Friday, 20 December 2013

Storytelling- Another Perspective






During one of my modules I was assigned to re tell a story of 3 little pigs in war zone settings. I had a great time writing the story as it allowed me to be creative and re write it in a different way. I post it here as I learnt that actually stories can be converted to game (DUH!) and also we can manipulate a story in a way that it fits better into a game. 
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The Question: Re-tell the story of the 3 Little Pigs in a war zone setting.

I was framed.  I was framed by those nasty three little pigs. They claimed that they were innocent and that I, THE BIG BAD WOLF destroyed their houses. Ok fine. I did destroy their houses, but I had my own reasons. Well, let me tell you what actually happen in the three little pigs story before I get accused for any other things


Well, not so long time ago,  In Full Moon town, I was walking towards my grandmother’s house. From a distance I could see that my grandmother’s house was half destroyed. I started to panic. I ran towards her house and shouted “Granny! Are you there?” For a moment, I could not hear anything. 

My legs started to feel wobbly and I could feel my heart pounding against my rib cage.  I pull myself together and walked inside, in hopes of searching for my grandmother. “Wolfy jr?” I turned around and saw my grandmother crying. Her tears were flowing like a river. I hugged her and asked her what happened. 

She looked into my eyes and said “Those three pigs. They destroyed my house by using stones and birds as a bomb. It’s them wolfy jr. I saw the mark on their faces. They are back” The last phrase rang through my mind. “They are back." Is that even possible? Bomb. Bird. Stones. Those. Three. Pigs. 

About a decade ago,”The Lard city” which was known as the Pig's town, were causing huge problems to human race. They destroyed homes and stole food from innocent families. After that, they fabricate the story in a way we innocent wolf did it. I thought the human race will never believe that Pigs but they did. 

Hence my father, Alpha wolfy, decided to capture them, so that human will stop destroying our population by hunting us down and destroying our habitat. However, that battle was never easy. Many solider wolfs passed away. After a tough battle, Alpha wolfy managed to capture all the pigs. Some pigs were dead. Some were captured alive.

My father wanted to embarrass the leaders of lard city by using a knife to slash a “w” across their foreheads. He held them down and carefully slashed "W" on their forehead. After going through the pain, my father let them  leave Full Moon town so that every wolf would be able to laugh at them. 


Everything started to make sense. They are back to take revenge. I can’t waste any more time. I have to do something about this. I sent my grandmother to a safer place and decided to fight this battle by myself. 

My father was the leader and he made the mistake. I will do something about this now. After all I have to bare the mistakes he did.  I received the necessary information about the pigs. I immediately packed my bag  and made my move to the town area where the pigs live.

 It’s a good thing that three pigs lives in separate houses but they are neighbours. As I am the only one battling against them, it will be easier for me to take them down. I decided to stay near the first pig’s house. He is such a silly pig. He lives in a house that is made up of straws! I could just blow down the house. 

I decided to go to his house to borrow his tea set. However, he did not dare to open his door. I got angry and blew down the house. The house collapsed and I saw the first pig running towards the second pig’s house. I felt my blood boiling and I slowly walk to the second pigs house. The second pigs house was made of wood. 

I let out a loud laughter. These silly pigs! I decided not be polite anymore and used my stones and birds to break down the house. After three birds and two stones later, the house was destroyed. I looked into the house hungrily. Nobody was there. “Bam” a bird dropped and burst infront of me. I flew to a corner. I looked up immediately, and saw a brick house. When I looked carefully, I saw the three evil pigs behind the window snorting away. 

I got angry and started to throw birds across. In return, they threw stones. I ran towards the house and dodge all the stones at the same time. I could not do anything to destroy the pigs house. I threw as many birds as possible. It simply didn’t work. I had no choice. I saw an army of pigs. There are too many of them here. I had to make moves. I threw one last bomb before departing from the scene. I have not lost the battle. The battle will go on. 

This is the real story. The pigs spiced up the story by telling everyone that I wanted to eat them. How could they do such a thing? Honestly, I don’t eat raw pig meats. Oh well what can I do? I was framed.

Tuesday, 5 February 2013

customisable character


  Today's topic is about customisable character and how would you customise the character. I chose to talk about  Habbo Hotel as it is a game that I used to play often. Anyways, Habbo allows players to create an avatar. If you are a normal user, you are limited to choose things for your avatar. If you are a member, the world of Habbo Hotel is open for you to edit and create. Sadly, I am a normal user and I am given limited choices. 

I chose a female avatar. After choosing the female character, I change the appearance of the avatar. I choose my character to be dark skinned,  a suitable face shape (eyes and stuff). For the attire, I chose baseball t-shirt and blue jeans and red shoes. As a finishing touch, I decided to choose the bun up hairstyle for my avatar. At times, my avatar wears beanie, but for now, she is not wearing beanie.
                                                   (Choices of skin colour)

                                         (Types of clothes and choices of clothes colours)
                                           
The reason why I chose all of the above mentioned things as it represents me in real life. Well, I don't wear beanie but without the beanie, I do look a lot like the character. Ok back to the point. 
Habbo Hotel is a social game which allows you to be anyone you like and express yourself any way you like! I prefer to be myself as I do not want to represent someone else and feel uncomfortable about it! To me, it is about feeling comfortable and feeling happy while playing a game. Therefore, I rather represent myself in this way other than any other ways! :)
Hence, I decided to customise my avatar in this way!  
(Overall view! I am in one of the rooms!)

Tuesday, 15 January 2013

Differences in Medium

After looking through certain types of games, I chose “Master Mind” board game and “Master mind “computer game. Before the 70’s, Bulls and cows was played by using pencil and paper (Now known as mastermind) until a board game version was created by Mordecai Meirowitz

Mastermind is actually a code breaking game that is meant for two players.  Basically, players uses a decoding board, 10 to 12 rows of large holes next to a set of four small holes (for one player to guess the codes) and a shield at one end covering a row of four large holes (for the other player to choose and hide their chosen code). There are two different pegs. They are code pegs of 6 different colours and key pegs of black and white. 

The codemaker will choose a pattern of four codes peg (the colours can be repeated). After the codemaker is settled, the codebreaker then tries to guess the pattern of the colour and the order.  Once the codebreaker is done, codemaker provides feedback by placing the key pegs. That’s how the game is being played.

                  
(Mastermind boardgame)                               (Mastermind online)

Anyways, the Master mind board game has similar rules as Master mind computer game except for few factors.  In master mind board game, two players are able to play the game whereas in master mind computer game, only one player is allowed to play. The other player would be an A.I.  

Secondly, the level of difficulty in the game are different. The master mind online game has different level of difficulties (most of them does) whereas the board game version depends on the person you are playing with. If you are playing with someone who is really good at this game, may make it difficult for you to break the code by repeating the colour or refusing to drop any hints.

Lastly the types of pegs available. In some digital versions, there are up to 8 different colours of pegs available for code maker to select from.  The board game version only has up to 6 different colours of pegs that can be used to create a code. The amount of colour codes affects a game as it makes a game more challenging and interesting.
                   
(large pegs)                                                          (small pegs)
The advantage of playing a board game version is that, the code breaker may try the luck by asking for more clues from the code maker. However, when it is played online, they are not able to even ask for a hint from A.I. when the code breaker is not able to come up with a conclusion. Thus it affects the gameplay.
I personally feel that it is the only factor that affects the gameplay.