BLOG 1 August 29th 2019 - Ervin Reading Response

This week’s blog comes in response to “Bit by Bit: How Video Games Transformed Our World” by Andrew Ervin. One of the things that struck me as jaw-dropping was that a Donner computer was used for the calculation of ballistic-missile trajectories in which a two-player tennis game would be created. I have to say that As I read through the text, it really hit home with me in the sense that I grew up in the early ’80s when all of the gaming platforms were in their infancy. I too played games, yet I always turned back to the love of reading the Amazing Spider-Man for which I currently own 816 of the 828 books. 

  My parents and other adults in my family were always quick to remind us that those things (games) would take us nowhere, and they would inevitably rot our brains. How wrong these old-timers would later find out they were. I remember we would have tournaments for hours on our Nintendo and Sega platforms. I never had an idea that these games we were playing were developing a fantastic creative imagination that would help later in life at WSU Vancouver. 

  As I near 40 now I notice that my son plays the consoles more as we have 7 and I tend to play more games on my iPad or iPhone. I still enjoy the epic adventures in the Zelda and Mario games as well as the occasional Titanfall or COD online slaughter. One of the issues I have reached is the part of my life where I do not have time like I used to due to having children later in life and going to school at 40 years old while maintaining a household. 

  One thing about this reading that I love is that I feel as if the story is talking about my childhood as I spent many hours with the Atari 2600, original Sega master system, and NES. My dad used to drop us off at wonderland with 10 dollars, and we would spend hours playing nickel arcade games that gave me a sense of being in another world. Nowadays I do not feel that satisfaction with video games, that is until I bought a PlayStation VR for which I can dawn the headset and become fully immersed as Batman or a fighter pilot in Ace Combat. Until I purchased my VR set, I had lost the love I had with games, and now I get that feeling back from my childhood, which I can share with my kids.

BLOG 2 August 29th 2019 - The Love Of Games

Reflecting on last week’s discussion on the point of how many game systems and who in our households are playing these, I felt this topic directly targeted myself as I have seven-game machines not to include my handheld devices or computers but seven systems from the Sega master system to the PS4. After class, I couldn’t stop thinking about this discussion, so I decided to go home and plug in one of my favorites, The Turbo Graphics 16. I got this system as an adult because my parents couldn’t afford it when I was a kid, but I remember drooling over this system at toys r us when I was a kid. Having been born in 1980, what I like to think of as the next greatest generation, we are the group of people that were raised with these machines right from the start. 

As I plugged the TG16 into the TV, my 7-year-old was instantly up in my space wondering what I hadn’t ever shown him, question after question. He was automatically hooked on this ancient relic. Needless to say, we ended up pulling out the rest of my game machines that had long been forgotten about in the attic, and we played all last weekend. We started with alien crush and Ninja Spirit and then worked our way through 007 and sonic the hedgehog before it was taken over by a massive cast of characters. 

For hours, we played these games, and I realized that I hadn’t ever stopped being a gamer. I just put gaming to the back of my responsibilities. I don’t think anyone who has ever loved these machines that stops playing them for long periods of time realizes that they are too still gamers. As we get older and our responsibilities with work, children, and running a household increase, games tend to become less of a priority yet, they are always there when we want to show our 7-year-olds how epic it was when we were children in the 1980s. I will always be a gamer even though I might not play every day. I will never forget what games did for me growing up and how they made me feel.

BLOG 3 September 8th 2019 - Caillois Reading Response

 After I sifted through this week's reading, I found that I exposed something in this book that I have not found in other books like this. Caillois' surpasses at mapping the challenges of playing games where Huizinga and other game researchers have not been as successful. This reading is an Interesting take on playing games and their relation to the society from a somewhat anthropological viewpoint.

As I read each page, I realize the way things are worded seems a little outdated, yet it has an exciting idea about games from different countries. Caillois' typology of games is impressive, and to think of the challenge it took to categorize every game that has ever existed to the point of this writing into categories.

It seems there is a relationship of ideas and opinions between agon and alea based games - one cannot survive without the other. I found the typologies of games and how they bleed into non-games to be very interesting: for example, hereditary monarchies are considered alea, pure luck-based. As for Mimicry and Ilinx, they do not have a relationship like this, yet they do have their own functions within society.

Trying to understand this reading turns out to be somewhat hard. The majority of terms in here I have found that I need to look up in the dictionary, but I did find the part how the USSR wanted a pure agon society although parts of alea still existed. The text is somewhat clear and user-friendly, and I would recommend this to someone that might be theorizing about playing games.

The more I got into this reading I started to wonder if there is a dialectical relationship between alea and agon and why they can't exist without each other a game can be mimicry and agon, ilinx and alea, this would be called a hybrid in our time.

