Monday 27 February 2012

Coming Together!

Today I've finally got a professional template which holds 6 cards and has some of the best squiggles , from the feedback of the other tests. I also arranged to play "Wings of war" which was a great in the sense of having a basic set of rules and you can start to add and remove mechanics as long as the other players agree on it. This ties in with the "Get Steph" game type for "Pixel Me".
The other thing that was interesting was my boss used the "Pixel me" template, flipped the body upside down and he is now using it as a card holder for his games. This is the exact same idea i wanted to use for the "Squiggle Me" game. So it proves these templates work for the card holder and possibly other uses.
Overall today has gone great with lots of research while taking on board different ideas and aspects.

Squiggle me template


Playing Wings of War


using the Pixel Me design as a card holder

Thursday 23 February 2012

Getting Closer!

After another test that involved line work fir the "Squiggle Me" cards, I'm not quite there yet but I am getting closer to the key mechanics of the game. From here I will be taking just one squiggle to every card, reduce the size yet again and also to put the same lines on the cards but in different positions. Some of the cards were rated 5 to 1, 5 being the best and 1 being poor, this was to inform me of what shapes work well to give that creative freedom.

The next couple things I'm looking into is how "Squiggle Me" will fir into the website, a professional layout for the cards, a possible card holder based on the "Pixel Me" characters and finally the types of games that can be played.


Steve's Test


Josh's Test

Monday 20 February 2012

Squiggle Me Test 2!

After the first test i decided to use the feedback from my first experiment and create a second set of cards based on reducing the size of the shapes, lightly shade them and finally make them more simple. Once i handed in the second lot, i had another discussion which involved a lot of constructive criticism, " the shapes feel like they are too leading" "Still thinking too much about what to draw". So from this i am currently making  a set of cards based on squiggles and lines such as, straight, curly, random and many more. Possibly the making this new deck will help the user to be more creative.

Steve Test 1

Tuesday 14 February 2012

Squiggle Me Test 1!

From my first test of the shapes on the cards, it was very interesting to see what designs my peers and tutors came up with. Once everyone had drawn their designs, I asked for some feedback on what was positive and also the negative aspects. First of all the positive feedback was "Challenging for the imagination (in a good way)", "Fun". On the other hand to improve the game I have to "reduce the size of the shapes because they are too big," "need simpler shapes such as, circles, triangles and squares." Finally " need more space to express Creativity."

Overall the first test has gone fairly well considering what my peers were creating and the different perceptions of what people see from the shapes. However the next step for me is to create some more cards where the shapes are much simpler, smaller and slightly shaded. Thanks to everyone who took part in my first exercise of Squiggle Me!


Josh Test 1                
                                              

Steve Test 2


Josh Test 3


Sam Test 4


OJ Test 5


Scott Test 6
                                                             

Saturday 11 February 2012

Story Cards!

After coming back from Prague I started to talk about the things i did and my sight seeing out there and show what has given me my inspiration and ideas. The Biggest Inspiration for me was Rory's story cubes where the user will role 9 dice with pictures on it and make a story using the images on the dice. So this i where i wanted to combined the creativity, the idea of customized snap and the story telling. So the idea is to create lots of blank cards with certain shapes that are on it and the user must draw something while using that shape on the card, Once drawn the player will put them in a pile and shuffle. Then the player will select a certain amount of cards, make a story from it and either write it in a pixel me book or send it to the website. This is the basic mechanics of the game and to develop this further the key thing to focus on is the shapes (seeds) of the card such as " two circles could be eyes and you make a face or it could be a set of wheels so from this game it is about creativity, imagination and other peoples perspectives.

Manipulating the (Circle Shape) to create a picture based on your imagination. 

Tuesday 7 February 2012

Boom - tastic!

Hi guys just to let you know where i have been and what I've been doing first of all i went to Prague for a couple of days and to cut the long story short. There was a lot of things out there that was very beneficial to my work and thoughts, first of all i went round the "Lego Museum" which helped a lot because it showed how "Lego" changed its designs through the years from very big blocks with only a few shapes to choose from and eventually got more complex years on (haven't got pics yet but once ready i will crack on more with the research pages.) The second one was looking at the old "Czech Toys", these are old hand made and painted and again i will go further in detail in my inspiration section. lots of shape, simplicity, that likable factor and a key thing for me they had the same toys in lots of different sizes. Unfortunately the Toy Museum wasn't open :( 45 mins walk it took us to get there.

Another game was "Rory's Story Cubes" this caught my attention because on  the dice it was images and you roll about 9 at a time and once rolled children make there own stories up but including the images that appear on the dice.( again ill do more of this in my research.)

finally just to give a quick taster I have gone back to creating a few simple shape drawings to see what works and what doesn't below is a few different basic shapes, techniques and keeping that child, blocky look and feel!

The Piggies (Flat Counter)

Cheeky Devil (Legs)

Egglets (Flat Counter)


Me at Prague Lego Museum