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Androids VS Mutants: Tabletop Warfare Game

In the last couple of weeks Ben, Rachel, Leo and I have designed a turn by turn-style tabletop war game for our class of BCM300; Game Experience Design. Each of us contributed to the assessment by formulating ideas, presenting background research, and experiencing playtesting.

Here’s our video:

Design

I enjoyed the design aspect of this assignment as it allowed for my creative mind to express my ideas freely and slowly narrow down on one idea to refine and work on it consistently which had been an issue with my creativity fluently. This was spiked by one of the games we played in the class called “Sparks” which I enjoyed as it ironically sparked the inner creativity in me to shine.

Our original premise of this board game was inspired by Quentin Tarantino’s movie “The Last Samurai” and the videogame series Total War to create a tabletop war-based game starring America Vs Japan with no characters in mind just yet, just the themes and story for the world we were creating for our consumers.

But upon further reflection, Rachel brought up that our idea could be seen as cultural appropriation due to the lack of knowledge in this field we collectively had.

Through this failed idea we had the basis of our mechanics and with help from our tutor to avoid incorrect political decisions. We looked for other media from videogames and movies that we had an interest in.

Our primary inspirations were the fallout franchise, Terminator movies and the left for dead videogame series which is why this board game is set on a battlefield on futuristic earth in a post-apocalyptic setting where human beings were overthrown by Artificial Intelligence who nuked the earth and created a mutant strain to wipe out the rest of the survivors but has ended up creating a monumental battle between the man-made androids and man-destroying mutants for the battle for earth. 

Character Development

The main characters and weapon were developed with inspiration from the Fallout videogame franchise, The Terminator movies as well as Left for Dead franchise. For example, the Exterminator character is inspired by the terminator character in Left 4 dead 1.

Mechanics I Introduced

  • The tragic departure of old japan culture, (philosophy) 
  • 5 characters on each side (Japan and America) with a random shuffle at the start with the characters you get to play the game with different
  • 4 areas of play – split by a mountain in between (River, Forest, Village, Snow)
  • Character cards on both sides that are shuffled
  • Added special abilities to the heroes.
  • Item cards to be random places on the battlefield to in site battle or tactical abilities
Our Initial Brainstorm
The initial board game design

Contribution To The Group Video

My main contribution to the group video was to pitch was the game overview, genre and the intended audience part of the presentation.

To complete this aspect of the task this I took upon the advice that was given by my tuts and marking criteria to successfully outline the set and setting to intrigue potential investors and or players of our game. I also used the advice of giving a reason why someone would want to buy this game by explaining our inspirations instead of an age group.

Prototyping

When creating the prototype, I suggested drawing up each character to figure out what we should call them and the abilities they should have and what weapon they should use, this was then supplemented by giving the character a strength and defence rating to simplify the game mechanics. As for representing the character we just used simple Woolworth’s figures and poker chips to represent how many hearts they had left.

The pictures below show our initial beta of this board for the strengths and weaknesses our characters have. Our components included the use of paper and simple drawings.

Playtesting:

With our initial beta both Ben and played tested the game to figure out if there was anything wrong with the core mechanics and how the flow of our turn-by-turn style game would work.

The first issue that I came across was the star representing the direction of movement was quite unpolished as I would forget how my stars would dictate how the movement of the character would work. To fix this issue I suggested drawing arrows for the directions the specific character could move to simplify this mechanic of the game.

Another issue that Ben, Leo and I notice is the balance of strength to defence ratio did not work as one character would not be able to do any damage to another as their defence was too high to fix this issue we collectively decided to increase the star damage on all characters and ability cards.

After all these changes we were quite satisfied with the final product and am happy to say that we all made an amazing collaborative effort.

Ben’s Blog – Click Here

Leo’s Blog – Click Here

Rachel’s Blog – Click Here

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The Future of Social Media Marketing

Within this blog post, I will be researching the predicted future of social media marketing in the lenses of consumers, business, and public policy in the short and long term future which I the key aspects to the BCM325 future cultures. I will also predict where I think the future of social media marketing is going as well.

What is social media:

Social media can be thought of in a few different ways. In a practical sense, it is a collection of software-based digital technologies—usually presented as apps and websites—that provide users with digital environments in which they can send and receive digital content or information over some type of online social network. In this sense, we can think of social media as the major platforms and their features, such as Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. We can also in practical terms of social media as another type of digital marketing channel that marketers can use to communicate with consumers through advertising.

The first academic paper that I read was Appel’s ‘The future of social media in marketing. Which breaks down the future of social media marketing into three different predictions of the consumer, business, and public policy as well as looking at the immediate and long-term futures in these areas.

