Task9 Reflection

We had a brainstorming before deciding the game of task 9.
My first game is moved to task 7 so that I had to figure out another game.
It's really difficult to take care of everything. 
When one task is done, other problems occur. 
The game is supposed to design to fit for adult players and have connection to the story about three kingdoms and romantic elements.

With Emma Wang's help I combined the game of Big Wind Blow and storytelling relay.
In the end of the story, I add the element of The Butterfly Lovers to increase some romantic atmosphere in the end of the story. In the second gameplay, we did have a great start. Ha says Zhou Yu and Little Chao had twins. But when it was Nadia’s turn, she seemed to encounter some problems in her computer that make her cannot be heard clearly. So we had silence for eight seconds. And much silence in Himits’ turn. Though I told Hazel that she doesn’t have to help us in task9, she does help a lot.

It is not easy to design a game online, but I think we could make it better and funny. We have to care the complexity of the tasks and to think of the potential risk of physical facilities breakdown.

And then I thought of the essay we read in the mid of semester. It emphasize on the significance of preteaching. To have knowledge of cultural background is very important for gameplayers to get in the game. Maybe we could design the game based on the story outline of western folklore and the elements of Chinese stories.

Task 9 Game Design

　　Originally, I want to play the game like Big Wind Blow. We decided to build some cubes, and assign who should take which cube. For example, the one has ears attached in his or her outfit should sit on the red cube. After everyone gets the seat, they would form a heart shape while looking down in the air.

However, this idea is not really suitable for the last task. We keep the mode of storytelling relay. In the first gameplay, most of the players don’t know what to do due to the lack of clear directions. To let them get into the situation and control the plot of the ending story, we built a circle of cube. Three of them are colored and separated with other three white cubes. This design could make sure that the story plot would follow a certain path and ensure that we don’t waste too much time on thinking plots.

The following are lines of task 9.

NH: OK, I will start the story with three sentences, and the one on my left should say another three sentences to continue the story, is everybody ready? OK, then we can start from 外生1, what happened after Zhou Yu and Little Chao get married?

外生1: ---------

ZY: However, after two years marriage, Sun Ce(孫策), husband of  Little Chao's sister is assassinated by 曹操's comrade. Little Chao is worried about that Zhou Yu may suffer from the same fate, keep asking him not to go to the field.

外生2: ---------

LC: Though quarreling over whether he should go to the war many times,  Zhou Yu still join Battle of Redcliff.(赤壁之戰) All Little Chao can do is to wait in their empty house. She thinks of the song Zhou Yu used for proposal and sings it very often.

NH: Now 外生3, could you sing that song and continue our story?

外生3: --------

NH: The battle of Redcliff ends; fortunately, Zhou Yu is alive. On his way to home, he gets infected by a disease and dies. His corpses is sent home and Little Chao is infected and dies too. They are buried in a forest together. Amazingly, many butterflies gather on their graves, and gently files away with a light spinning on the sky. That's a wonderful story, thank you for your help to finish it.

CLASS VIDEO

Here it is. My job is to cut my own group's work and to link all three groups' video together as well.

SOUND EFFECT FROM LEO

task 7 game design

   In my part, I have designed the scene of our place which is in the forest.

              And actually, we adopt the fairy tales of “beauty and beast”, and hottie is demon who transformed zhouyu into fox appearance. And as the game designers, we need to design a game to figure out the place where zhouyu is. And this place need not only be safe to prevent zhouyu being found out but also be convenient to reach. As a result, we choose the big bell tower as the ideal place.

And I make a dynamic diary which is belonged to Hottie, and I also made up a short diary which contain the clues and hints which can know where Zhouyu is.
And the diary also was adopted from the story of Cinderella, I think the transformation of NH appearance is magic and romance. And the diary also record NH's romantic love story with her ex. And it can also tell that why NH want to break relationship between little chao and Zhouyu for she cannot get love from her ex so she want little chao neither.

Furthermore, I conceived the answer is the big bell tower where is near the place of diary and those who are not familiar with the area cannot figure out the tower, so the tower is the best point and safest place for us to hide zhouyu. And after combining the words behind those three “TWIX”, we can get three words---big bell tower, where ZY is.

And I design my appearance with a torch and a lantern on hair which can lead them to the tower. And such orange and pink dress may meet the demand of the most beautiful woman.

Story Teller Reflection

Being a story teller in The Romance of Three Kingdom is more challenging and interesting for me than the game keeper, because I got more chances to work with my classmates, the foreigner students, and also with Professor Liang. As a story teller, I think I am responsible for reinforcing the spirit of Second Life: that there are many ways to tell story, what we see is not real, what we experience does not necessarily exists. And these kind of unreality and nonexistence allow the players in Second Life to have more imagination and even more freedom to deal with their real life.

