danieltolmie-blog

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https://danieltolmie.weebly.com

my stuffs on my website now:

https://danieltolmie.weebly.com

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#ctec501signal ‐ Final Entry ‐ Daniel Tolmie ‐ Basil and the herbs

members

Daniel Tolmie

Nate Gibson

Basil Ali

Peter Lee

Chris Webb-Speight

breif: https://danieltolmie.tumblr.com/post/185620138554/brief-design-a-play-experience-that-shows-the

1: https://danieltolmie.tumblr.com/post/184747094244/signal-001

2: https://danieltolmie.tumblr.com/post/184814377029/signal-002

3: https://danieltolmie.tumblr.com/post/184858647054/signal-003

4: https://danieltolmie.tumblr.com/post/184932516819/alot-has-happend-since-my-last-post-we-didnt-end

5: https://danieltolmie.tumblr.com/post/185073871159/signal-005

6: https://danieltolmie.tumblr.com/post/185196948144/signal-006

7: https://danieltolmie.tumblr.com/post/185261255349/signal-007

8: https://danieltolmie.tumblr.com/post/185486407949/so-the-showcase-was-alright-however-our-game-is

9: https://danieltolmie.tumblr.com/post/185575383694/signal-009

10: https://danieltolmie.tumblr.com/post/185619200759/signal-010

[danieltolmie-blog]

Brief: Design a play experience that shows the importance and fragility of trust

[danieltolmie-blog]

#signal 010

 Tieing up some loose ends:

Peter finally has finished the rules, even though he forgot to put the link to the video on them because I don't know when he will see my message and update them I'm just going to but the image of them without it here:

nate has blogged his card designed, and i thought id link to those posts here :

https://draygro.tumblr.com/post/185601373007/action-cards

https://draygro.tumblr.com/post/185601284377/holy-runes-and-roles

we didn't have time to varnish the board or paint the characters for submission but we might do it after anyways as it will be cool to show Zuru on our call on Thursday.

a problem i mentioned in an earlier blog post was surrounding the sacrificial dagger, what we decided on was that in that scenario where the last cultist needed one more corrupt rune, and the survivor kills them with the sacrificial dagger, thus killing all cultists but activating all 6 corrupt runes. that in this case the cultist actually wins, we wrote the rules in a way that it is the cultists objective to activate 6 corrupt runes, and the survivors need to stop that from happening, so when the dagger is used then the cultists objective is fulfilled and the survivors have failed to stop them. Im pretty happy with that explanation. 

just looking back on this project, i learnt more about teamwork this time round, Going into a project with friends was something I thought wasn't going to work out well early one, due to alot of procrastination, and although once we had the foundation of our project and set responsibilities there were still moments where i had wished that i was in another team. although we were comfortable enough to be blunt with each other, it was still not worth it in my opinion. although I'm really happy with the final product, going ahead I am going to try to have more of a balanced team in terms of friends and people I don't know too well. time punctuality was a common theme with our group, that did get better towards the end of the project but still was a problem. 

Coming into the project I was pretty burnt out, and that did get better as time went on, it felt at times that I was still running on fumes, but that happens, the world isn't going to wait from me to recharge. it did mean at times I was not performing as well as I would have liked, I wished we had recorded more playtests, that I was a little more time conscious (so the last week didn't have to be so hectic), it would have been better to do more tests with strangers around uni as well, maybe once a week as progress grew. just general teamwork dynamics that could have been better. 

however, on a more positive note, I think we did achieve what he set out to in terms of when we identified elements of games we liked. the competitive nature, the short(ish) play time, the different roles, the replayability, images below:

[danieltolmie-blog]

#signal 009

This last week as hustle week, we bunkered down and finished our to-do list.

we decided to keep the poison card, as it did introduce an interesting element of trust onto the game, seen through our playtests.

Basil finalized the map, we did do one more iteration but it failed so we are pretty happy of what we got.

