Wenjing Zhou's Game Blog for MSTU 5510.005

Games, educational or not?

2006-04-24T15:22:00.000-07:00

This week my friend sent me a link and added a comment: Be sure to watch it!! I opened this web page with curiosity,finding it a player's play video and what makes it different is that his skill is nearly perfect.

http://v.wangyou.com/play.php?id=19588

I used to play this online musical game too. At that time, I already found it a hard game and I would not like to use up all my time to just performe good or excellent on this game. I just wanted to play and enjoy the music, whatever the result is, I don't care. But now as I watch this guy playing the game, I could imagine how much time and how many times he played this game. I admit that his dexterity may be greatly enhanced by practicing on this game, but is the time he spent on the game worth all that he got? This time could be at least one month, two months or even half a year.

Games for educational purpose

2006-04-17T18:00:00.000-07:00

Last week I played a PS2 game my friend long time ago recommended to me. It is a singing game and basically your task is to sing a pop song in a correct tempo and rhythm. The name of this game is Karaoke Revolution and due to its success, it has introduced its volume 3 in which a lot of recent popular songs have been added. To play this game, you only need to purchase an accessory like a headset or a microphone. At first, I regard this game as an easy one since I am quite good at singing and my piano learning experiences have made me good sense on tempo and rhythm. Then when I started playing the game, I found it hard to catch the words. This game wants to make the tempo in an excessively accurate way that even a short word such as 'promise' will be seperated into two parts like'-pro- -mise-'and when all the words are arranged in this way, it's quite hard for me to catch up with them. I don't know whether this is because I am a foreign student and not familiar with the language or because this design of the game actually increases the difficulty of the game. But I do know a little change on this game will make it educational for our foreign students. I think that this game involves a device called voice recognition which I have been knowing long time ago. Up till now, there's software sold on the Internet that allows people to speak instead of typing. After adjusting your voice to the software, meaning you do a little training for the software that it will be accustomed to your accent and be able to recognize your voice quickly, when you speak, the software will automatically tranfer your audio information into visual one that is the word-based document. This device could be used as either an in-class note taking helper for a foreign student who could not catch all the words the professor is saying or a software to correct his strange pronouciation and increase his vocabulary. If Karaoke Revolution can be adjusted a little to an English-learning game still using the voice recognition device, I think it will help foreign students practice and improve their English in an effective way. As I am thinking about, this game could notice and pick out the false-pronouciated words after a song was sung and ask the player to read or sing the sentence again and make sure he knows the word or can pronouciate it correctly.

Small Games

2006-04-10T10:48:00.000-07:00

I was a fan of video games when I was a child. At that time, I played video games all day long with my cousin. After I grow up, though I like games as I always did, I prefer small games since I don't want to waste much time and energy on those online games(star crafts,etc.) and I know that if I start to play them, I will be addicted to them. I want games to be an entertainment instead of a task to me that when I want to rest and have fun, I play them for a short time and will not feel the responsibility or ambition to conquer something. To me, the games on MSN are proper for me but with only one inconvenience that whenever I want to play, the only way I can start a game is to find a friend on MSN and invite him to the game. This has troubled me for a long time until yesterday when I turned to my cousin, he told me to go to www.zone.com and have fun. All the games on that website are small games and the type of games I used to play on MSN. On that website, I could have my own account and whenever I played the game for a certain amount of time or come to a certain level, I will be awarded a badge and keep it in my online album. There's also special badge which means if you accomplish a certain score in this two months you will have a unique badge and after these two months, no one will ever get it. This makes me feel very excited though I know these badges means nothing to my real life. I checked out the number of players for each game and clicked into the most popular one named Bejeweled 2. Soon I found it was the game I used to play years before and felt no more interesting. I tried out other popular games such as Cubis2, Luxor(another type of Zuma),Mah Jong Tiles and Hexic( a game I always play on MSN) and some unpopular games. I found out that people are more likely to play boring and mindless games instead of strategical ones. Do games really become a relaxation for people to pass out time now? If games are related to educational knowledges and require players to keep thinking and learning, will them be popular?