BLOG 4 September 8th 2019 - Life Skills

This week I am talking about video games and how they can improve your skills in life. I grew up playing video games when the boom of game machines was invented. In fact, I got an Atari when I was three and to age myself that was 1983. I still love games to this day although I do not play them as much. Now that I have children who play them alongside me, I’ve heard the occasional, shithead, remark like my mother used to say, “Those things make kids violent, and they make kids stupid.”

I’m here to debunk those assholes, as my kids are not violent or stupid at all, but in fact, they are intelligent kids that are kind and fun-loving. So, this is what I will say to the naysayers when it comes to what video games can do for you. First, Games Improve your critical thinking, games teach you to investigate and find clues about a vital situation in the game. Games tend to get you to learn trial and error methods as was the case when I found myself alone on an abandoned island in the game Myst. There are devices everywhere, with no instructions. Moving or finding certain things within the game sometimes has noticeable effects, sometimes not.

Games make you look at what you have, and get you to observe the space in which you are playing, to make connections between unrelated things to solve a level or puzzle. The second thing is innovation. If you take a look at things you have collected in your world, you can start to create other things that can help to solve the puzzle such as in Minecraft or shooting webs on the floor near an enemy to get them to look in a different area so you can sneak past them unnoticed as in the PS4 Spider-man game.

While these things may seem meaningless or unrelated to your life, the puzzles of these games, we play encourage you to look at things we have in our lives and take a more in-depth look from another angle. The third and last thing I want to add is communication and teamwork. This is where we play that first-person shooter and each player is committed to the team and not the individual stats. Everything in this type of game relies on communication between the players. One player finds the enemy base and reports on what is defending it (the Guinea pig).

Completing these tasks are primarily only done by teamwork and communicating through your headset with your teammates. Together the team makes it through a building or an entire area, by supporting each other and warning of incoming attacks. Teamwork and communication in the game world is a skill that can easily be transferred to the school or the workplace. Games can give you the ability to stay focused on the task at hand and let others know exactly how they can help fulfill a common goal.

BLOG 5 September 14th 2019 - Absolute Letdown

I have always played games as long as I can remember, but not one game in my life has given me an instant connection or a real relationship to it like Titanfall 2. From the moment, I played this games campaign mode, and on to its multiplayer, I felt a real connection like that of feelings and emotions. At first, when I became the pilot of BT, the gigantic mech, I had a real-world feeling that BT and my real self were actually connected in some way, somewhat like a father and son’s connection.

Once I had completed the game I hoped there would be a release of a third installment or at least some DLC’s for Titanfall 2, I mean I hadn’t heard of one gamer who wasn’t playing this game or in the least tried it out. I believed that Respawn and EA would bring this epic game back in a third installment but much to my surprise they instead trashed it and developed a Fortnite battle royale monstrosity called Apex legends. I, for one, will be boycotting this. I am not a fan of Battle Royale-style games.

I feel that an online-only game is a piss poor way just to sell shit. It takes the story out of the game, and instead, you find yourself just being annihilated by a bunch of kids who don’t have responsibilities like us adults. The campaign is where we get our story, why we understand what’s going on in the multiplayer. The story gives us some background information on the characters and lets us build a deeper relationship with the game.

I fear that games going to online-only battle royale play are the doom of first-person shooters, but honestly, that is just my lonely opinion. I will end on this, what if Stan Lee and Steve Ditko never wrote the backstory to Spider-Man? We would literally just have a guy dressed in spandex shooting sticky stuff out of his wrists harassing New York city.

BLOG 6 September 14th 2019 - Gamification

A word we here in our DTC program at WSUV all of the time is “gamification.” I feel this is a good time to blog about this word because I have had numerous people ask me what that means and my first response is normally, “Google it,” but I would rather talk here about what it actually means. So, what is Gamification, you ask? Gamification is a method of taking something that already exists whether it be a website, Retail or literally in my household, kid’s chores and incorporating game mechanics into it to encourage people to participate, engage, or return to your store.

In my house, we have a chore chart where my son has tasks to complete some are mandatory, and some are extra non-mandatory tasks, kind of like side missions. You can still beat the game doing the main tasks, but you may not have a 100% completion to get that new suit or gun or what have you. My son has a set amount of money he can earn for his mandatory tasks, but he has the option to lose that money if he doesn’t complete those tasks. If he does all tasks and wants to do the bonus chores, he receives double the allowance for doing those optional chores but no penalty if he doesn’t. My son has a challenge and bonus type scenario, and to our surprise, he has almost always completed everything which I can credit this game like chore chart we created.

Other things that fit into Gamification would be your coffee stamp card or rewards card from a grocery or retail chain. Gamification takes the data-driven methods that game creators use to engage players and uses them to non-game experiences that motivate actions which can add value to your lives.

BLOG 7 September 14th 2019 - Backward Compatibility

Backward compatibility, in game machines, Is the ability for that particular machine to play games from its past model's line ups. It costs gamers(parents), LOL, a ton of money that could be saved for other games instead of having to buy a new machine at $400-$500 bucks a pop. Since PS3 was the last console to have backward compatibility, some people have stopped buying game machines or have not bought multiple game machines.

