Learning Challenge: Lack of Sleep

 Video : What would happen if you didn’t sleep?

In this extra credit HEART challenge, I learnt that getting enough sleep is an essential thing in our lives to maintain our health and sanity. I never knew that not sleeping enough could increase the possibilities to have a stroke as mentioned that a person kept awake for 24 hours watching the world cup and died from a stroke. Lack of sleep could also cause Hallucinations, lack of concentration, short term memory, Hormonal imbalance, dementia,  and diabetes. We as adults should have from 7-8 hours of sleep a day while children need 10 hours of sleep a day. 

Sleep Deprived

Growth Mindset: CATs

 This is the first cat I chose because of how the message is conveyed through this cat blog post. In order to develop, have a growth mindset, and become intelligent just use your brain.

Using Brain

Tech Tip: Google Map

 I love Dubai. One of the favorite places I have visited. Khalifa Tower is huge and I was amazed of how huge and tall it was.

Here is the Google Map:

Feedback Strategies

Articles:

1. The Difference Between Praise and Feedback 
2. How to Give Feedback Without Sounding Like a Jerk
3. How to get past negativity bias

The articles I have read were useful. I learnt that when giving feedback we should be careful of what we say and whatever we say it should be in a polite way and enthusiastic. The first article I chose was mentioned in it that when giving feedbacks to kids or praising them for what they did has to be with love and affection to make them feel appreciated. Instead of saying "good job", you can say "you are really good at what you do, you must be clever" and this way it makes want to learn more, have a growth mindset. In the other article, It mentioned that when giving feedback to someone with criticism it should be said in a way that encourages the person to exert more effort in what he/she and try harder in the future to become successful because if a negative feedback is given in a rude way, the person could feel upset, down, and never focus on becoming better or developing as the third article I chose from week 3 mentioned . I think giving feedback is important but we should be careful in how we say it because the person could be encouraged to learn more and put effort in the future to achieve his/her best or the person could be discouraged and never try to learn more and thinks he/she is never enough. In my school years, during a presentation I always ask my friends to give me feedback for how I spoke, what areas I need to improve, and if I presented well or not and they always tell me what things I was good in and what other things I need to improve; this encouraged me to improve my presentation skills and other areas I need to improve. I also did the same with my friends and always gave them feedback in what things they are good at and what not in a way that they feel they are doing well but need to put more effort in order to become successful. I will definitely be giving more feedbacks this year, especially in group projects.

Giving Feedback

Game Idea Research

 In this week's Project Task, I have decided to choose the racing car game idea I talked about in last week's blog post for the game brainstorming. The game I thought about designing is basically a truck moving through a street while avoiding the objects it passes by in a specific time given and the car can only move left and right and the player can use the space bar to stop the car and if the player hit a box or did not complete the race in the time being the game will be over and the player will lose the round. The first mechanic is that the truck should pass the street without hitting the boxes. The second mechanic is that there will be a time given to finish the race or the stage and if it ends before the player gets to the end of the race, the player will lose. The third mechanic is that the truck has to slow down whenever it has to move left or right to make a drift because if the truck turns away from the street, the player will lose.

Sources:

1. This You Tube link shows a racing car game that is similar to my game idea I want to design. It is about performing tasks in a specific amount of time.

https://youtu.be/azxraHJBoJ8

2. This link shows 20 different racing car games:

https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/best-racing-games-20261

Truck Racing Game

Unity Tutorial 02

 In this unity tutorial task, I have learnt how to make the vehicle move horizontal or vertical with the exact coding for it. I also now know how to change the speed of the car to make it faster or slower. I really enjoyed the result of what I did when I tried playing it and I was surprised that it turned out very fun and enjoyable. These tutorials at first were hard and complicated to comprehend but after practicing and doing more tutorials, it became easier and understandable. It really amazes me how the coding could change the state of the vehicle, how it can move, and in which way it can go. The challenge made everything clear since it is the same as the first four lessons of the unity tutorials. I am excited to develop my game idea, start designing it, and start with seeing how it could be played and designed using unity. I know I am going to mess up at first and will not know what to do but I could always go back to the tutorials to help me in designing my game and knowing what code to use and how to use it in unity for creating the game. This is really exciting and I am looking forward for the next tutorial tasks so I can start with designing my own game for the project.

Unity

Game Elements

 In this reading task, the papers were beneficial and explained a lot about how to design a game and what steps to begin with when designing a game. The game elements are important when thinking about the game and if the designer forgot one of them then the game would not be complete and there will be something that is missing because every game element relevant to each other. When designing a game, the first thing that is supposed to be done is drawing a design on a piece of paper. This will help the designer in viewing the game, seeing how it will be played, and trying the game in many different ways with different players. Also, another way for prototyping is to play the game using your body. This is an easier way to view how the game will be designed. Prototyping is a step that helps in evolving the initial idea, and helps the designer to keep on track. Missing one game element will ruin the game and could change the other game elements.

Prototyping

Items of Interest:

1. https://meliorgames.com/game-development/testing-a-game-prototype-step-by-step/ 

This is a link that teaches step by step in testing a game prototype. It is very beneficial and shows the importance of prototyping before designing the actual game.

2. http://gamedesigntools.blogspot.com/p/game-design-methods.html

This link shows various game design methods, which helps in designing a game in whatever method a designer prefers to do.

3. https://www.gamecareerguide.com/features/1415/the_game_design_process.php

This shows the process for designing a game in 6 stages and explaining what happens in each stage with details.