I helped Peter finish up the rules, I think he is still to design them in our theme.

yesterday I shot and edited the video, it was pretty painful to be honest, at this point, most people are over it.   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CHwa9aEpB84

me and basil spent pretty much all yesterday making the board, lazer cutting it and, sanding it and all. it was pretty fun, learnt from the guys in the 3d lab and ticked off a few inductions.

nate sussed the art and cards, printed them off and all, they look great, super happy with out they turned out.

and we have a call with ZURU toys next week on Thursday. looking forward to that.

today we are doing the write-up and finish everything up.

sweeeeet

[danieltolmie-blog]

#signal 008

so the showcase was alright, however, our game is about 20 mins long and most people wanted to check out each group of a few mins each, so instead, we just had people who were taking a break from there own presentation to play the game and the public could watch and ask questions. 

we only have a week until its all due. 

so I've put together a list of things to do:

we have to finalize the poison card

the map

the rules and rules video

actually, put the map on a nice bit of timber

need to  print the final cards with little descriptions on them

and the character, printed and painted. 

we have also reached out to ZURU toys as I reckon its a cool idea to potentially sell the idea to them, as after we hand it is, its incredibly unlikely we will do anything, and I reckon its a pretty solid game. They've sent us an NDA and we will schedule a call with them shortly. 

right im going to get to tick some of the things off the to-do list

[danieltolmie-blog]

#signal 007

We’ve done some more tests, playing around with map layouts and new action cards. 

the poison card, when used poisons a player for 2 rounds, if nobody saves them with the medkit card then they die. At first i did not like this card, however, during one playtest a dilemma came across where a player could have saved someone however they were unsure if they were a cultist or a survivor. They ended up saving the person and it turned out that they were in fact cultists and went on to win the game, whereas if she had left him to die, the survivors would have won. so i think we should continue to test this card. 

Another dilemma came up and has not really been resolved: the sacrificial dagger kills a player but also activates a corrupt rune. SO if the cultists only need one more rune to win, and there is only one cultist left what happens when a survivor kills the last cultist with the dagger. does the cultist win due to 6 corrupt runes being activated, or does the survivor win due to killing all the cultists. IDK, i dont think a draw would be a good outcome either and there is valid arguments on both sides. 

the argument for cultists: If activating the 6 runes work like a nuclear bomb, even if the survivor kills the last cultist, the bomb still goes off and they cultists objectives are complete. 

the argument of the survivor: that the way the game works is in order of events and killing the last cultist happens before the rune is activated therefore the survivors win. 

still not convinced either way so the debate lives on!

some interesting map things happened. 

The map with the centre box that had connections to all external boxes but they are not connected to each other: I thought it would be a disaster however an interesting mechanic arrived as players were forced to put themselves in danger in order to receive an action card, that could defend them. The players didn't like it but i think to keep the mechanics of it in future maps forces action and gameplay.

https://www.prisonexp.org/the-story 

we should also look into this experiment as it could relate to our game. 

i gotta meeting now for robotic wheel chairs so peace

[danieltolmie-blog]

#signal 006

“  i gotta make more of an effort to actually get these done each day rather than big catch ups. “

that sentence ended my last blog post, and here we are again. 

SOOOOooooooo.......

eventfull things that have happend since:

ive got further into my book on trust, some really good stuff that will shape our contextual and conceptual statements, surrounding the importance and speed of trust, how it words, pillars of trust and the trust (or lack thereof) tax. and how we have made this game to play with the idea of trust, to win the game you must work as a team, but as survivors you do not know who to trust.

we did playtest with random people around uni to get fresh eyes on it.  group 1 did a 1v3 game as they had little time, took about one round for them to get the hang of the rules and they said they enjoyed it, however we discovered some errors in how the cards worked(too many defenses to attack cards, therefore they always blocked each other out. group 2 played the 6 player game mode with an unknown amount of cultists, this took a bit more time to understand how the game worked however once it got rolling was more enjoyable, and as we played with them(to make up numbers) we had a good time with people we never met before. this game exposed that there is still a hurdle with our rules communication which is a dedicated role within the group now. 

nate is grinding hard on the art and its looking real cool.

chris has found some 3d models and started printing little characters to play on the board with. 

basil has made progress with different map layouts, which now have been printed and we are in the process of testing. 

peter (when he shows up ) is at work on the rules, and a rule video that can assist new players. 

you can find me managing, planning or doing playtests.

