Author: Niky

2048 Podcast Reflection

Photo AJC1

For our second podcast, Cindy and I were originally thinking about doing a segment on Wii Sports and connecting it with Boost’s chapter on Exercise; however, we were advise to choose another game because a group from the spring semester had the same idea and the ended up producing an unsuccessful podcast. So, after a lot of thought and discussion, Cindy and I decided to talk about 2048.

After a successful first podcast, we decided that we would follow the same steps we did last time. We first gathered up all the information we could find on this game and came up with questions we wanted to discuss such as “are there effective strategies to beat the game?” and “does playing 2048 make you a better mathematician?” On our last podcast, we had a unique introduction that captured the attention of our audience, so this time we thought about what we could include in our podcast to make it entertaining and noteworthy. Since we had all these questions we wanted to discuss, we came up with the idea of incorporating a segment toward the end of our podcast in which we mimicked having a twitter account and audience members posting these questions on there. I may be wrong, but I thought this was better than just having a back and forth conversation that went on for ten minutes; I definitely think this contributed to our success in producing this podcast. After we had all our information and questions, we scripted what we were going to record because this proved to be effective for us the first time. Although producing a podcast may seem extremely different from writing an essay, this process of gathering information and then scripting it is similar to the process I go through when writing essays. I’ve always written outlines before sitting down and actually writing an essay because this way, just like with the podcast, I can make sure I hit all the important points and that I do so in an organized manner. This process connects to the learning outcomes writing as a process and critical thinking and reading resulting in writing because we go through this multi-stepped process which incorporates critical thinking in the planning section of the process.

Now that I’ve produced both podcasts, I’ve realized that it has been an enjoyable experience. I’ve never loved having to sit down and write long essays, it has never been easy for me; but, creating these podcasts turned out to be easier because I was doing something I found pleasurable. Aside from this, Cindy and I worked well together which also allowed us to work quickly, efficiently, and made our meetings run smoothly. Creating this podcast also contributed to the learning outcome of collaboration because to be able to work effectively we needed to listen to each other and incorporate both of our ideas in the podcast. Without this, our podcasts would’ve been a disaster because we would’ve ended up with a product that neither of us liked. Thankfully, since the beginning Cindy and I worked well together and we both listened to each of our ideas and this definitely contributed to having two triumphant podcasts.

2048 Podcast Reflection

Photo AJC1

For our second podcast, Cindy and I were originally thinking about doing a segment on Wii Sports and connecting it with Boost’s chapter on Exercise; however, we were advise to choose another game because a group from the spring semester had the same idea and the ended up producing an unsuccessful podcast. So, after a lot of thought and discussion, Cindy and I decided to talk about 2048.

After a successful first podcast, we decided that we would follow the same steps we did last time. We first gathered up all the information we could find on this game and came up with questions we wanted to discuss such as “are there effective strategies to beat the game?” and “does playing 2048 make you a better mathematician?” On our last podcast, we had a unique introduction that captured the attention of our audience, so this time we thought about what we could include in our podcast to make it entertaining and noteworthy. Since we had all these questions we wanted to discuss, we came up with the idea of incorporating a segment toward the end of our podcast in which we mimicked having a twitter account and audience members posting these questions on there. I may be wrong, but I thought this was better than just having a back and forth conversation that went on for ten minutes; I definitely think this contributed to our success in producing this podcast. After we had all our information and questions, we scripted what we were going to record because this proved to be effective for us the first time. Although producing a podcast may seem extremely different from writing an essay, this process of gathering information and then scripting it is similar to the process I go through when writing essays. I’ve always written outlines before sitting down and actually writing an essay because this way, just like with the podcast, I can make sure I hit all the important points and that I do so in an organized manner. This process connects to the learning outcomes writing as a process and critical thinking and reading resulting in writing because we go through this multi-stepped process which incorporates critical thinking in the planning section of the process.

Now that I’ve produced both podcasts, I’ve realized that it has been an enjoyable experience. I’ve never loved having to sit down and write long essays, it has never been easy for me; but, creating these podcasts turned out to be easier because I was doing something I found pleasurable. Aside from this, Cindy and I worked well together which also allowed us to work quickly, efficiently, and made our meetings run smoothly. Creating this podcast also contributed to the learning outcome of collaboration because to be able to work effectively we needed to listen to each other and incorporate both of our ideas in the podcast. Without this, our podcasts would’ve been a disaster because we would’ve ended up with a product that neither of us liked. Thankfully, since the beginning Cindy and I worked well together and we both listened to each of our ideas and this definitely contributed to having two triumphant podcasts.

Fiasco: Our Story

Credits B Rosen 

I’m not going to lie, I felt pretty overwhelmed going into the meeting with my Fiasco group. I had looked over the instructions on how to play the game, but I was very confused about how the whole thing worked.