Games I played in the last few weeks

2006-03-27T09:16:00.000-08:00

Set
As been assigned to play five games, I first try the one listed on the top named 'set'. Before I started playing this game, I guess it's a game similar to what I have been played before like choosing out two pictures of the same kind or of the same rule. Then I came to this game and found it requires more tactics and thinking. It's not a game for you to pass your time but instead a game to train your logical thinking. I tried the set daily puzzle in which there are 12 images with different color, shape, shade and number. Player's role is to pick out three images and keep them in balance, saying all the three should have the different features or the same features and it is not allowed to have two in the same feature without the third one. I have been playing this game for nearly an hour and still couldn't find a better way to finish it in a short time. It seems I have to think about too many aspects at the same time and sometimes my mind will go mad. I think there should be one way to eliminate logical impossibility one by one and finally got the correct combination without being stuck in logical chaos. I want to go on playing this game and try to summarize an efficient method to accomplish it since this game is really educational and appeals to me.

Games and My Identity

2006-03-05T12:34:00.000-08:00

This weekend I hanged out with some friends and played 'Game of Killer' ( I translate it literally from Chinese). This game is very popular in China but it's my first time to play. First, to play this game, the minimum number of players should be six to eight, otherwise the game will be no more challengable. Then, since we have eight people, we selected one judge and remained seven players. We picked out eight cards and put a star on one of the card. After the cards were distributed, the one who got the star card will be the killer and this secret will only be known by the judge and the killer until someone has been killed and died. At the first round, the judge said ' It's late now, everyone closes his eyes and goes to bed.' Everyone closed his eyes except the killer. The killer now could use either gesture or eye contact to tell the judge which person he kills. Then after the judge said' It's time to wake up and Mary(for example) has been killed', everyone opens eyes and begin their dicussion to figure out who is the killer. Mary, as the victim, could only say one sentence that could be her guess to give others some clues. Now, six people will try their best to find out the killer. The accused killer, whether he is the real killer or not, will be executed and died. After a fierce discussion, a concensus should be made and given to the judge. If they find out the killer, then the killer loses and game over. If their guess is wrong, the innocent player is executed and five people continue the game. Then comes the second round, after the judge said the words, everyone closes their eyes and the killer will kill another person. The judge will say' It's time to wake up and John is killed now. John, you could say one sentence now.' John might say' I think Peter is the killer coz blur blur blur' and then the remaining four people( three innocent players and one killer) begin their discussion again to find out the killer. If they guess wrong again, the third round will begin and the third person will be killed. Finally, there will remain three players( two innocences and one killer). If this time they still guess the wrong person, then the killer gets the final truimph.

In this game, it is not the rules but the identity of somebody that makes him the winner. If you are a naive person without social experiences, you are more likely to be cheated by others and lose the game. Take me for example, I just graduated from college and lack the social experiences and also the skills of interacting with others. My friends all admit I am the one that they could easily see through. If I am the killer, they could quickly find out that I am trying to pretend and disguise myself. If it is others that get the killer card, someone is very good at confusing others and win the game.

My emotional experiences in game playing

2006-02-27T09:24:00.000-08:00

I played a lot of video games when I was in my childhood. At that time, we only had those simple but classic little games such as Mario. Although the game is designed like a cartoon and Mario is nothing similar to me, I still felt nervous when I was playing the game and was totally concentrated on the game as if I was the charater there. I felt scared when Mario was about to conquer a difficult task. I felt excited when I defeat the horrible dragon at the end of each level. Sometimes, the fear prevented me from acting well that before I made a great leap, I felt inconfident and this feeling usually led to my failure. Now with the technology advanced, games look more real. Using 3-D or even 4-D technology enables players to get totally involved into the scenorios or fighting and they are more easily to put themselves into the character's positions that will naturally arouse their feelings. I tried a PS2 game this week called So Calibre II. This game is quite similar to the fighting games we used to play in the 80s but is more delicate than those old ones. This is a 3-D game in which you could not only choose your character but also change clothes and weapons for them. As a new player, I felt it very difficult that there are too many fighting combinations that I couldn't remember. Surprisingly, I defeated my cousin for several times that both of us had no idea why this could happen since my cousin has been playing this game for years and he knows all the combinations and strategies to win the game. Then I begin to think that maybe it is because I was too concentrated on the game and my emotions went with the character. When my character was hit, I felt as if I was hit by another person. Thus, I tried my best to avoid being hit and got the final truimph.

