Category: Student Posts

Podcast: Pokemon Go Reflection

Pokemon Go Icon

In reflection of my most recent podcast upload with Jose, I believe that we did a good job at covering the objectives of the assignment. At first glance, 10 minutes of length seemed quite daunting at first to tackle. Fortunately, time would reveal that 10 minutes of production, in actuality, was shorter than expected. We ended up having to edit out quite a significant portion of the uncut audio to fit the time limit.

Pokemon Go was a go-to option for our game choice because Jose had extensive experience with the game. I had personally not played the game itself but was familiar with the gameplay and the nuance of what it was about. I purposely waited until the actual recording to play the game so that we could capture a raw, first hand experience of Pokemon Go.

After we chose what game to play came the preparation phase. Jose and I did preliminary research on the effects of the game on society and the underlying histories that served as the foundation of the inception of Pokemon Go. We compiled the research and assignment parameters into an outline that we used as the guiding force of the podcast.

During the actual recording, we had a guest speaker, Sam Han, to assist us in the production of the game. He contributed as an extra member of the podcast. We chose to do this because I purposely waited to play the game. Having a firsthand experience may offer unique benefits in terms of analysis, but has several drawbacks concerning a detailed explanation of the game. In bringing a new speaker onto the podcast, we hoped to make up for the lack in gaming experience.

Editing the podcast went smoother than expected. Majority of the editing was spent on trimming down audio when necessary to increase the overall flow and transition of the production and to cut down the length of the audio to the specified 10 minutes. By far, the learning objective that served most valuable was collaboration: having a new member meant that we had to collaborate and communicate with an extra person. We all worked together, both during and outside of production, to bring forth a quality podcast for the world to enjoy!

Fiasco Reflection


Photo credit: Peaches&Cream

Our game of Fiasco was interesting because we thought that each person needed an object and need with each other and not just one between all of us for the story. Our play set was located in main street and our overall narrative was in general very immoral for each character. My relations with the person to my right was that we were old friends and my relations with the person on my left was that we were friendly rivals. As I said, each person had a need between both the people on the left and right. This made the game very chaotic. We decided to focus mainly on the situation where someone needed to kill an elderly person and someone needed to get laid from and older person (this is how we interpreted it, not an old lover). The item in question was a shotgun, and the location was at a chicken hut. However in our scenario the older lover somehow took the shotgun from the potential murderer and killed him. The other scenarios we had were similarly strange and had very insidious plots or needs. In the end nobody one because everyone was either dead or had dead-like rolls of the dice.

Playing this tabletop RPG was certainly an interesting experience. It was similar to writing because it used creativity with very little outside information to make the story. Except with Fiasco there are four “authors” creating a plot using the general information, which was randomly generated by rolling dice. It is somewhat similar to playing video game RPGs because it gives you an environment and things to make the plot with such as people and objects, but in a video game, the plot is very limited compared to that of Fiasco, where the plots can be almost anything.

During our gameplay, some people pretended that they themselves were their character. The way that I played was that I imagined what this person would do in this particular situation given their relationships and needs. I didn’t pretend I was my character but that they were like a puppet. This is Usually how I play most games so this wasn’t a special case for tabletop RPGs. Fiasco was different from other games we have played this semester because it made you use more of your imagination and creativity. The videogames we’ve played were pretty linear and didn’t need much imagination. Playing Fiasco also made me realize that in certain situations, I am not a very imaginative person. I would usually say that I need to improve in this, but I am actually quite content being a logic and realistic based thinker. The learning outcome for the course that we used the most was definitely collaboration. We were forced to make the story of the game together, which is the part that made it fun. It was really interesting to find out what people could imagine for our characters. It was a group effort to create and play the game.

Wolf in White Van Reflection

Imagine someone who lives in a world that does not exist. Imagine the pain and trauma it took to isolate himself from the rest of society. John Darnielle’s Wolf in White Van introduces us to a dark story about Sean Phillips and his experience directly relates to trauma.

This is my essay on how Sean’s tendency to internalize his emotions and thoughts helped him cope with the life-changing incident he suffered at such a young age. I also utilized the Critical Thinking and Reading Resulting in Writing learning outcome because it was critical to dissect the literature and formulate my own interpretations to develop a well rounded piece.

Fiasco Reflection

Dice by flickr user Devin Arndt

Fiasco was one of the most creative exploits I have been a part of. I had no idea what to expect especially because I did not know what exactly was a table-top role playing game. In terms of preparation, my group and I were at most skeptical, with the exception of Jake, who seemed like he had a broader sense of how this game worked. I thought I was more overwhelmed than worried about how this process was going to play out because of the enormity of rules we had to know. Everyone had some idea of how to play, but some had different interpretations than others. In fact, this variance of perspectives is exactly what drew our interest and got the ball rolling. Perhaps this was the essence of the game, we just had to find out for ourselves.

