1. RATIONALE: Intention
The intention that I set for this studio 1 is to demonstrate my UX skill with a different medium. The piece I create this time will be put in my online portfolio to show my flexibility as a UX designer. It is interesting to note that in this field, our jobs is to understand people and come up with design solutions that tailored to their need. And I was reminded by Kate in the previous class that I should think of the content of my game first. Which makes me think, this time around, I’m not trying to satisfy people's needs anymore. I will need to create a product for entertainment purpose and looking at it through the UX lens
The medium I chose this time is a materialistic based product, a card game. Previously, I have only worked with digital-based products like mobile applications and web applications. I want to step far away from my comfort zone and take on something that can truly deepen my skillset. At the end of this studio, I’m going to reflex back on how the things I’m doing now differ from the projects I have done before (for example, material-based vs digital-based, etc.). Interestingly, when I reflect on my related work studies in week 1, I realized that I made a few mistakes about the definition of tabletop games, board games, and card games.
Therefore, all the three games that I introduced on magistudio.net are card games, not board games. And because I’m most familiar with the play style of card games as well as the lying strategies that this type of game requires, I decided to select this as the gaming technique I want to explore.
Moving on to the very important part that everybody is waiting for: the content for my game (yay). I was inspired by the founder of a charity organization that I’m working for, Gautam Gupta. Saras.Care is an innovative Social Impact enterprise specialize in using technology to rescue, rehabilitate and relocate people subject to extreme violence. They are especially motivated by the alarming rate of female infanticide in India right now. My topic for the game, female infanticide, is the action of sex-selective abortion aims at female babies because people undermine the value of the female gender. I want to use the game as a mean to help people, especially young kids, to understand the harmful nature of the matter
Now that I have pinned down the theme of the game, my task this following week is to come up with the rules of the game. RULES, not NARRATIVES. Something that I learned from this article given by Kate (thank you so much Kate)
2. CONTEXT: Field
The ultimate goal of the project is to demonstrate my capability as a UX designer, more so than as a game maker. Even though I get that most people find this product to be somewhere in the gaming field
Talking about the individuals who are going to influence me the most in this project, I would choose this certain UX designer name Rusty Benson. A lot of you might know him as he also works as a lecturer for my Bachelor program in RMIT (Bachelor of Digital Media). He is the first (and only) lecturer that taught me about User Experience Design. Here is his LinkedIn profile for those who are interested. Please check him out, he is really great.
Other than that, here is a list of games that I will need to look into and study this week. I will try to look into the gameplay mechanic of these games and see if I can learn and apply to my project
3. METHOD: Conceptual, Technical, Craft & Management
I have created a detailed timeline that lists out what I need to do each week to meet my goal for every week. It can be seen under section 4 below when I talk about how my process is going to be. overall, I will use this studio to create prototype, maps, and tests for my game
The goal is to establish a product that shows my UX skill. And through this project, I want to push down all the boundaries and bring my skillset to a whole new level by researching, learning and engaging
But also, I want people to enjoy my game and have fun
4. PRODUCTION: Tools
It is a material based product, so first and foremost, I will need a lot of pens and papers for sketching out my idea. For the artwork of the game, I want to utilize both digital means (Photoshop, Illustrator, etc.) and traditional means (pencil, papers, collar, charcoal, etc.). Most likely, I will draw the artwork traditionally and scan it maybe do some editing in PS and AI
For my process, here is a break down of what I’m going to do every week. Bear in mind that this is just a draft version, things may be changed based on how everything goes