Everyone has been addicted to some game at some time. Or at least most people. For me it was that annoying helicopter game in grade 10, and various others over the past few years.
But the quality of games that come built into our phones and BBs has put casual games litrally at our finger tips.
No more do we have to log onto our computers to 'zonk out' with a casual game. Now its a simple matter of flipping open your phone, wheeling through your BB menu....and presto - casual games at your fingertips (pun intended).
This has pushed casual games into new areas of our daily lives.
Many of my friends cannot go to sleep without a 'quick' round of brick breaker, that often lasts longer than they planned. I know I often play Ms. PacMan on my phone when i cant fall asleep, and subsequintly have started playing that game TO fall asleep.
See how casual games and new technology force us to adapt. No longer do people carry a book on bus rides, but instead bust out their phone and rotate between gaming and texting like they will have there fingers cut of upon their destination.
Iv writen enough about this, im going to go grab my phone not to call or txt someone - but to play games.
Cheers,
Nico
Wednesday, April 1, 2009
Response to katrinas blog
RE: conflicting schedules.
Note: i have to post this here since for some reason the anti spam picture wont display for me...ergo i cannot post a comment.
I totally understand what you mean with conflicting schedules - especially for people who are SpCom students. The sheer amount of group work is pretty crazy at times. I worked it out and if you are in 4 groups (like many of us are) and you meet once a week like we are supposed too....it adds about 6 hours into our school week. Thats 2 extra courses.
nico
Note: i have to post this here since for some reason the anti spam picture wont display for me...ergo i cannot post a comment.
I totally understand what you mean with conflicting schedules - especially for people who are SpCom students. The sheer amount of group work is pretty crazy at times. I worked it out and if you are in 4 groups (like many of us are) and you meet once a week like we are supposed too....it adds about 6 hours into our school week. Thats 2 extra courses.
nico
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
pretty interesting take on technology in everyday life
So i watched this today (featured on our favorite social loudspeaker).
Its a cool interpretation of a classic fairytail - however what is more interesting for us is the present/future is presented. In this skit you can get indepth information about everything you see, as long as it matchs the specifics given. In other words you have a wealth of information, quanty wise, but very little quality information. Sounds familiar, well in a way that is the society we already live in.
Take a look, and comment your thoughts back at me.
Nico
PS: i had nothing to do with this video, so its not shameless self promotion - its promoting some random dude or dudette.
enjoy. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y54ABqSOScQ
Its a cool interpretation of a classic fairytail - however what is more interesting for us is the present/future is presented. In this skit you can get indepth information about everything you see, as long as it matchs the specifics given. In other words you have a wealth of information, quanty wise, but very little quality information. Sounds familiar, well in a way that is the society we already live in.
Take a look, and comment your thoughts back at me.
Nico
PS: i had nothing to do with this video, so its not shameless self promotion - its promoting some random dude or dudette.
enjoy. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y54ABqSOScQ
Monday, March 16, 2009
bloggerly usless
So Mandy posted a pretty cool link... and i cant post on her link for some reason.
So here is a link to her post...http://mandydac300.blogspot.com/2009/03/i-found-this-quite-interestingread-on.html#comment-form
and this is my comment.
weird....my comment didnt appear - or i am to impatiant.
Basically it makes sense that casusal gaming (internet gaming) will increasing in popularity during economically difficult times. The more uncertainty about their future prospects, the more people require distractions to zone out too.
Nothing to distract yourself from a bad situation like being a king in a virtual world...
now hopefully i didnt double post here....
Nico
So here is a link to her post...http://mandydac300.blogspot.com/2009/03/i-found-this-quite-interestingread-on.html#comment-form
and this is my comment.
weird....my comment didnt appear - or i am to impatiant.
Basically it makes sense that casusal gaming (internet gaming) will increasing in popularity during economically difficult times. The more uncertainty about their future prospects, the more people require distractions to zone out too.
Nothing to distract yourself from a bad situation like being a king in a virtual world...
now hopefully i didnt double post here....
Nico
Thursday, March 12, 2009
From the deapth of MMF2
Its been a long time since i spent some time on blogger...somehow all my creative thoughts (or maybe all my thoughts) were being put into MMF2 to work on my teams game.
It seems to be going strong, but i will quickly discuss some of the challenges and small victories we have experianced so far.
The biggist challenge by far has been setting up a timeline to work on the game that makes this class a priority and still lets us do work for our other classes. We found that working together on the game was a massive time commitment, and that the only times we could fit a multi hour block into everyones calander was late - after 8pm usually.
This challenged me since i usually do my work in mornings, and had to balance the DAC300 group work with my 4 other group assignments. O the joys of spcom.
But the small victories we have achieved working on this game make the many challenges seem rather marginal.
For me the biggist joy has come from seeing our game take shape - actually having a product for the hours and hours of work.
Let me explain further: all to often at university you write your papers, your lab reports, and your critical analysis just to hand them in and collect a grade. As long as the grade is within your acceptable range you will hardly look at that paper agian - ever.
But working on a game, something enherintly visual, has allowed us to develop something which I can access and view as a finished product. And it is this simple joy, the joy of having somethign created which i can easily access and show off to my friends is what i view as the greatest victory in this class and design program.