After setting criteria which we all agreed on, the game slowly began to take shape. Emphasis on the word “slowly”. Because no one was completely sure of what was going to happen, there was a tendency to “play safe”. Some of us wanted to keep our actual names for the game but others argued that creating a narrative from scratch might be the point of the game and yield more creative results. With this is mind, my group gradually became more comfortable through discussing the relationships, albeit random, we would be involved in.

I really enjoyed the set up of Fiasco even though it was technically the most time consuming aspect for us. The intricate web of characters and their relationships was exciting to create especially with a group of five students collectively giving their input. With the intention of creating the best story possible, our group dove into a flurry of narrative options while we each played out a scene. I found myself giving and taking advice about everything, which basically helped weed out some options that did not fit into our plot. Sometimes I would listen to the general consensus that I should not kill my client (I was a drug dealer) and other times I would stick to my gut and acquire multiple dangerous weapons to cause chaos and to protect myself.

This freedom of choice could not be more prevalent in Fiasco as the entire objective was to use our choices to impact the overall plot. The availability of choice reminds me of other games we have played that did not necessarily provide it. For example, Dear Esther was a very straight forward, linear type game that did not contain room for creativity and collaboration that Fiasco offers. Another important aspect of the freedom of choice in Fiasco is that it allows multiple scenarios to intertwine without completely complicating the plot line. Of course there is a possibility that a plot revolving around eight or so relationships can get extremely convoluted and confusing, but my group did a great job of walking that fine line between creating an intriguing story while keeping things relatively simple and clear.

During discussions, our professor really emphasized how Fiasco can be seen as an actual form of writing.  In other words, playing Fiasco is equivalent to writing an essay. I agree with this to a point. The idea of forming a well thought out structure that helps guide a story fits perfectly with the objective of Fiasco, but the involvement of several other minds and opinions distinguish the type of writing Fiasco employs. I seem to relate Fiasco more so to our podcast project. The notion of collaboration shines through both the podcast project and Fiasco. Without the collective thoughts of my group, we would not have been able to mold this dramatic and intense story that we are proud of today. Playing Fiasco not only exposed me to an entirely different mode of creative thinking, but it also shed light on how writing is not just a straight forward process.

 

 

 

 

Fiasco Reflection

When our group members first met up, we all had no idea about how to play the game. We gathered at Eagle’s Landing and spent the first hour figuring out the instructions and how to play the game. We searched videos on Youtube and also other instructions online, yet even though we did not fully understand how to play the game, we just gave it a try and improvised until we got our creative juices flowing. We have all never played a play-role game and never experienced the freedom of it. We carved our own game and that was when we realized that the instructions were not so descriptive because we were, in some sense, the gamemakers.

We started getting into the game pretty fast once we figured out the whole instructions dilemma. The setting we selected was the Wild West. Our four characters were Princess Consuela, Frunk Trump, Killary Hilton, and Lucy Kane. I played as Killary Hilton and I was to help Princess Consuela and Lucy Kane on their quest to assassinate Frunk Trump. We wanted to not only save the world but also inherit his fortune. It was honestly such a fun experience because our team members each had different ideas and ways in which we wanted to execute our master plan, and Frunk Trump, played by Daniel, was actually okay with the outcome. There were some points in which he suggested a less brutal way of doing so. Unlike other games, Fiasco players do not really care for their outcome. I can see there is still some friendly competition in the game, but nothing like typical board games. We still want the best outcome for our player yet we did not really put much effort in doing so as we do trying to make a creative and fun story that everyone agrees with.

The plot was definitely a group effort. In terms of relationships, Lucy Kane and Princess Consuela are Chinese Opium dealers/addicts, Consuela and Trump were former crime partners, Trump and Hinton were once reformed criminals that hate each other, and Hinton and Kane are cousins. Princess Consuela’s lover is Frunk Trump. Even though she loves him deeply, his fortune and power is worth more to her, so she ultimately deviates a plan with Kane and Hilton to assassinate him. Frunk Trump is the mayor of this town because he killed the old mayor with a set of colt revolvers. When Trump was at the dentist office trying to fix his cavities, Lucy Kane was selling Opium to the dentist and his patients, which makes the dentist high on opium and allows the Trump assassination team to commence with the plan. Princess Consuela recognizes his partner’s million dollar gold colt revolvers and she kills him with it. I served as the lookout as Consuela and Kane stuffed his enormous body in a sack and put him in the truck’s trunk. When the sheriff was on his way to pick up Frunk Trump, we were already nowhere to be found. Daniel was not that angry that his character died halfway through the plot, yet he still contributed and had some say in how it will play out.