As I can only speak for myself and a few friends, this argument might not seem relevant, but I think at least in my small group we loved being able to throw down PS1 games or PS2 on our PS3. Today's games tend to give me a headache, and I need to play something that is not so complex but still presents a challenge, and with the PS3 I was able to do this without buying a retro console or online fees for older games. I feel that if I had already purchased a game, then why should I have to buy it twice. Truly unfair. I have heard debate such as "Who cares about old games? They suck anyway." I am here to tell you as a 39-year-old man who grew up with just about every console, that old games are not as great graphically, but the stories were amazing, and the technology all spawned from the relics.

In my own opinion, I would rather have the cost of a new machine be $50-$100 dollars more to have backward compatibility. That cost would be better than buying a new console for hundreds more every year. Make a PS5 with Backwards compatibility, and I will gladly pony up the dough to play all of my old PlayStation games on the new system.

BLOG 8 September 14th 2019 - Humans Losing to Bots in Games

I came across this reading on Facebook this weekend, and I couldn’t believe it. The article talked about a bot that beat a human in a game created by google. My first thought was a conspiracy. I said to myself, well duh, they(google) have been collecting data on us for years and then I kind of panicked a little thinking, Holy shit, the terminator movies predicted this shit, and we have done nothing to prevent it. LOL. Anyway, I am amazed by this and a little jarred.

A computer that can learn like a human but at a way faster speed is unnerving. I personally don’t think the world understands what it is to have robots that can learn at this speed. The article talked about the robot learning the equivalent of 180 years’ worth of knowledge in just weeks. This is scary, a bot that can see all angles and calculate things that a human hasn’t even thought of is creepy.

As I said before, I am not sure this is a good thing for humans. The one problem as stated in IRobot with Will Smith is that a robot does not have feelings or cannot make human judgment calls it only relies on calculated odds that may seem right but may not be the right thing to do. I want to follow this story for a while and see where this technology is going. I am not opposed to having a bot that can clean my house, but I do not think I am ready to have a bot that watches my children in charge of making decisions for there well-being.

BLOG 9 September 21st 2019 - PRY

Story like games AKA Interactive Fiction brings us the story of Pry. Pry is a story about a war veteran struggling with PTSD, on the iOS App store that rethinks the way an eBook is created. The story was created mainly for use on a tablet but also works on the iPhone.

Pry is fantastic as it uses haptics, expanded cinema, and interaction design from which methods and functions are intensely intertwined. Pry gives us a relationship of touch-screen clickables and text that uncovers reading as a unity of haptic and thinking processes.

Pry provides the reader with the feelings of the main character’s thoughts through literally pinching the screen as if you are opening your eyes from a dream and haptics that give you a sense of being in the story. 
The goal of the piece I think is to give the reader through, and touch-screen gestures a new way to feel the story’s content instead of just reading and imagining.

Touching and tilting the screen gives us the feeling that we are the main character. Readers can decide how long to focus on the character’s thoughts.The period of focus changes the parameters of the next available scenes. The thing that makes this story great is that we get to feel the inner world of the main character through floating text, animations, and video flashbacks as well as experiencing the and the outer world of video that details the main character’s day-to-day experiences. 

BLOG 10 September 21st 2019 - New Media Art

New Media Art is something that came to my mind when thinking about a second blog for this week. A broad phrase that involves art forms that are produced, modified, and transmitted by way of digital technology. New Media Art suggests an explicit change with practices in the art that make use of outdated or old-school visual media. New Media Art genres include virtual art, game art, glitch art, computer animation, and computer graphics, as well as involvement in art activism, such as hacktivism and strategic media. Since new media art is in a constant motion, our understanding of new media art and its genres is continuously shifting, much of new media art confronts the very fundamentals of an object-centered knowledge of art, specifically with regards to the features of interactivity, nonlinearity, immateriality, and ephemerality, and its complex interrelation between artist, artwork, and spectator.

It is essential to mention that many of these features are common with other elements of modern art and are not equally essential within the genres of new media art. However, digital technology enables artists to develop interactive artworks, as in Internet art and virtual art, which provide liberty of aesthetic choice for the observer. Put another way, the bulk of New Media Art is created by the spectator through the aesthetic object, even though the artist evaluates the structure and involvement of the observer. New Media Art was created by the way that art and science are affiliated. Science regularly acts as an instrument of modernism and a source of aesthetic creativeness in several art forms. New Media Art has served as an innovator for new technologies on numerous occasions, such as virtual art, computer graphics, and computer animation.