We’ve reached out to Zuru toys as i reckon we have something pretty soild with this and thought that if we are just going to move on from this project after its done, maybe we should look into licencing it or something. being careful to keep our cards close to our chest as well. 

showcase thing is next week, hopefully, we have something real cool to show for it, in terms of art and getting closer to a final product(even though we still have a few weeks before the end)

[danieltolmie-blog]

ICT POSTER

Context: Before coming into Collab I approached group work, design and problem solving very differently than I do now, evident in my first studio project. High school does not set you up for the way of thinking that is necessary to succeed in group projects and problem-solving. High school business was group based that had a team create a business for a year and learn as we went, however, it always   up with me taking charge and doing most of the work, although this created a strong work ethic and I was successful in the course, this did not teach me the discipline of teamwork. And high school painting allowed us to plan out our whole years worth of paintings before making them, stopping any iteration and bottom-up thinking.

The true learning curve has been breaking these habits and trusting the process and allowing the project to go where it wants to. As a bit of a control freak that hasn't been easy. “The learning curve model generates a coefficient for experience that simultaneously expresses its positive direct and negative indirect effects on productivity” Behind the learning curve: A sketch of the learning process. Adler, P. S., & Clark, K. B. (1991)

My approach to the poster was to communicate how I perceive how what I am learning in creative tech works towards my life, but also in a way that also shows properties of the bottom-up design. The ‘coin’ dropping bouncing off the related words with a random destination both works as a metaphor for a career and bottom-up design. The poster references many learning experiences, elements of the course and books that have been insightful so far. Which as a collective has shaped what this course has been thus far. The words/platforms that the coin bounces off are the key paradigm shifts that have allowed me to shift my way of thinking.

Adler, P. S., & Clark, K. B. (1991). Behind the learning curve: A sketch of the learning process. Management Science, 37(3), 267-281.

[danieltolmie-blog]

#Signal 005

Since my last post we made a breif: “ design a play experience which conveys the fragility and importance of trust”

which we think works well with our game. 

it just so happens i have also started reading a book about trust, called ‘the speed of trust’ by Stephen M.R. Covey. 

I've only just started reading it so no deep reflection just yet but here are a few things that have jumped at me so far:

‘trust means confidence’ 

‘when you trust people, you have confidence in them, in their integrity and in their abilities. When you distrust people you are suspicious of them, of there integrity, their agenda, their capabilities and of their track record”

“in a high trust relationship you can say the wrong thing, and people will still get your meaning. In a low trust relationship, you can be very measured, even precise and they'll still misinterpret you”

“34% of Americans believe other people can be trusted”

“students who acknowledged that they cheated in order to improve their odds of getting into graduate school

liberal arts: 43%

education: 52%

medical: 63%

law: 63%

business: 75% 

“

“Trust always affects two outcomes, speed and cost. when trust goes down, speed will also go down and costs will go up. when trust goes up, speed will also go up and costs will go down”

“trust is a function of two things: character and competence”

alot of interesting insight and the book looks to go into alot of detail on ‘five waves of trust’ looks promising and will translate into our works as the board game and brief works with trust.

in terms of what we’ve achieved with the game alot of playtests, changing up things like the number of players, the number of good/bad players, how we communicate the rule, playing around with the cards and how they work, even having a randomized number of good to bad players ratio. all serving our brief and playing with the idea of trust. 

alot of our classmates are enjoying the game and as they know the rules pretty well at this point changing things up is quick and easy to test. BUT in terms of communication of rules we no longer can test with alot of our friends and will need to venture out to people around uni and life to have some controlled tests.

we are also working on different map layouts, and functions within the map, trying to stay complex but not complicated. we are also keeping in mind our ingroup research on what we want out of the game, in terms of replayability, addictive, different roles, competition, strategy and teamwork.which has been pretty successful so far.

Basil came up with the idea of also making a video for our rules which i think alongside written rules will be great, and a bit of fun. his main responsibility has been the rules as its a very important thing to get right if we want to have this game be successful and potentially marketable. 

it think ive covered pretty much everything to this point, i gotta make more of an effort to actually get these done each day rather than big catch ups. 