During the car ride, my team gets into an argument about who will keep the money from the colt selling. We could not keep him for ransom because the people hated him anyways and would not pay money to get him back. Princess Consuela wanted the colt to herself so she smacked Lucy Kane in the head. Hilton grabbed the colt revolver and questioned why she did that. In the end, we leave Kane passed out in the middle of nowhere and Consuela ends up dropping the gold revolver in quicksand. We also had sympathy on Frunk Trump and decided that he didn’t die because the bullet only went through his nose.

This game allowed us to develop our own setting, characters, plot and relationships. I thought that his game was very different from any book or video game learning experience I’ve ever had. I learned that allowing people to contribute their ideas in this scene only made the game more interesting and intriguing. Our plot turned out so much better than I expected, and I could not have imagined a better way to unravel the story. My group and I were beyond confused when we started the game, yet we ended up really enjoying our experience. In the end, even when some of our outcomes were better than others, we felt that we all won in some sense because our objective wasn’t keeping our character alive and happy. Instead, we wanted to effectively create a story that we could be proud of.

Fiasco Reflection

My experience was certainly a new one as I had never played a tabletop game before fiasco but overall I can honestly say it was a worthwhile experience and something I could return to in the future. My first impression of fiasco and tabletop games in general was of confusion as I didn’t understand where or what the gameplay was. I didn’t understand that the players create the game in a sense by developing the story and the characters. The main way I prepared to play Fiasco with my group members was to skim the rulebook and to watch the entire wil Wheaton play through of the game. In all honesty, because I watched the entire series I had a decent understanding of the game and this made me the “head” of the game. My other members knew other bits and pieces of the rules and we all created a set of rules where we could follow the story. In order to start the game we really talked over the rules and how to play in each stage of the game. After we made some clarifications we decided to start the game.

We all sat around in the Raoul lounge at about 5:15 PM. We rolled the die and initially there was definitely some hesitation to get into character. Most of us at the start wanted to keep our own names believing it would be easier. However, as we began to tear down some walls of awkwardness we were able to pick up the story. People started throwing out ideas in terms of our created relationship and a story began to slowly develop. Although it seemed very random and confusing at first, we created the basis to start what I may say a classic Fiasco tale. Before I get into the actual plot of our fiasco, I have to comment on the cultural differences between all of the players of the game. Some of our group were not born or lived in the US and so there was definitely some generated confusion among the players. I even at one point used the term “in cahoots” meaning collusion and got some dumbfounded looks by a couple members of our group. Anyway here is how our fiasco went in simplest terms.

The main story was probably based on a feud between a recently divorced couple in which the wife wants to kill the husband. She employs her distant relative who happens her husband’s drug dealer and she pays him in order to kill his husband at the main setting of the mall. Simultaneously, THe drug dealer’s boss is a chemistry student looking to get her masters making money by having a drug empire. She requires validation from her professor but also has some leverage on her. She knows the her professor and the aforementioned husband disposed of a body used for experimentation in the chem lab. Essentially, there were two storylines revolving around a search for disposed the body and the wife trying to murder her husband. This was all to climax at the main setting.

What ended up happening was a very divided ending in which some characters met an unfortunate fate while a couple others ended up on top. The drug dealer missed the husband and instead hit the professor and sher wound was fatal and painful. The husband however was caught in regards to the body and spent the rest of his life in prison inevitably dying. The drug dealer was caught by police however they thanked him for his killing of the suspect. But he was still charged and spent the rest of his life at a high security prison. The wife on the other hand took over the drug business ending up ok and the drug kingpin became the new professor and abandoned her old dirty ways. Overall, I feel this assignment conquered the learning objective of writing as a process. We had to create ideas in order to drive the story forward a process nevertheless. This process allowed us to create an interactive and multi layered thus proving how writing always changes.

Fiasco Reflection

My experience was certainly a new one as I had never played a tabletop game before fiasco but overall I can honestly say it was a worthwhile experience and something I could return to in the future. My first impression of fiasco and tabletop games in general was of confusion as I didn’t understand where or what the gameplay was. I didn’t understand that the players create the game in a sense by developing the story and the characters. The main way I prepared to play Fiasco with my group members was to skim the rulebook and to watch the entire wil Wheaton play through of the game. In all honesty, because I watched the entire series I had a decent understanding of the game and this made me the “head” of the game. My other members knew other bits and pieces of the rules and we all created a set of rules where we could follow the story. In order to start the game we really talked over the rules and how to play in each stage of the game. After we made some clarifications we decided to start the game.