New Media Art has completely modernized the way in which art can be created, circulated, and viewed. Although certain types of New Media Art rests heavily on the old-school way of being seen in a gallery or museum, specifically in the case of art pieces that require intricate components and or machinery, much of New Media Artworks can be easily transferred through a computer screen, social media, or the internet. Artists now can create their own careers which have cut out the corporate representation and instead utilizes the modern tools like crowdsourcing to fund their work, which gives the artist the potential of their work to go viral, spreading art through social media.

One thing is for sure, the emergence of New Media Art has significantly increased an artist's toolbox. Instead of a pallet, with a brush and some paints, artists can paint now with light, sound, and pixels. Artists can create a collage with digital imagery or clip art vector graphics Instead of paper. And lastly, New Media Art gives the artist a 3d realm which can be projected on a screen for everyone to see instead of a two-dimensional canvas.

Blog 11 September 29th 2019 - Brenda Romero's Train

Recently I watched a TED Talk that featured a woman named Brenda Romero who is a game designer, and she has begun to create very odd and unique board games that teach something from human kinds past or present that have made a major impact on humanity. She first created a board game at her home that she has named Train, except she never intended for this game to be seen by anyone, rather she created it to teach things to her daughter.

This is a game that pushes boundaries, and one would stop to wonder, if it is even marketable but as we learn the game really isn’t a game that is meant to be sold on the shelves of our local retail store but rather a way to teach people about the holocaust in a way that they might understand. Train is one of six board games in the series she has created, and she believes these games to be what she dubs as The Mechanic is the Message. The challenge in these games she set to create is to capture and express the difficulty of emotions through the mechanics of the game.

The game Train accomplishes more than any other board game can do for someone; it gives you some insight as to what it was like to be a Jewish person being loaded into railcars during WW2. Brenda goes on to talk about this game and how people might not have thought that board games can be innovative but in fact, board games are going through a resurgence, “in part because of the popularity of crowdfunding on Kickstarter, and because they are now an increasingly popular inspiration for their digital cousins, video games”.

Games for Change are part of a new trend, and Train is a game that is front running these. Before creating these Games for Change Brenda Romero was primarily a video game creator in which she is most famous for games such as Wizardry, The Mansion, and Dungeons and Dragons. However, one might feel about the harshness of these board games. I think they are essential to giving the world some kind of empathy towards the real-life accounts of sadness and trauma that these games portray.

Blog 12 September 29th 2019 - Divergent streams

I read this week about divergent streams, and I have to say they really caught my eye and I started to think of this as a type of game. The divergent stream that was most impressive is Interactive installations because of their direct engagement to spectators which places them as a physical part of the artwork. An interactive installation is a stimulating way to trigger a physical space through technology, sound, and light that responds to the individual.

Therefore, turning individuals from passive audiences to engaged users. Interactive installations have a variety of forms, but typically use a variety of sensors that allow individuals to control rich and engaging interactive digital content, such as video and 3D games. In our world today, we are continually experiencing sensory stimulus from our phones, music, and video displays, so why not do experience these things through an interactive installation.

As for literary possibilities in virtual reality. I think the possibilities are endless. This technology gives us a way to teach kids as well as interact with the literature through a 3d space. We could have a novel come alive and react to it instead of the traditional style of flipping pages. I think that this technology would also get kids more engaged with schoolwork and reading since the majority of things we do nowadays usually connects to some kind of tech.

As attention spans get shorter, it is essential that we find new ways of engaging people to keep work and art from the past alive. Virtual and augmented worlds allow people to be directly involved in the order in which things happen and will enable them to choose different paths off the linear storyline.

Blog 13 – October 6th 2019 – Gaming community

In today's western culture, it is hard to grasp the concept of not having some type of internet device that we can communicate on. With the creation of handhelds and multiplayer gaming, more people have the ability to connect with each other than ever before, which has led to the creation of communities online. Social Media, chatrooms, and online games are all examples of mass communication that have established community development.

Today's games, for the most part, allow for players to band together and raise a team flag, united in the art of kicking the other group's ass by any means necessary. These small groups or communities take on various names, such as clans, tribes, or teams, etc. Communities come out of this. When the game allows players to have a dedicated game structure to their group, players can then communicate easier in a cooperative in-game movement to achieve the team's goals and ultimately defeat the opposition. The best part of online gaming communities is the player has the ability to seek comfort and escape from the real world while remaining in contact with other human beings.

The question that has been brought up on this topic of gaming communities is if the game can truly have a sense of a real-life community when it is so disconnected from real life that it can operate as an escape? The answer to this is simple. A game can not replace conventional interaction between humans, but since we are moving further into the era of everything being connected to an internet source, it's essential to distinguish the relationships that have formed within our virtual spaces.

Blog 14 – October 6th, 2019 – Interactive Fiction(IF)

Beginning with text adventures, role-playing games, and then the more advanced technological advances such as Virtual Reality, Interactive Fiction seems to have built a place for it to grow and develop in the long run. The development of Interactive Fiction has undergone a wide variety of changes and developments over the years. In each era, there seems to have been a form of interactive fiction, whether in paper, text, or digital. Although, there is a reasonable dispute over what makes up interactive fiction, the need for this form of innovation remains as a testament to its usefulness.