The Immediate future:

There are many interesting future research avenues to consider when thinking about the role of influencers on social media. First, determining what traits and qualities (e.g., authenticity, trust, credibility, and likability) make sponsored posts by a traditional celebrity influencer, versus a micro-influencer, or even compared to a CGI influencer, more or less successful is important to determine for marketers. Understanding whether success has to do with the actual influencer’s characteristics, the type of content being posted, whether the content is sponsored or not, and so on, are all relevant concerns for companies and social media platforms when determining partnerships and where to invest effort in influencers. In addition, research can focus on understanding the appeal of live influencer content, and how to successfully blend influencer content with more traditional marketing mix approaches.

The Far Future:

There are early indications that social media might feel different in the future. As mobile phones are held in one’s hands and wearable technology is strapped onto one’s skin, companies and brands are exploring opportunities to communicate to users through touch. Indeed, haptic feedback (technology that recreates the sense of touch by applying forces, vibrations, or motions to the user; Brave et al. 2001) is increasingly being integrated into interfaces and applications, with purposes that go beyond the mere call or message notifications

My own prediction’s

The Immediate future:

I believe that social media influencer marketing will continue to slowly grow as well as the continuous paradigm shift of traditional marketing slowly burning out with major companies increasing their spending on social media marketing.

The Far Future:

I believe in the far future that we will have the technology that Elon musk is currently developing ‘The Neural Link’ which will allow us to connect to the internet without a device, which would be social media very interesting as It could mean that we could stream live videos without a device making a more immersive experience.

References:

Appel, G, Grewal, L, Hadi, R & Stephen, AT 2020, ‘The future of social media in marketing, Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, vol. 48, no. 1, pp. 79–95, viewed 6 May 2021, <https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=bth&AN=141133003&site=ehost-live&gt;.

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Internet of Things

The development of the internet has come with innovations which have altered the way we learn and search. The use of QR codes has heightened the everyday human’s ability to search and learn within a matter of seconds.

Originally the QR code was invented to enable the tracking of car parts in a factory where cars are assembled. The QR code all started with a Japanese car manufacturing company, Denso Wave, which now in present day has become a “necessary ingredient in the future of augmented reality and pandemic control.”

The innovation of the QR code is just one of the inventions which has stemmed from an evolving ‘internet of things’. This is where certain ‘thing’ are attached with a code or data which makes the ‘thing’ unique and only traceable through the specific attachment.

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Dark Fiber: Botnets

This week in our lecture we looked at a series of events that have taken place over the past 20-30 years regarding the internet, in particular, the use of Botnets and the idea of a sock puppet army.

A botnet is simply a number of internet-connected devices. Botnets are more often used for non-illegal activities and are often referred to as ‘the workhorses of the internet’.

Botnets become a problem when looking at their illegal purposes, as they can be used for malicious attacks including credentials leaks, data theft and DDoS attacks to name a few.

This then moves into the idea of a sock puppet army. This term was first coined when documents were released stating that the US government had thousands/tens of thousands of fake accounts on social media that looked realistic. This got people talking about how this has the potential to sway public opinions or draw focus from important topics.

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Comments and Self Reflection Part 2

My first comment was on Michaela Shales blog (BCM215 DA BETA). Michaela said that she changed her original idea of playing video games to starting a blog based on the same idea of f gender sexualisation in video games. I gave her one recommendation at potentially looking potentially using twitter to find a community and start an informal discussion and convert followers to interact with her blog post and receive more feedback.

Link to page

Second comment was on Tobias Joshua Thomas’s blog (BCM 215 Beta blog) he discusses why he chose the topic and he’s love for video games and what topics his has planned into the future of his DA, and the promotional struggles and lack of a feedback. I also gave a recommendation of joining a twitter discussion if there is any on the specific game and media texts which could potentially lead to more readers and engagement with his content.

Link to Page

Third comment was on Ruby Losinno’s blog (RUBY REVIEWS – BETA), she discusses her DA being based around reviewing and potentially reviewing different game shows. I suggested her to look at a particular academic journal about the critique of the price is right which could help in her review process and blog.

Link to page

From this I got to see a lot of different ideas of what goes into the gaming community and different ways that I could further improve my DA. As well as the importance of laying the information out of the reader/viewer, I would much rather just read the key points of a post then have to look through for the important stuff and having relevant topics, something that will engage the viewer. The ways I could improve myself for future comments would be by having more sources instead of just one or two. As well as get sources from a wider range of areas, such as Journal Articles, academic research and YouTube videos (reviews or game/topic breakdowns). Also that my comments could possibly be longer and better structured in order to let the reader get a better understanding of what I am saying.

