gaming does not have a physical component

The user persona below is for an influencer concerned with being the first to find and share events. From this we can derive a lot about this user that will help determine their needs. However the persona is just one step in the process. What is another step in the creation process needed to determine the best content, features, and user experience to make a successful app for this persona?

Wireframes

Natural experiences simply occur without the involvement of direction or thought. They are connections we make without someone consciously structuring how we would go about engaging. Designed experiences are developed by a designer who has to consider, research, test, and deduce how the user will interact and connect with content, and how that will result in an experience. Examine the images below, then identify which of the experiences is specifically a designed experience.

Zoo