Evolving directly from role-playing board games, the first digital forms of interactive fiction are said to be text adventures. With this form of a game, the player can take an active role in the development of the character, leading to a unique or different outcome based on the circumstance. This form of innovation relies on reading and which can, in some cases, limit the ability of the person to feel as if they are immersed in the story, which has been the goal from the outset. Among the first text adventure, interactive games were titled, including ZORK and Adventureland, spawning an entire set of players that sought out interactive fiction as a form of escape, learning, or simply as a way to pass the time.

This form of technology has inherent limitations such as the operating system and the hardware, each of which is integral to the gaming situation. This early form of technology seems to have been aided by the paper games that assisted the players in using their imagination to supplement the gameplay, enhancing the play and ensuring that there was a new adventure every time. This ability to create a new ending has spawned a wide variety of games and gamers, with many having a clear preference for their style.

Blog 15 – October 19th, 2019 – Fragments of the Dionysian Body

For this blog, I wanted to talk about the traversal we had this week about Fragments of the Dionysian Body by Eric Steinhart. For a tone of people in our program, this type of Digital Literature might seem new and cool, but I remember a time in the early to late 90's when I was in high school, and the internet just came out to the public. Our English teachers talked about this new cool thing called E-literature or digital literature, which was going to pave the way into the future of reading books. Well, I can tell you that that day never came, and instead, no one really ever mentioned this type of technology except maybe a handful of true believers.

Fast forward to the present day, and as I sat two semesters ago in Will Luers Electronic Literature class, it was as if we had opened a time capsule. Dene has truly given new life to these E-lit relics and it amazes me that we are honored on the WSU campus to have people such as Eric Steinhart and others willing to take time out to possibly create a new generation of E-lit believers who can use the technology we have now to preserve and create new works that help pieces like Fragments of the Dionysian Body live on.

The small group of authors that have produced these books and poems for us to enjoy today should know that the DTC students at WSUV have the utmost respect for their work even if E-lit isn't our thing. Future generations will be able to enjoy this as well due to the hard work of the ELL laborers.

Blog 16 – October 19th, 2019 – Call of Cthulhu Character

This week we were tasked to create a character for the RPG, Call of Cthulhu. This task was somewhat difficult for me since I had never played one of these types of games in my 39 years. As I struggled to think about an occupation for my character and a back story I decided on a soldier who has returned from WW1, after being wounded and is now trying to live a simple life on his farm in Texas.

I developed this character named Jon Hughes and based him off of a guy that was killed in action from my unit in Iraq. My character for this exercise will go on to live from wounds sustained but then has to deal with the trauma of shell shock from being bombarded with artillery while in the trenches in France. This character is someone I hold dear to my heart as he is based on a friend of mine who was killed and holds the wound scars of what ultimately took my friend's life yet Jon Hughes gets to move on in life with a chance at being normal and living the rest of his days in peace.

I had a great time developing this story. Although it was filled with heavy sadness, I also felt a sense of being overjoyed, knowing this character could live on in the memory of a good friend. I think my backstory of this character will also help me get closer to the game by having such an intimate connection with the character I have created.

Blog 17 – October 26th, 2019 – Call of Cthulhu session

Keeper – Joel Clapp Investigators – Jacob, Ian, Henry, Tony, Josh

Friday, as we stuffed ourselves into a lounge area of the undergraduate building, I was immersed in my first ever experience playing this kind of pen meets pad dice game, and I have to say it was enjoyable. Our keeper Joel did an excellent job, in my opinion, on getting into character and guiding us through the world of Call of Cthulhu. Our group had a unique, diverse field of characters from the Archeologist on down to the soldier that had just returned from the Great war in France.

I think our group got really into this game as what I expected would happen, and we all laughed as we made common mistakes like myself wanting to go first down the stairs like the bold soldier I was portraying. We all worked excellently together in the questions and problem-solving areas to try and figure out the grand scheme of the game, yet we all failed so many times.

Our group was unable to finish the game, but we have all talked about finishing the game before class or some time at a later date. It was a nice blend of people to play this game with being that three of us had never played, and three of us had before so it was great to have people to guide us noobs through this world as an investigator and I think this is something that I would like to do with my family in the future.

Blog 18 – October 26th, 2019 – Are Tabletop RPG’s Making a Comeback?

Dungeons and Dragons is a game that was heavily played when I was a kid in the early 1980s. The majority of kids playing this were, let's say, a bit awkward and not so athletically gifted. Now let’s fast forward to the present day. It had seemed as if I had forgotten about the name Dungeons and Dragons as I had never played it, and it didn't have any significance in my life being the typical Jock growing up.