When I met with my group, it took us almost an hour to get started because we couldn’t quite grasp the concept; however we decided that, whatever we didn’t understand, we would just improvise. We first chose Boomtown as our playset because we found the name captivating. Then, we each determined our relationships with those around us. My relationship with the person to my left was that we were both Chinese Opium sellers and the person to my right and I were both criminals; this ended up working perfectly for me because I was a criminal who sold Chinese Opium. Our story turned out to be an odd and dramatic one; odd in the sense that we all wanted to kill people in the story. For example, Frunk Trump (the person to my right) and I turned out to be secret lovers and it was my goal to kill him. I teamed up with one of the players and we were going to go kill him. All the while, Frunk was at the dentist where player 4 was selling Chinese Opium. Yes, this part of our story was odd indeed, but hilarious to recount. It was interesting to see how, although we would have to choose weird objects or needs, we were able to connect them all to produce a story that, although not completely realistic, was indeed enjoyable. As we fell into the flow of telling our story, I continued to gain more and more confidence in what I wanted to say and how specific I was in my moves. I was originally scared to maybe say something foolish or out of place, but I noticed that the main point of Fiasco is to make this game your own; it’s a great way to let go and create your own story. As a group, I think that we all worked well together. We all seemed to have the same mindset of making our story playful and entertaining as opposed to a structured and serious one. For example, I wanted to kill my secret lover, another player kills the current mayor and takes over, and so on. Neither of us was concentrated in winning, we were just focused on having fun by creating a story of our own; one that was interconnected and engaging. All in all, I think that we did a great job at creating our story. Although we might’ve misread a couple of the rules, we still made it work. We all worked together and, whenever it was needed, we helped each other add to the story. By the time we finished, I felted relieved and content: relieved that playing the game didn’t turn out to be a disaster just like I thought and I was content with what we had produced.

Starting the game was indeed hard, but getting into the flow of the game turned out to be rather easy for us. We didn’t use any particular strategies that I can recall, but what we did do was pitch in good ideas when one of us didn’t know how to continue the story. Also, my group was very good at being patient and explaining certain rules or turns when someone didn’t understand. I think that these qualities were what helped us succeed. Playing Fiasco was definitely unlike anything I had ever done. It’s weird to think of this game as a form of writing, but after having played it I realized that it really is. You’re creating a story with very little guidance; we were able to be as explicit or as concise as we wanted to be within our turns and we were able to each add a significant piece to the story. This was without a doubt a great way to explore a new form of writing and broaden our perception of what can account for being a written piece. With this, we definitely put into use our rhetorical composition learning objective. By playing Fiasco we were able to explore a new form of writing while adapting our story to any new constraints that came up. It put into play not only our teamwork skills, but also our creativity. We also exercised the writing as a process learning objective because we all had to pitch in ideas and new plays which in the end led to a conclusion. It took a lot of different plays and moves from each of the players involved to create the final product.

All in all, playing Fiasco was a great experience. The feeling of confusion in the beginning later turned into excitement which allowed me to become fully engaged in the game and take the most out of it.

Wolf in White Van Reflection

Credit Pedro Ribeiro

Wolf in White Van, a novel by John Darnielle, is all about Sean, a character who, after a traumatic experience, uses gaming as a way to cope with his trauma. While writing this essay, I got the chance to put in practice my “critical thinking and reading resulting in writing skills“. I used pieces from the this text to talk about trauma and how to cope with it. Also, I was able to work on the “rhetorical composition” of essays. Throughout this course, we’ve been exercising our skills to different kinds of texts: podcasts, live blogs, and, with this assignment, I was able to further improve my essay writing skills. Click here to learn more about trauma and how it is evident in Wolf in White Van.

First Podcast Reflection

When trying to decide what game to discuss in the podcast, my partner Cindy introduced me to Cytus. At first I wasn’t sure how we were going to create a ten minute podcast about this music game; however, I was surprised when Cindy began to explain the backstory of the game. To our surprise, as we worked more on the podcast, we realized we actually had a lot to say about the game.

Before we were ready to record, we had quite a bit of work to do. We decided that it would be best to read from a script what we were going to say, that way it would be less likely for us to make mistakes. Also, this would ensure that we touched on every point that we wanted to make. We both did some research prior to writing the script: Cindy on the plot and myself on Bogost’s chapter on music. Since we were the first pair to turn in the podcast, we didn’t really have a specific structure that we had to follow.

Working on this podcast definitely helped me work toward achieving the learning outcomes for this course. The first learning outcome is rhetorical composition. By gathering information and then having to formulate it into a script, I was able to put in practice the skills that help me organize both research and my ideas. In addition, the podcast also helped me with the digital citizenship learning outcome because I was able to use technology as a medium to express what I had to say. It also gave me a chance to familiarize myself with different applications such as Audacity and Garage Band. I began trying to figure out how to use audacity; however I wasn’t able to completely understand how to use it and so we decided to use Garage Band instead. Nonetheless, I was able to explore different mediums and choose which one I believed was the most effective one.