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Anonymous

Anonymous: The Resistance…

They are anyone and everywhere. Hiding in the shadow and on the internet.

If you are unfamiliar with Anonymous well then! You are in for a treat!

Anonymous to summarise is as the name suggests an anonymous decentralised movement. They are hackers known for their various cyber attacks mostly against several governments, oh and of course Scientology…

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Network Insurgencies

Social media has made an imprint in today’s society. Allowing for the ease of communication and simplifying the ability to learn and promote. However, with positives comes the negatives as a society which aims to be connected often becomes disconnected.

A negative which has been imprinted within our brains is Social Media’s ease to promote “black magic”. A sort of black magic which leads us as humans to make bad choices.

Personally, I can relate as when assignments and everyday tasks pile up one-by-one, I find some of those tasks can be done to the bare minimal effort and not to a satisfactory effort.

However I also find social media as extremely influential and positive as it can allow for motivation and to spark a drive to do more.

So the question is whether the negatives outweigh the positives?

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BCM241 Research Project and DA Pitch

My topic is travel content, I am researching Jay Alvarrez a USA lifestyle and travel influencer. This media niche ranges from travel, photography, videography and extreme activities (e.g. sky diving). Most influencers have a strong connection to their audience “by sharing details of their personal lives, interacting with followers across social media platforms, and encouraging a sense of community” (Lawson, 2020).

Jay Alvarrez has a broad field site, he is a business owner for an online digital assets company called The Creator Studios. In addition to this he posts regularly on instagram, youtube. Over the years, Jay has expanded his network and become popular by keeping his followers up to date with his lifestyle and travels around the world 

My ethnographic research is a “methodology for studies of cultures and peoples, with the assumption that they have something in common” (Sobolewska, F. Smith & Turner, 2009). By researching all of Jay Alvarrez’s social media platforms, I believe that there will be similarities. 

A common ethical issue for lifestyle influencers is authenticity. Wellman, Stoldt & Ekdale (2020) identifies that “ethics of authenticity is premised on two central tenets: being true to one’s self and brand and being true to one’s audience”. 

My DA will be a travel Instagram @aquilahproductions, This will be a fun experiment to see how much I learnt about his lifestyle over the semester and see if I can replicate his Instagram feed. I will also attempt to edit the photos and videos in a similar way and use the same aesthetics he does.

References:

Lawson, C. E. (2020) ‘Skin deep: Callout strategies, influencers, and racism in the online beauty community’, New Media & Society. 

Sobolewska, E., Smith, C.F. and Turner, P., 2009. Auto-ethnography: problems, pitfalls and promise. HCI Educators 2009-playing with our education, pp.91-97.  

Wellman, M.L., Stoldt, R., Tully, M. and Ekdale, B., 2020. Ethics of Authenticity: Social Media Influencers and the Production of Sponsored Content. Journal of Media Ethics, 35(2), pp.68-82.

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Feudalism and Walled Gardens

Feudalism takes the aged idea of a ‘walled garden’ and modernises it to display what the internet is like today. Feudalism 2.0 is the idea that certain companies create ‘walled gardens’ surrounding their products to prevent the external use of such aspects, therefore patenting their work.

Nowadays, Apple maintains full control over their IOS and macOS operating systems and selective process for all their applications that their systems can run, thus once a person is bought into their metaphorical ecosystem. Consumers may customise, personalise and design to their own pleasure, using IOS and macOS applications only.

Putting up a walled garden pulls and entices users to buy more Apple products and thus benefiting profits across the board. A smart idea which companies are beginning to use, benefiting their operations and marketing.

Are you in the Apple ecosystem?

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Attention Economy

This lecture was really interesting because attention economy is what I call a destructive weapon because as much as it is “beneficial”…its definitely not. It a social media’s way of keeping you on their platform because of their “amazing personalised feed.”

In relating this concept and idea from the lecture to my personal experiences with social media and running my Digital Artefact, Aquilah Productions through platforms like Instagram, Facebook and YouTube  I can confidently say I am a victim to falling into the attention economy.

For you to understand, this isn’t a good thing either. It can cost you a lot of harm on your mental & physical well-being. It not only is a distraction but it an article I read explained it discussed “that it takes more than 20 minutes to get back into the flow once you’ve been interrupted, so even just “one little look” can have a huge consequences for our focus.”

I would love to be able to sit here typing to you and say that attention economy is a great thing and we should all participate in it…however it isn’t and if you stay away from it you might save yourself. Especially going on Instagram as much as it is great, it’s also disruptive to our everyday life and it’s time, our precious time that we are paying / feeding to technology and social media.

Remediation