We all sat around in the Raoul lounge at about 5:15 PM. We rolled the die and initially there was definitely some hesitation to get into character. Most of us at the start wanted to keep our own names believing it would be easier. However, as we began to tear down some walls of awkwardness we were able to pick up the story. People started throwing out ideas in terms of our created relationship and a story began to slowly develop. Although it seemed very random and confusing at first, we created the basis to start what I may say a classic Fiasco tale. Before I get into the actual plot of our fiasco, I have to comment on the cultural differences between all of the players of the game. Some of our group were not born or lived in the US and so there was definitely some generated confusion among the players. I even at one point used the term “in cahoots” meaning collusion and got some dumbfounded looks by a couple members of our group. Anyway here is how our fiasco went in simplest terms.

The main story was probably based on a feud between a recently divorced couple in which the wife wants to kill the husband. She employs her distant relative who happens her husband’s drug dealer and she pays him in order to kill his husband at the main setting of the mall. Simultaneously, THe drug dealer’s boss is a chemistry student looking to get her masters making money by having a drug empire. She requires validation from her professor but also has some leverage on her. She knows the her professor and the aforementioned husband disposed of a body used for experimentation in the chem lab. Essentially, there were two storylines revolving around a search for disposed the body and the wife trying to murder her husband. This was all to climax at the main setting.

What ended up happening was a very divided ending in which some characters met an unfortunate fate while a couple others ended up on top. The drug dealer missed the husband and instead hit the professor and sher wound was fatal and painful. The husband however was caught in regards to the body and spent the rest of his life in prison inevitably dying. The drug dealer was caught by police however they thanked him for his killing of the suspect. But he was still charged and spent the rest of his life at a high security prison. The wife on the other hand took over the drug business ending up ok and the drug kingpin became the new professor and abandoned her old dirty ways. Overall, I feel this assignment conquered the learning objective of writing as a process. We had to create ideas in order to drive the story forward a process nevertheless. This process allowed us to create an interactive and multi layered thus proving how writing always changes.

Fiasco Reflection

photo credit to Snow Dragonwyck

I had no idea what to expect when starting Fiasco because I had never played a role playing game before. The worst part was learning how to play. It took about a half hour, which felt an eternity, and led to a few group disputes. We, however, did a good job collaborating because none of us knew the rules perfectly and we combined our knowledge to determine the right rules. We then finalized the starting scene. The first scene started on Commerce Street. The objective of choice was food stamps/welfare check and our need was to get even with a police officer.

Although I did not enjoy setting up, I had a great time playing. I enjoyed creating my own alter ego and creating my own story. We came up with random character names we thought would be cool. I named my character Brian Blunt, and my partners named their characters Walker Smith and Parker Stone. We also came up with moves we thought of on the spot. I would never commit major crimes, but I was curious to see how certain crimes would play out. The crimes ranged from slashing a police car’s tires to creating a Ponzi scheme. These weren’t real crimes, but it was interesting to see how everything turned out in a role-playing situation.

The initial moves were conventional, but took strange turns quickly. The first move was Parker Stone and I smoking marijuana and getting caught by a police officer. By the end of our first turn Brian, my character, was in jail and Parker and Walker were working in a church. The game got stranger after that. Parker and Walker learned that one of the priests was molesting children, but when they spoke up no one believed them and they got fired. I got bailed out and made my own marijuana plant with Parker. Finally, I offered to investigate the pedophile priest for Walker. In the process I got caught, shot and killed and we ended the game. Walker ended up weak, Parker ended up grim and I ended up with “nothing to write home about,” which meant that I ended up where I started. Although I didn’t like that my character died, I enjoyed playing the game and making my own plot.

Some patterns developed while we were playing. We mostly gave each other white die (which meant good outcomes) at the beginning because each of us didn’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings, but progressively became less afraid to give each other black die (which meant poor outcomes) as the game went on. Parker and I also started to gang up on Walker. We gave him black die regardless of what he did. He ended up getting scammed by a Ponzi schemer, getting fired for accusing a priest of a crime and getting arrested for a crime he didn’t commit. Walker did get his revenge, however, the one time I was nice to him. I offered to investigate the priest, and Walker had the priest catch and shoot me. Even though I didn’t like that my character got shot, I knew he deserved it after the way he treated Walker during the game.

This game was more like a podcast than any other form of writing we have completed this semester. Both assignments provided the class and I with a new experience and an alternative way of writing. Most of the writing I did before taking this class consisted of a basic prompt and required components for the essay. Fiasco and the podcasts, on the other hand, gave me freedom and forced me to be creative while still maintaining structure. Fiasco and the podcasts were two of my favorite assignments this semester, and I hope to play Fiasco and complete similar assignments in future classes.

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.

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