All in all, I was very happy with what Cindy and I produced. I thought that the beginning was very capturing, given that we recorded an introduction and put a song from the game as background music. That was by far my favorite part of our podcast. However, I think that we also did a pretty good job at analyzing the game and making a connection with Bogost’s music chapter. If I had to give advice to my peers for when they produce their podcasts I would most definitely recommend that they script out what they want to say because it’s more convenient and ensures that you won’t make any mistakes when speaking. Also, in my opinion, it allows the conversation to flow in a more naturally way, without many “ums” or long pauses. In addition, I also suggest my peers to use Garage Band because Cindy and I had a good experience with it. In the end, I was very happy with my podcast and I really enjoyed working with Cindy. I look forward to working on our second podcast and hope that we produce another good episode.

Kentucky Route Zero Magical Realism Free Write

The game Kentucky Route Zero is one which seems to be just an ordinary game, that is until you spend about five minutes playing it. In the first few minutes there are already elements of magical realism. When you go down to the basement, you come across some people playing a game who ignore Conway, the main character, completely. It took me a little longer to figure out how to get past them, so I went back upstairs to see if perhaps the old man had any suggestions. When I talked to the old man, he swore that there was no way there was anyone down in the basement. With this, questions began to arise. Later on in Act II, the magical realism became more evident. When trying to look for Lula who was the person that supposedly could help the main characters, Conway and Shannon were having a really tough time finding her. Also, as they were going up and down the elevator you could see that one of the floors was filled with bears; an issue that no one seem to acknowledge, let alone address. After this, Conway and Shannon end up in some type of museum where they go around and hear the conversations of people living there. However, these weren’t normal conversations. They seemed to be talking about Conway and Shannon while they were right there. This is where the magical realism begins to seem even more present in the game. To top it all off, they all ride a bird to the forest where the character that you control is now Ezra instead of Conway.

Unpacking Manuel’s Final Reflection

In my first draft of my Unpacking Manuel’s assignment, I avoided the ultimate question of why my object was hung up on the wall; all I did was research the object and make an argument as to why it might’ve been hung up back in the late 1980s. However, for my revision of the essay I decided to tackle the question of why it was still up in 2016. It took me longer than I expected to come up with some reasoning that might make sense because this was a type of question that I had never had to write a paper on. The question that needed to be answered for this assignment was open-ended without a concrete answer. The one similarity between this paper and others I had to write in high school was the research component of it. By writing this paper, I was able to realize what my strengths are and what areas I need to improve in. I noticed how I was efficient at finding information on the object and creating an essay about that, just like I was used to from high school. However, the area that I need to improve on is going beyond just the typical essay. It was a challenge for me to find a way to properly connect the research with my new thesis. Nonetheless, I believe that this assignment was a great way for me to start developing the skill to write essays like this. Through Unpacking Manuel’s I realized that writing really is a process. It’s been very helpful to write a piece, reflect on it, and then be able to revise it after that. It’s a process that has made me a better writer through analysis. Also, in Unpacking Manuel’s we’ve engaged in collaboration since, in class, we all pitched in ideas for the rubric and how this assignment should be graded.

Unpacking Manuel’s Tavern

 

For the Unpacking Manuel’s Tavern assignment, I ended up choosing the Sport Magazine 1986 All-Pro Bars frame. As I examined the various parts of this object, I decided that in my post I would talk about the Budweiser ad as well as a couple of the mentioned bars in the article which is directed toward football fans. Given that I myself am a huge fan of the sport, I thoroughly enjoyed this assignment.

 

 

 

Firewatch Liveblog – Day 77

Day 77 was long and stressful. At first I was excited to see if I could finally find out what exactly was going on. However, my stress level grew to 100 when I couldn’t find my way out of the camp where the firefighters were. It took me about half an hour to figure out that I was supposed to cut down some old tree to be able to head to the fenced area. I was stressed and annoyed at this point. Also, it took me about an hour to find my way to the fenced area. When I finally got there, however, things began to get interesting. I found the beeping device and was able to see the reports on Henry and Delilah. I started wondering what could explain this. Why was someone so interested in the lives of these two people? What was their plan? Also, when will this game end? It’s eternal!

Firewatch Liveblog – Days 2-76

Day 2 was long, yet entertaining. The views were definitely beautiful.After day 2, the days to come went by a lot quicker. On day 64, it becomes evident how much Delilah and Henry’s relationship starts to head down a romantic path. On day 76, things begin to get interesting. I couldn’t believe that I got hit in the head; that caught me completely off guard. I began to get even more engaged in the game and now I’m still on day 76 trying to find the firefighters. I’m now really wanting to know what exactly is going on.

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