I need to admit that in the beginning I was quite confused about the plan of each individual character. But I know the function of the story teller is to lead the foreign students through the play and understand more about The Romance of Three Kingdom with interaction in Second Life. It cost me quite a while to understand the ideas and plans of all the classmates. And I think I did it ok when cooperating with all the students. I actually enjoy the time when we were brain storming with professor and the students, because we need to be creative as well as practical, be flexible as well as a little persistent.

Different participants have different reaction in the game. The students in the first project are more cooperative and willing to talk, the reason is that we are all familiar with each other. But for the second project, I was a little frustrated, because not all of the foreign students were that into the game, and the silence made the game kind of lagging and confusing. This little failure did tell us that our communication and problem solving abilities still have room to improve. Also, this tells us the importance of preparation, we'd better understand the foreign students' culture, language level, responses to online game. I did that with the first group of foreign students, and the result proved the efficacy of preparation. 

Simultaneous reaction is required as a storyteller, i need to be observant enough to detect the problem of every game. For example, in Cao Cao's puzzle, the usage of the word "heart" misled the students. We spent quite a while tried to explain the puzzle, but in vain. And then I found that the students focus on the nature of heart such as affection and emotion. I decided to change the word into "mind', focusing more on idea and thoughts. Turns out the students were finally able to get the answer. I would say that experience helps sharping the ability of simultaneous reaction. 

Overall, this is a helpful project for us to have multi-learning environment, I do think this project will has a long-term influence on different aspect in our life such as learning, creating, and communicating.

That is what i mean:different aspect of life

Reflection (Gossiper)

Based on the history background of The Three Kingdom, I become a gossiper who not only help Guan Yun Chang to overcome challenges through the whole game, but also tell them the extraordinary affairs of the characters in the Three Kingdoms.

As a partner of storyteller, although we are both like tour guides to tell Guan Yun Chang where to go, what to do and how to do, we are totally different in many aspect. In appearance, contrary to the serious image of Storyteller, I only wear gold gossamer on top and an exaggerated red skirt to show the image of showiness. In addition, the way we speak is extremely different. Storyteller tell the stories written in the history, however, what gossiper say is like the gossip spreading on the street or the rumor just for attracting people’s notice.

There are two main missions for storyteller and gossiper in the journey of the Tree Kingdoms. For me, the hardest thing is to be a guide. In the first time, I sent Guan Yun Chang notecards which are maps with the location of three different kingdoms, however, it is hard for them to understand how to use the coordinates to go to next spot and it costs much more time than we assume. Therefore, in the second time, we just use the function of offering teleport. It is much easier for them to click the bottom in the conversation box to move to the destination.

Besides, the most important task for us is to make the atmosphere bustling. When there is an awkward lack of response from the participants, we have to say something related or give hints to them. For example, in task seven, Getting a Clue, when Guan Yun Chang does not understand how to find the place where Zhou Yu is depending on the hint that it is following her favorite chocolate, we tell them to find the name of the chocolate in the diary, and then after they find out the first one, we read the diary again for them and emphasize the word following “twix” making the answer come out.  

In conclusion, it is really interesting to create our own Utopia according to the Romance of Three kingdoms and also to interact with international students by cosplaying the Chinese ancients. And to the international students as challengers, they pay more attention to the keepers’ stories making them learn more about Chinese history and culture while crashing through the barriers. After the journey, they get not only the feeling of achievement but also the knowledge of Chines history.    

Story Teller & Gossiper Transcript

Transcription

Preface

ST: Um, welcome to the tea house. I am the storyteller um. Here is the story of today, called “Romance of Three Kingdom”

GO: Hey! Don’t forget me. I’m the most informed gossiper in the world. I know all the stories that no one knows about three kingdoms.

ST: Uh, the map shows 1200 years ago when the world was ruled by three evenly matched kingdoms. Each kingdom has a great leader to guide them to victory. The great leaders are Chao Chao of Wei kingdom, Liu Bei of Shu kingdom, and Sun Quan of Wu kingdom.

 GO:I ‘ll send you the the notecard with map. Ok, I’ll send you later.

GO: Great leaders? Let me tell you the truth. Liu Bei was just a vender selling straw sandals on the street. Sun Quan who inherited the throne after his brother was killed is just a rich second generation. And, Chao Chao is the most short-tempered man that I have known.

ST: Uh uh, that’s nonsense. As the stories usually happened, we find water where the fires are; we find peace in the war, we find romance in legends, and we find facts with fabrications. Here is the thing we are going to do today, I am going to take you back into the history. So listen carefully: Three of you are going to play as a hero named Guan Yun Chang at that time, Himit as Guan，Nadya as Yun, Ha as Chang.