Continue on Diablo

2006-02-20T09:47:00.000-08:00

This week I continued my journey on Diablo coz I really like myself now(actually the amatar in the game ) since I am a much stronger one who could raise five skeletons and a golem to fight for me. I really enjoy this less effort play mode. All that I do is to stand by, cast some black magic on the monsters and press space button to see what goods are on the ground. ( This new feature of shortcut is really impressive and exciting coz I still remember my first time playing Diablo 7 years ago when I felt difficult to pick things up. Always I could hear a ring sounded like 'Ding' dropped off in a chaotic battle which took me about 10 minutes to get the triumph but later cost me 15 minutes to find the valuable ring or emulet. ) Soon I found it boring to just stand aside and watch my skeletons fight. I admit it is an easy job but I need more impetus to continue the game. I talked to my cousin complaining that the game is less exciting and getting boring. My cousin pointed out that I should go online to get some references and try to make some efforts on winning the battle instead of just standing by. After viewing several websites, I astonishingly found out that gems and runes with different combination have their unique functions. Thus I paid more attention to them and collect what I want and discard what is useless to me. For example, yellow gems when inserted into armors could help find more magic equipments but player should collect small ones to make a final perfect topez.

For players, I think before we play the game, we should first analyze it. According to its type and its degree of difficulty, we determine whether we should make some extra efforts to play it better. Because I didn't look for any references, I lost many chances to collect my chipped topez, thus it will take me longer to make a perfect one. But for games such zuma, all that we have to do is to sit before a screen and play! No preparation is actually needed, as you play more and practice more, you will get the final champion.

My Strategy for Diablo

2006-02-13T10:02:00.000-08:00

My cousin has been playing Diablo, Diablo Two and the extension version for a long time. But he still find it hard to conquer the hell level on his own. (Here I will explain a little bit about 'what is hell' though I think nearly all of my classmates have played or tried this game. In Diablo, if you have finished all the tasks and beated the final boss, you may think you have finished the game. No..the game is far from being over. There's nightmare and hell level waiting in front of you. In Nightmare and Hell level, you have to finish the same tasks and beat the same bosses, but the differences are the monsters will be much stronger and your resistance level will be lowered. )Ok, I will continue now. Thus, he decided to invite me to develop a new character to assist him. I have been working hard on my character in my winter break but since I am a novice in the game I only finished chapter one and chapter two. Later, I think the progress is too slow and I decided to quit the game.

This week I told my cousin I had taken this course which requires me to play games for at least four hours and I'd like to continue playing Diablo but this time I will not go on alone. I asked him to train my character together. We got online together and I asked him to give me some good equipments and gems. Now I am a well-equipped man and I will never die...at least in this level. Then we discussed how to train my character to a high-level one in a short time. The only way seems to be kept killing monsters. But soon we found out a big obstacle preventing me from making a fast progress that is the waypoint of the game. Usually I will waste lots of my time on going back and forth again and again to find my waypoint. Sometimes I have uncover the whole map but still find it hard to find the little tiny waypoint. Thus, we decided to utilize my cousin's character since he has all his waypoints in this level. My cousin goes to his waypoints and open a portal beside them for me. When I go through the portal.. there's directly my waypoint! By this strategy, I discovered all my waypoints in chapter three and finished most of the tasks. What an amazing progress! Now I realize sometimtes you should not just follow the rules and strategies inside the game but instead you should try your best to find out your own way to make the game easier.

My 1st One!

2006-02-04T11:10:00.000-08:00

Hello, everyone. My name is Wenjing Zhou and I am an M.A in Instructional Media and Technology. Regarding the game experiences, I do have a lot in my childhood when I played a lot of video games with my cousins. I still could remember those cassettes ( or those little yellow rectangular boxes? -_- sorry I have no idea how to say it) in which there are usually sixty or more than one hundred games among which the most famous one is 'Mario'. I think all the people know this game and love it. Since I entered my high school, I was busy with my schoolwork and seldom played any video games.

This course is wonderful that now I can re-experience the happiness of playing games. Yesterday I tried an online game called 'EverQuest' for almost four hours. It is a mission-based game that you feel challenged all the time. But don't worry at first you will have a training in which the instructor of the game will teach you how to use tools, maps, magics, etc. step by step and you will never feel lost. It is absolutely detailed and informative. After meeting all the people on the list and learn the skills from them, now comes the missions. The good thing of this game is that whether to accept or decline the mission is up to you for there are several missions at one time for you to choose.

The only thing I am dissatisfied with the game is that it's hard to target something. Sometimes when I stood before a monster and moved my mouse to click on it, I just clicked on myself. I have to adjust my position until the monster is totally revealed on the screen. Because of mistargeting, I lost my life several times. -_-# Besides, this game is really interesting and worth trying.