As I started the DTC program at WSUV, I began to hear of kids speaking of this relic, and I was a bit shocked at the fact that this game had not only come back, but it seemed like something in the universe flipped and had made this a popular thing to do. To my surprise, the Millennials have discovered this, and like everything else, retro has decided to give it a try. Technology has now given new life to these games of old in the way that kids can use social media, which makes it easier to connect with fellow tabletop gamers to get a game started.

For the foreseeable future, I see these games making a significant impact in the game industry. You are now able to download game sheets, and content without having the books for these games and another added benefit to these tabletop dice games in the age of the face in the phone is that these games can get your antisocial ass away from the screen and bring you closer to your friends and family. You are able to spend time with people physically and become immersed in an engaging world.

Blog 19 – November 2nd, 2019 - Telltales TWD Definitive series review

This weekend I picked up Telltales The Walking Dead Definitive series video game for PS4. As I have never played this game before or any game like it, I was excited about the rumors that this game was amazing and epic. To start, the gameplay is amazing in the way that you get to create your own adventure like the books I used to read in the 1980s. The Comic like graphics gives this game a feel of reading the comic books but also gave me the feeling that I was a character in the comics.

The choices you make affect the outcome of events, and each choice has its own consequences, either good or bad. I loved the way the game records the way you answer each set of problems such as other characters taking note if you lied or if you helped them, they take in to account your loyalty to them. This game makes you feel a real-life connection to each character and fully immerses you into the world of the walking dead. As I play more and more this weekend, I truly felt empathy and sympathy towards these little virtual characters that became my group.

The story of This game does a fantastic job of making you feel like shit at specific points for the decisions you have to make yet give s you the feeling of being loved by a little girl that you have saved. All of these feelings I had while playing felt like feelings I would have for my own family in real life, and I think that the writers created a piece of art here on a gigantic scale that should be studied for future games to follow.

Blog 20 – November 2nd, 2019 – Holographics

Holograms have been viewed in our video games and tv shows for many years now. Early shows like star trek and movies like Star Wars have portrayed people using these as aiding devices, such as maps and charts, but also used for communicating. Until lately, holographics have appeared too futuristic to exist outside movies and games. Nowadays, technology has come incredibly far, and in fact, we already have 3d laser holograms that can be touched.

Recently we the music industry has released a few former artists such as Tupac and Michael Jackson that are projected holograms on stage that people can pay to see a concert performed. With holographic technology being continuously developed, we could see many more artists from the past on stage performing. The holographic technology that is currently developed does not yet create authentic holograms, which are fully 3D light forms. Today’s holograms are essentially a modern form of the optical illusion called Pepper’s Ghost, which simply reflects 2D images through a piece of clear plastic.

Sony has announced plans to develop the technology further for possible use in future PlayStation models. I think this is super exciting. Imagine if you could throw on a pair of glasses and a wristband of sorts as you enter a game of COD. You have a holographics weapon and gear list, as well as maps of the environment you are playing pop up holographically on your wrist as well as a holographic HUD you could swipe your hand through. I would fork out the cash for that.

Blog 21 – November 9th, 2019 - Odd IOS Game Review

I played A couple of games this weekend that were somewhat strange. These were Blackbar, and Device 6. Device 6 to some may not be a game in the most real sense; it requires a strict amount of attention. A series of short stories combined with interactive riddles.

Device 6 starts with a girl named Anna who seems to have a bit of a problem remembering how or why she is in a castle. Device 6 the game is full of strange devices and cryptic clues. Strange audio sounds and tons of locked doors to open divides this game into six separate chapters. The game has a minimalist art style and fantastic audio. What's unexpected about this game is it is mostly just text, but the story opens up like a book in that you swipe through words, but the structure is very abnormal. The text shifts to suit the gameplay. For example, the text will stagger like a staircase when you are moving down and will even split, twist and turn. there are moments you will have to solve interactive devices that are password protected or need a code. There are audio clues throughout the game so you must have audio enabled. This game gives you many different ways to interact through text and audio, but those aren’t just the things that keep the story moving, the text is also the game's map.

As for the game Blackbar, I found it was a bit slow and somewhat frustrating. If you are able to get something right, you will advance through the story, if you get the answer wrong you sit in limbo until your next guess. It's a touching and somewhat difficult game about loss and language, and while it doesn’t seem like a game of the normal stature Blackbar gives us a story of communication between two women and parts of their letters have been blacked out by a dictator like system, like censorship. You must fill in the words that have been blacked out. Some of the words are a common sense solving Other parts of the game will have you solve a word puzzle, or put your memory to the test from an earlier conversation. Some puzzles are a bit mysterious, but there's enough reasoning behind them that, when you FINALLY figure out the HARD ones, you can breathe again. The narrative is what really makes this game. It's about the importance of language and the price of censorship.

