My Feedback Thoughts

Article 1 - "Silence the Critical Voices in Your Head"

This article was very useful and helpful to read, I took tips from this article to help myself in the future as it made some very good points and suggestions.
Everyone has their own fears and doubts thinking they aren't good enough and this article really explores that in depth and suggests what you can do to help yourself. The article presented an example story of a real person who began to struggle with self-doubt and how he overcame it. Self-doubt not only increases depression within the person struggling but also pushes their goals out of reach.
The example story was the story of a man named Rajeev who was an executive vice president of a billion-dollar business. He was a great worker who created strong, well-working teams however once he got promoted he received less feedback from others and suffered as a result. As a solution he hired the author of this article as a coach for feedback which resulted in him receiving a lot of positive feedback. He didn't see the feedback as positive but rather as negative so he came up with certain strategies to help him. The strategies he used to changed the voices in his head from negative to positive were looking for the positive, hearing the positive, understanding the positive and believing the positive. He was then more aware of his tone with others and became a positive voice for others including his employees.
This article showed me that once you take steps to change those negative voices in your head to be positive voices in your head you and your work will succeed. It will also make a huge difference in your energy level and output. I really enjoyed this article as it helped me gain more positivity within myself.

Article 2 -  "Seven ways to crush self-doubt"

This article explored the burden of self-doubt by firstly discussing the authors personal experience and struggle with self-doubt. The article then goes on to suggest seven solid ways to banish self-doubt. Right off the bat we are told to not compare ourselves to others as it's the main downfall in self-doubt. Instead of viewing it as a competition one should view everything as a community. Competition leads to jealousy and downfall but once you let go of that you can strive as a person by doing what you love and taking chances.
Perfectionism is also explored here as the author suggests abandoning perfectionism. Once this is abandoned you can create better work. Perfectionism is an illusion that ruins your work and stops you from growing as a person.
The author then suggests finding a community that you can trust and be vulnerable with. A book and a TEDx Talk by Brene Brown Brown are suggested here too. These discuss the power of being who  you are and encourage vulnerability.
The next step is embracing a growth mindset. Carol Dweck introduces the idea of having 2 mindsets which are fixed and growth mindsets. With a growth mindset you can learn that mistakes are a natural part of the process. The rest of the article then discusses the importance of setting out goals within your control, treating your work like an experiment and trusting yourself.
I found this article to be really useful as I myself often struggle with self-doubt which can get in the way of your potential in life.

I think feedback in general is very important especially on the road to success as it helps people to learn what works and what doesn't as well as their strengths and what they can improve on. I've received feedback in many areas of my life however from my school experience I had a teacher give me feedback on a piece of artwork I created. She told me where my strengths and weaknesses were which helped me develop my art skills and create better work. 

Feedback Image
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Game brainstorm

Game idea 1 - My first game idea is to create an adventure game. An adventure game is a type of video game that involves problem-solving, exploration and puzzle aspects. It's a single player interactive story in which the player takes the role of the protagonist. It usually follows a story line and includes a narrative voice over.
I'm interested in creating this type of game as I've previously played many games in this genre as a kid. I think these games are very fun and addictive to play. They usually aim towards a target audience of 7 - 14 year olds due to the level of problem solving and puzzle aspects the player would need to have basic problem solving abilities and a basic understanding of game controls.
I'd tackle this by firstly researching some adventure games for inspiration. From there I'd plan out my visual ideas, characters and game play.
My idea for an adventure game would be to have the main character go on a quest possibly to save another character that's gone missing but to do so he has to solve riddles, puzzles and tasks.
  Link to article here.

Game idea 2 - For my second game idea I thought I could do an action game. I've previous experience in playing action games and would be interested in creating one myself. An action game involves a lot of running, jumping and shooting/punching etc depending on the game play. Most action games have an option of one player/2 players and usually provide the player with a series of weapons such as guns, knives and arrows. They focus on the players ability to attack, reflexes and hand-eye coordination. The player must also possess good reaction time in order to achieve the game objectives.
I'd be interested in creating an action game as I think they're one of the most popular types of games and have a larger target audience.
My action based idea would involve a war scene where the player has to get through while battling an enemy force. Power ups and extra lives would also be included to help the player live.
 Link to article here.