Another fact about the design process which i enjoyed was the ability to put my creativity into something which would get graded. Unlike an essay where the best mark is awarded for following instructions, the game process rewards creativity and innovative approaches.
Nico
It seems to be going strong, but i will quickly discuss some of the challenges and small victories we have experianced so far.
The biggist challenge by far has been setting up a timeline to work on the game that makes this class a priority and still lets us do work for our other classes. We found that working together on the game was a massive time commitment, and that the only times we could fit a multi hour block into everyones calander was late - after 8pm usually.
This challenged me since i usually do my work in mornings, and had to balance the DAC300 group work with my 4 other group assignments. O the joys of spcom.
But the small victories we have achieved working on this game make the many challenges seem rather marginal.
For me the biggist joy has come from seeing our game take shape - actually having a product for the hours and hours of work.
Let me explain further: all to often at university you write your papers, your lab reports, and your critical analysis just to hand them in and collect a grade. As long as the grade is within your acceptable range you will hardly look at that paper agian - ever.
But working on a game, something enherintly visual, has allowed us to develop something which I can access and view as a finished product. And it is this simple joy, the joy of having somethign created which i can easily access and show off to my friends is what i view as the greatest victory in this class and design program.
Another fact about the design process which i enjoyed was the ability to put my creativity into something which would get graded. Unlike an essay where the best mark is awarded for following instructions, the game process rewards creativity and innovative approaches.
Nico
Monday, February 16, 2009
Real life casual games
So i went home for reading week. Well thats i lie, i went home for family day since im back up in the loo and getting ready to spend 4 days at my "part time" job while getting ready for a pretty crazy looking end of February and early March. But the point of this blog isnt that school sucks the life energy out of me...that would take up more space than blogger has.
The point of this blog is that casual games find there ways into our lives in the most unsuspecting places...
Picture this, im at two of my best friends house (they are brother and sister) and the just as we are about to leave to the bars my buddy tells me about this game he played for hours last night...next thing you know we have the computer open and the group of us are intensly playing a game of Huntsville detective.
Want im most impressed by is that non of us are gamers, occasionally playing Wii or something when we are with others, but never has a video game held us back from a bar.
Yet we spent at least 30 mins playing this game before we finally stopped lying to our friends who kept texting to find out our ETA and said we would be late.
Has anyone experianced this were a complete random game has kept you from doing somehting you wanted to do. I understand that a casual game can easily keep you from going to class or starting that DAC assignment (its extra class work afterall). But here a casual game delayed us from a night out.
Maybe this is nothign, and the only reason i am so intrigued is because so much of my week is spent doing work for DAC300. But later that night when i was going home, i really had to think - that was one hell of a casual game if it can keep a group of people interested on their way to the bar.
Happy Reading Week,
Nico
The point of this blog is that casual games find there ways into our lives in the most unsuspecting places...
Picture this, im at two of my best friends house (they are brother and sister) and the just as we are about to leave to the bars my buddy tells me about this game he played for hours last night...next thing you know we have the computer open and the group of us are intensly playing a game of Huntsville detective.
Want im most impressed by is that non of us are gamers, occasionally playing Wii or something when we are with others, but never has a video game held us back from a bar.
Yet we spent at least 30 mins playing this game before we finally stopped lying to our friends who kept texting to find out our ETA and said we would be late.
Has anyone experianced this were a complete random game has kept you from doing somehting you wanted to do. I understand that a casual game can easily keep you from going to class or starting that DAC assignment (its extra class work afterall). But here a casual game delayed us from a night out.
Maybe this is nothign, and the only reason i am so intrigued is because so much of my week is spent doing work for DAC300. But later that night when i was going home, i really had to think - that was one hell of a casual game if it can keep a group of people interested on their way to the bar.
Happy Reading Week,
Nico
Tuesday, February 3, 2009
Tutorial #7
So this week i am responsible for tutorial #7.
I found that this was a pretty time consuming tutorial, mainly because we have a large number of rooms to escape from, and lots of active objects.
I left my tutorial file on a USB stick at home, so if you are really keen and want to do this tutorial before i get home at 8pm i do apologize.
But if you are willing to sit back and relax a little and enjoy not having any work to do (now thats a novel idea) ill have the tutorial file uploaded asap once i get home.
-------
Not to ruin your relaxed afternoon without my tutorial to do.
But i had to run home to collect some papers for my advisor and decided to upload the tutorial while running in and out.
Here is the rapidshare link. if it doesnt work ill have to figure something else out.
http://rapidshare.com/files/193448188/tutorial_7.doc
See you in class,
nico
I found that this was a pretty time consuming tutorial, mainly because we have a large number of rooms to escape from, and lots of active objects.
I left my tutorial file on a USB stick at home, so if you are really keen and want to do this tutorial before i get home at 8pm i do apologize.
But if you are willing to sit back and relax a little and enjoy not having any work to do (now thats a novel idea) ill have the tutorial file uploaded asap once i get home.
-------
Not to ruin your relaxed afternoon without my tutorial to do.
But i had to run home to collect some papers for my advisor and decided to upload the tutorial while running in and out.
Here is the rapidshare link. if it doesnt work ill have to figure something else out.
http://rapidshare.com/files/193448188/tutorial_7.doc
See you in class,
nico
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