Blog 22 – November 9th, 2019 - Gifs

Gifs allow for a simple, low-resolution animations to be watched on the internet. These animations were outrageously popular on early websites and have continued for over a quarter of a century. The history of GIFs as digital zoetrope’s that can be used to study moments of time as suspended, looping movement. GIFs have evolved into a kind of universal mini-movie, entirely native to the personal computer and the internet, they are the purest expression of the democratic web and along with JPEGs and PNGs comprise its most authentic visual language.

Animated GIFs distort the limits between still images and short films as well as between art and non-art. GIFs and loops offer great mediums for storytelling. They can visually describe specific aspects of the stories being told, while still remaining relatable to the watcher by emphasizing the human experience, regardless of time or place. Regardless of time or place, these are emotions the majority of people can relate to in various ways.

Blog 23 – November 17th 2019 – Gaming in the Future

Where are video games going in the future?
With many of today’s gaming systems offering 4K resolution, VR capabilities, and prevailing AI to challenge even the most experienced gamers. So, what is the future of video games? Most recently, VR has been a huge selling point for many video game producers. Most VR systems function through headsets immersing gamers into the world in which they are playing. Full immersion tech has been a new futuristic selling point in the world of video gaming. This is the haptic suit technology that we have seen in recent movies like ready player one. With big tech companies working on solutions for this, I think we are close to full immersion being the standard equipment to use when playing future games.

Augmented Reality games are a very new thing but seem to be taking a foothold in the handheld gaming world such as the arrival of the mobile game Pokémon Go. Gamers wander around in the real world, trying to capture digital Pokémon, which are hidden all over the place. The game uses our smartphone cameras to reveal these lovable little characters and gives users a sense of being outside doing something while still being able to play the game.

  With the rise of smartphones and handheld gaming, are we seeing an end of the traditional console in gaming? Although one could say that Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo command the majority of video game industry profits, mobile gaming is on the verge of catching up. Whatever the future of video game development may be, either console or mobile I for one have been all in since 1984 when I got my first system and plan on sharing these wonderful technologies with my kids. In fact, my 7-year-old is already making games using scratch, could he be the future developer for video games? The possibilities are endless.

Blog 24 – November 17th 2019 – Battle Masters: The Epic Game of Fantasy Battles

Today I was at an estate sale and low and behold I found something from my youth that had long been forgotten. My best friend, Ian, in sixth grade, introduced this board game to me, and we used to play it for hours on end. Battle Masters, the Epic Game of Fantasy Battles by Milton Bradley, is a fantastic board game that deals with warfare in a fantasy world somewhat like Risk. One of the greatest things about this game was setting it up, and you start by putting all the figures on their stands and such.

  As I purchased this game at the sale, I couldn’t wait to get home to set up my archers, orcs, knights, and cannons, as well as many other pieces that are included in the game. The game is in pristine condition, and I also looked it up online and was excited to see it was worth a shit ton of money being that I only had paid ten bucks for it. I am including some screenshots to show you all how awesome this one is, and hopefully, you all can give it a try sometime.

Blog 25 – November 23rd, 2019 – The Walking Dead Board game

This week I'm reviewing The Walking Dead board game, covering the necessary components of the game, and then I'll give my thoughts. To start the game, you've got this roll-up board, a number of different elements, character cards each from the TV series and comic book. Everyone has a special ability. You've got the scrounge deck, which counts as your equipment, the encounter deck where you run into zombies, and then in case if you're playing with the option which there are players ambiance that the zombie players use on the surviving humans. The point of the game is to visit one of the four locations, grab the card and then bring it back to camp where it is safe. So, to start the game you pick a character, I picked Rick in this case, his special ability gets a bonus on attack roles I get five scrounge cards to start the game with so it's something like rifle for example what rifle does and gives me a plus-four bonus to attack so I roll the die I move that many spaces and I will have an encounter. In the first encounter, it's a Walker with entrails and strength of seven.

I have a variety of different weapons I can use on its strength of seven, for example, I use my rifle you roll the die five plus four =nine, so I kill it, and I get the bonus on the bottom of the card. I then take a scrounge card from here and make my way through the board, collecting other cards eventually making it back to camp. So that's the basic premise of the game. If you're playing with other people it's technically a competitive game in that everybody is trying to be the first to get back to camp however you don't necessarily want all of your allies to die off because if they do then they turn into zombies and start attacking you, so there's a particular incentive to keep people alive just so they don't end up turning on you later.

You have actual ally tokens, which are essentially your hit points. You have two Ally tokens, and then once you take one more hit after that, you're dead. Some encounters and certain areas will let you gather more allies as you go along, but you can also play this game alone. I found that it's rather challenging alone, although I think that's more a result of the games kind of luck-based focus. There's an option it suits one to four players you can have two people on Team survivor and then the other two on team zombie basically when you play as a zombie you get four cards in your hand and then you can walk up to enemy players and play them to deal damage. So, let's say I rolled the die I move up to Rick and it's a strength for an encounter he has to fight it or lose then after that he'll have to draw another encounter card.

