22nd October, 2008
I think I’m ready to PDF and send my draft abstract off to Joasia this morning, basically as a general summary or introduction for my dissertation. I know I will probably rewrite it completely since to me writing a summary before starting on the content seems to be the wrong way around.
Here is a different type of abstract however:
18th October, 2008
I’ve been doing some writing towards the Game Critique part of the idat310 games module to try and get a good basis for a submit-able essay as soon as possible. My chosen title is of course the 1997 game Dungeon Keeper and its Gold Edition which featured a bunch more maps and a map editor with a little bit of work could be installed and used to build your own levels.
15th October, 2008
And now I’ve sent off my Project Proposal to Gianni. My idea is far from set in stone and I’m not sure how appropriate it is, but at least for now this stage is done. Mostly it is a way of exploring the subject I have chosen for the Dissertation.
I will be looking to create a project that explores the diminishing perceived boundaries between reality and virtual space, and in particular by looking at the hardware that connects human and virtual reality. I would like to create some sort of feedback interface that brings the user closer to a virtual object or space by having a more direct influence than currently available via the traditional means of interacting with a computer system. This could be in the form of the most intuitive feedback possible by measuring the emotional or brain activity response from the user to produce a graphical visualisation.
12th October, 2008
Here is my finished Dissertation Proposal I submitted by emailing to Geoff Cox, basically outlining the subject and direction of my final year dissertation.
How have the perceived boundaries between virtual worlds and reality become increasingly blurred?
10th October, 2008
I have spent today trying to formulate a more cohesive proposal from Biro spider diagrams, mainly for the dissertation at this stage. However the Dissertation and Final Year Project are going to be closely related so the thoughts at this state apply to both.
Therefore, the general question I have proposed is “How have the perceived boundaries between virtual worlds and reality become increasingly blurred?”
7th October, 2008
Without giving too much away about our Design for Entertainment Systems intentions, I’ve decided to write a little about a topic that came up in our discussions today. Basically, my feelings are that if you want to help give a game that little bit more longevity, the environment or map or whatever should be flexible enough to change randomly every time a player uses it, so that there is never the element of repetativeness. And yet the player is still free to master techniques at achieving their objectives and the designer is still free to control what fundamental elements and challenges exist in the level.
Lots of the best Real-time Strategy games such as the Age of Empires series feature this ability in their multiplayer maps, where water, features and resources are placed at random but still form a coherent and playable map. But none of them utilise this concept quite as deeply as Majesty: The Fantasy Kingdom Sim.
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