[danieltolmie-blog]

#Signal 004

Alot has happend since my last post.

we didnt end up prototyping peters game, but rather doing an exercise from Charles listing games we liked the themes, functions and aesthetics from, then one by one listing the specifics from that. from there we then put the key ones up and listed why we liked them. these are now on our wall. Then we went home with the task to make a fully working game overnight, i made a basketball game. which turned out to be quite boring due to its reliance on rolling the dice alot, but it worked as a full working game. ( pictures below ) (the game was based on the nba video game)

nate made a more enjoyable game based on cludo, which was pretty fun but combat lacked strategy and was luck based.

peter and basil games looked interesting but were too underdeveloped to play.

chris’s game was awesome, based on secret hitler, cludo and another game I forgot, it had alot of the elements we had listed, shorter run time, strategy based, competition, teamwork and replayability. we prototyped it and played it together and all really enjoyed it. for deeper understanding of how it works i would read his blogs as we are still pretty new to how it works. after we playtested it, we then tested with half our group half another group, and decided to make a change on one of the mechanics, playtested with a whole new group which didnt work well.... i cannot be certain whether it was based on our poor communication of the rules or the changed mechanic which is why we will work on the communication of the rules before ruling out the change of mechanic. 

[danieltolmie-blog]

#Signal 003

We came together and discussed what we had come up by ourselves. Charles then thought that we could then list the core elements and functions of games we like. This was helpful because it's given us core elements to build upon for our own. a key one was to make the game be short term, not because we dislike long term games but its because we can then test and fail faster.  So we also looked into short term games that we like. Uno, we liked for its competitive nature and re-playability. so going ahead on our game, we want to mirror those aspects. 

Peter came back with a game centred around Alzheimer's and music therapy. we thought a way to mirror the Alzheimers in the game would be through memory game. So, I think today we will look into shifting that with elements about the games we like, and then just making it and testing. Ideas are a dime a dozen, so lets just get cracking and see where it takes us.

[danieltolmie-blog]

#Signal 002

its been a bit messy, in the last ICT class the talk was based on team dynamics, and i was(am, still a little bit) worried about our team dynamics. simply we are close as friends, we have inside jokes, roast each other and all this gets in the way of work. but we all do want this to work so we created a plan where we had individual tasks over the weekend and hopefully this will result in progress, otherwise, we may need to rethink the whole thing. 

the individual tasks? well because of the freedom of this ‘brief’ we became lost. SO we decided to break it down into two simple elements, the message and the means of communicating. and then trusting the iteration process to lead us to a decent result. so we for the sake of getting something done said we would have the means of communication as a constant between us, in this case, a board game, and then as individuals play around with how to express different messages, themes and play mechanics within it. then on Monday we can come together and see what are the strongest elements and pivot from there. 

I've taken on ‘comedy’ as a theme and escapism/social commentary as the message to promote through it. 

the next block of text will be from a shared doc from all of us, starting with my research on board games, comedy, and then potential ideas. 

https://brandonthegamedev.com/10-elements-of-good-game-design/

If there is one thing every game needs, it’s a clear objective. Survive to the end. Cure the disease. Get the most victory points. The objective of any good game must be clear, concise, intuitive, and memorable.

Without constraints, the pursuit of an objective is not a game, but rather freeform play. Objectives and constraints together comprise the core framework of a game.

Game elements must interact with one another in ways that are both unique and understandable throughout the course of the game. The pieces in a game of chess have seemingly infinite ways to maneuver. The cards in Netrunner can be combined in complex ways.

In all games that are not solitaire games, there is some element of social interaction, even if it’s not a “party game.

Games, being intrinsically competitive, need to keep tension to the last move. While you want skilled players to have an advantage, players who are losing early on need a way to catch up

Games need to keep a steady pace of interesting events to keep players engaged. Interactions need to feel meaningful and important.

Predictability is the bane of games. Use chance and unique interactions to prevent games from having one path to victory

Elements of comedy

Incongruity

Surprise

Repetition

Inversion

Establishment of Superiority

Exaggeration

Slapstick Violence

https://www.theodysseyonline.com/why-is-comedy-so-important

“Comedy is important because it can help us during the darkest time in our lives. We live in a time where most people are experiencing some sort of depression and they feel like nothing can ever break that. But comedy tries to and for the most part it really does help. Comedy makes us forget about the bad times we may have and it reminds us that the things in our lives are actually hilarious.”