Game idea 3 - My third game idea is to create a survival game. A survival game is a sub-genre of an action game. The aim of the game is for the player to stay alive throughout the night or mission with a limited amount of resources/strategies. The player is usually the protagonist and has to survive against the antagonist(s) in order to complete the game level.
I'm not a fan of survival games myself however I admire the idea of the game as I think it's a very interactive type of game that puts the player to the test as they try to complete the game.
My survival game idea would be a zombie based game. The main character would be a human trying to survive the night against the zombies by using tactics and weapons of choice. If they survive the night they get a level up.
Link to article here.

Game idea 4 - My fourth and final game idea is to create a first person shooter game. I've done a lot on research on this genre and from that research I discovered that this is a very popular genre with a lot of aspects to it. A first person shooter game is exactly as it states, it's played from the point of view of the player as they shoot the antagonists/enemies or objects. These games are also a sub-genre of action games as the player is involved in a lot of attacking, running and jumping. The control movements allow the player to move left, right, backwards and forwards as they move around the enemies.
I'm interested in this game genre as I've played a first person shooter before and found it to be really engaging and interactive. It's a genre that grabs the players attention from the very beginning to the end. It can also be addictive as the genre contains a lot of objectives and missions for the player to complete to achieve new weapons/power-ups.
My first person shooter game idea would be to have the player as a sniper character in an apocalyptic scene, the antagonists would be a zombie invasion. The objective of the game would be to survive all the zombies and finally reach a safe zone where the game ends.
Link to article here. 
I'd like to learn how to create a successful game of my own based on one of these genres. At the moment I'm leading more towards my first game idea.

Adventure game.
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Unity tutorial 01

Although I've previously used Unity in a PLC I was rusty on my knowledge of the software and how to use it. Watching the tutorials and practicing while pausing them really helped jog my memory and taught me easier ways to use Unity.
The first tutorial went through the very basics of Unity so that first level beginners could follow along and learn the basics. We learned what the purpose of the game tab is, what the inspector panel contains and what type of assets the project window stores such as game objects, textures and scripts.
I also learned how to add in any extra tabs that I may need such as the animation tab. This tutorial also went through the basic methods of inserting 3D objects like a cube and how to develop them into bigger aspects. At the end of the tutorial we learned how to create a basic layer of terrain.

I found this tutorial to be very useful with easy to follow instructions suitable for gamers and non-gamers of all levels. I learned how to properly create a basic game structure from scratch and develop this structure in the second tutorial.

Tutorial 2 explored the aspects of terrain, creating textures and applying them to the terrain. I learned how to use the point height tool to create a specific height for where the terrain sits and how to add color, change opacity/brush sizes and how to blend the textures for a smoother realistic effect.
I enjoyed experimenting with the different textures and blending them however I had a bit of difficulty when I first tried to create the terrain. I overcame this by continuing to try again until I got it right. I look forward to getting used to creating a game from scratch and developing my skills while I learn new aspects of game development.

Game design
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Game Design

From reading all six of these game based articles i can clearly state that each one was lengthy yet informative and interesting. The Essence of Euro-style games article explored what makes a Euro game Euro, their characteristics and why they've become so popular while Pulling the Plug: In Defense of Non-Digital Teaching and Learning explored the reasons why we should use non-electronic games to teach and learn electronic game design. I found this last article to be very educational and informative as I gained some insight into prototyping a game and the nature of non-electronic games.

The article called So You're Going To Make A Game For The Very First Time was probably my favorite as it takes you through the steps required to make a game for the first time and which parts are the most important. This article was very useful as soon I'll have to make a game for one of my modules and I'm a beginner.
The series of understanding games was also helpful and playful as they educated the reader in a more entertaining fashion which grabbed my attention as I've never encountered anything like that before.

Game Design

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