Blog 26 – November 24th, 2019 – The Walking Dead Board game cont'd

Today I will continue my gameplay on TWD's board game. So, continuing from yesterday, the game is pretty self-explanatory in that Team survivor mode, the survivors want to get the cards and make it back to camp. The zombie's mode is fairly straightforward, and unfortunately, I didn't like it very much being the simple fact of the matter is the game is luck-based. Pretty much everything will come down to die rolls. All encounter cards and all encounters on the board are basically the same; you just draw from the same encounter deck, and most of those are negative, so there's not really any strategy in terms of where you go; either you will, or you will not run into zombies.

In this mode, you want to make sure your survivors don't die off, but you don't have that many ways to really help them out. On the other side of it, looking at it competitively, you don't have many ways to screw them either. You can do better, or you can do worse than them, but it doesn't really do much again; it mostly comes down to how you're doing on movement and on-die rolls against the walkers in combat. Personally, I found it to be kind of frustrating when you've used scrounge cards, they get eliminated permanently, and they go into the discard pile. It's really easy to burn through all of your scrounge cards, and then you are stuck rolling a dice. I think I would encourage game designers to try to push the boundaries a little bit, and I would like to see a game in which you have to manage a stronghold.

In this type of game, you would be doing some resource management, combat, and you can play against a zombie player. It would be cool other than just the same theme over and over again. One thing I liked about this game is the fact that they have a roll-up the board. I can put it in a smaller carrying case making it better to take around with me. As a fan of both the TV series and the comic book, I think this is a game that is fun to sit around as a social game for hardcore fans but not so much for the zombie fan looking for an excellent zombie game.

Blog 27 – November 24th, 2019 – Oculus Quest Vader Immortal review

I had a chance recently to play Vader Immortal on a friend's Oculus Quest, and I want to give a quick summary as to what I had experienced. Let me start this review by saying that yes, it is amazing, and when it comes to the gameplay length outside of the new lightsaber dojo, the gameplay was right around a half-hour long, which is a bit shorter than the first episode. The game continues the story from the first as you search deep in the heart of Mustafar for the bright star.

The game does introduce the use of force powers; unfortunately, the only force power you get to use is just the general force grip, being able to reach out and grip enemies and items feel awesome, and the story is very well written. There are some awesome moments within the game that make you feel like you're in the real Star Wars universe. For example, you get to fight a Rancor that is to the scale of the character. Aside from the main experience, you also get the lightsaber dojo, which incorporates the force powers as well as the ability to throw lightsabers.

This game is not only fun but as I said before, it is amazing. It is super fun being able to throw the lightsaber at enemies. I loved the experience that Vader Immortal gave me, and although it is short, it still allows you to jump further into a universe that we Star Wars fans have been experiencing our entire lives. The length of the story and the amount of gameplay may be a little long, but as a huge Star Wars fan, I don't mind spending the money for one of these headsets and this amazing game. I mean really, where the HELL else are you going to be able to fight Vader.

Blog 28 – November 24th, 2019 –Blaster Master Reunion

So, I busted this out of the attic today as I am getting ready to move. I'm talking about Blaster Master one of my favorite games of all time. Blaster Master is a tale of a boy whose pet frog escapes and ends up in some radioactive shit and turns into a giant mutant frog who jumps down a hole. The main character Jason jumps in after it hits bottom where he finds this futuristic tank and a pink jumpsuit. Jason does what any kid would do and steals the suit and tank and goes on a mutant killing rampage trying to find his frog. Makes tons of sense right, who cares. I didn't play blaster master for the narrative; I played it for how fun it is and the epic soundtrack.

The Tank in Blaster Master Allows awesome grasshopper-like jumping and packed with a heavy cannon for taking out enemies while avoiding obstacles. This game is the best; you have sick controls with the ability to shoot straight up into the air, and simply driving around exploring is super fun in itself. The open worlds are easy to get lost, and finding where you need to go can get really tedious. Somewhat like Metroid, you have to beat up boxes to get power-ups that allow you to access new areas of the map, and you can backtrack to get to previous areas you've already explored. The platform jumping in the tank is fun, but the side-scrolling part of the game is just exciting.

Jason can get out of the tank and Explore as well. When you exit the tank, and go through these tiny doors the game switches to an overhead view that reminds me of Fester's quest which is also a fun game, but back to Blaster Master, in the overhead mode you want to collect weapon power-ups because the bar fills your gun which changes and becomes more effective but as you take damage your gun meter is reduced so be wary. Towards the end, you go on to fight the mutated space frog, Fred, he's not the final boss, but I have never made it past him to this day, so all in all, this game can be hard. Still, it has an ass-kicking soundtrack and enjoyable gameplay with variable modes of side-scrolling and overview. If you haven't played this, GET A COPY NOW AND PLAY IT!!!

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