Escapism

Even during the Great Depression, when people couldn’t afford anything, they still went to the movies as a form of escapism. The coping process of escapism is common to many people in difficult situations through time.

https://www.quora.com/Why-are-comedians-important-to-society

Comedy offers a way to think out of the box, question ourselves, and all acts of the society, and countries, that we wouldn't otherwise do. It offers an outsiders perspective of life and our attitude towards everything. Comedy has the ability to saw harshest of truths without creating any animosity in the room, and even if there is any animosity, it would be usually from people who don't appreciate any/good comedy or more importantly the harsh realities of the society that we live in.’

Personal design choices.

I think for the sake of simplicity the game should work as a medium that allows the ‘fun’ to take place outside of the game, that the game dictates actions and improve that allows the player to create the comedic moments. Like cards against humanity simply has the fill in the blank statements and answers that are not funny by themselves but the player creates the comedy by combining them.

Comedy does not work as a complete escape from reality but allows people to laugh at reality through the lens of the comedian/outsider.

IDEA

What if the player has to describe regular human activities to an alien. Or taking something regular but breaking it down so abstract that it seems silly, cutting down trees that give you life, to make thin bits of paper that you use as books, money and to wipe your ass. Not would need to be heavily prototyped and user tested. Unsure how a winner is decided.

http://www.instantseries.com/funny-witty-improv-comedy/

The idea of improv might make the game easier to design as something as subjective as comedy would then be in the hands of the player, who based on who they are playing with will know where to draw the line, what is funny and what is offensive for some player.

‘Yes and’ will allow for situations to be built upon and made more silly.

IDEA 

     2. 

A game where a problem is given and the player one by one using ‘yes and’ and cards with random objects, words and actions are given have to solve the problem. Under a steadily decreasing time limit the player who i unable to give an answer loses. The last man standing gets the point. Idk… again user testing and prototyping needed.

Would this work better as a card game than a board game, how could this work with a board game??? -- to work in the societal commentary- the problems could be related or ripped straight from the news, the longevity of the game could last due to updating the problem cards.

so its still early days but i think this has been a good jumping off point.

[danieltolmie-blog]

#Signal 001

we are looking into the bigger picture of isolation or grief. 

we went a little to far when thinking of the final outcome and were advised to start smaller, take a few steps back and suss our message and meaning first. 

so we are doing a little research on different elements f these topics and will see which as most legs for some prototyping

sweet

(for context, im still pretty burnt out and yeah nah, stil need to blog even if i canny be bothered )

[danieltolmie-blog]

Im pretty shattered and burnt out

I dont want to fall to far back but also pushing through mignt lower the quality and make it worse futher down the line.

Its been hetic few months, non stop really from late January. Im loving it, life hasnt been better but faaaaa im real tired haha

Ill post soon hopefully. Just want it in words

[danieltolmie-blog]

quick update on my pitch thingy

didnt get through but i reckon i still really enjoyed it, good practice going into tonight where i also have to pitch for my co-starters thing. everyone really enjoyed my pitching style and had some great feedback, but i guess my content wasnt on par. 

one thing that kinda annoyed me but also i understand is that another very similar ebike business got through, i reckon it is due to them already being established for a year, with sales marketing, endorsements and all under there belt.

obla di obla da life goes on brahhhh la la la la live goes on

[danieltolmie-blog]

refrenceinhg thingkhxi

A book called, Lateral thinking, by Edward de Bono (  De Bono, E. Lateral thinking. ) super insightful for the iteration process and changing the way we think about things, beliefs etc. 

a book called the dip by seth godin (  Godin, S. (2007). The dip. New York: Portfolio.) about knowing when to quit, in a project and importance of scarcity

a book called tribe of mentors by tim ferris (  Tribe of Mentors--by Timothy Ferriss. )  real cool book, advice from leaders in there industry.

BOOM DONE, WISH ME LUCK FOR THE PITCH!