 GO: You don’t know who he is, right? Guan Yun Chang is a brave warrior with a red face and a long black beard. With his single-edged sword, no one can be his competitor. Lucky you, huh?

 ST: This journey is meant to take you to experience the history, you will learn from the people with wisdom, you will be challenged by the warrior, and you will witness the romance of the three kingdoms. During the journey, if you have any problem, you can turn to me. Uh, Goldmountain, and also Storyteller. I’ll do my best to help you.

 GO: Okay, can we just skip the cliché opening? I can’t wait any more!

 ST: (hemming) Attention! The journey is going to begin.

GO: Okay, now I send you the message. You can open your conversation box to see that

ST: Okay, so uh Nadya, Ha and Himit, you can just follow me. Follow uh Goldmountain

GO: We are going to move to the first stop.

ST: Nadya~
NA: Yes.
ST: Can you see Goldmountain?
NA: I’m looking for you now. Where are you?
ST: Uh A guy with glasses. Ya

GO: Or you can follow me, the woman with red dress.
NA: Okay, I tell you are a man.
GO: Walk out the door.

Scene 1: Wei Kingdom outside Chao Chao’s Tent

ST: Okay, here is our first stop, the camp of Wei kingdom. They say the emperor of Wei--Chao Chao--is a cunning, merciless villain; I say he is a formidable, brilliant, and determined. He is the hero of the time. I am personally one of the fans of Chao Chao, so I think his kingship is justified and deserved.

 GO: Oh, come on. You don’t have to be so pretentious. Did he pay you for that? Honestly, Chao Chao that old man is just a drunk always singing weird song. See~

 (A Short Song Ballad comes out)

GO: Do you hear the song?

GO: See. I told you~ Speak of the drunk, and he’s here now.

S: Aren’t you the great King? What is that with the long face, Chao Chao?

 CC: You know why I was called the mighty Chao Chao? It is because of my ability to recruit the best heroes in the world? But now I found it very hard even just to get one person to help me. Oh god, if someone shows up I will be like the Duke of Zhou to embrace him. Alas, mountains will not complain to be tall, ocean will not complain to be deep.I will accept anyone that joins me.

ST: I come at the right time. I bring you three talented people. They are the trusted bothers of shu’s king. But now they are separated from their Big Brother. They come to you to surrender. You can put them in your army if you like.

CC: (Sigh) It is a pity to live in the time of turmoil, but if we can turn turmoil into peace, it is something worth our praise. Now show me our new heroes, I will challenge them with some questions to see if they are suitable.

Task1-Task2

GO: Let’s go to the see

GO: Let’s walk out the door. Follow the girl with red dress. We have to fly here. Nonononono, we don’t have to fly. Himit you can fly. You can press the F, and you can fly

HI: Where is the lake lady?

GO: Do uh Do you see a bed?

ST: A bed and a boat.

GO: Ya, okay.
ST: Nadya! You need to walk out

NA: Ya.

ST: that thing

CL: Okay, can you hear me?

GO: Yes, clearly

(laugh)

Taks2-Task3

GO: Okay, let’s go to the um small house and we need to fly now. To fly to the right side of the house we stayed before.
NA: Follow the Himit’s?

GO: Yes, follow the girl with red dress. Wee can fly now. Go fly!

HI: Oh~
GO: Are Is everybody flying now?

HA: mm

GO: Yes? And You see a wooden house? Just in the right side of the house we stayed before.

HA: Ya.

GO: Okay, here, just stop flying.

GO: Okay.
ST: 我看到你了

GO: Nadya, Are you here?

NA: Ya,ya.

GO: Okay~

GO: So, everybody is here now?

NO: Everybody is here?

GO: Ya.

Scene 2: Shu Kingdom under the White Cherry Blossom Tree

ST: Okay, according to the written history, Guan Yun Chang found he missed his Big Brother in Shu kingdom after serves a while for Chao Chao. So he asks to leave from Wei back to Shu.

 GO: What a loyal man! What a lovely story! A man conquered all the difficulties just for gathering with his big brother. Oh~my tears almost burst out!

ST: So now, here is our next stop which is the Shu camp.And then

NA: We are fly.

ST: Uh we will teleport you to the spot. Leo!

CF: I already send the class.

ST: Can us teleport us. Okay, nice.

GO: Later we will teleport you.

GO: Wait a minute.
ST: Okay,so uh Nadya, I’ll teleport you to the. Uh, no, not Nadya.

GO: Himit, I send you a message and you can click it.You will see the teleport.

HI: Ya. I’ve tel

GO: And Ha, I send you a message,too. You can click the teleport.

GO: And Nadya, wait.

NA: Yes.

GO: Nadya, I also send you a teleport. Do you see the message?

NA: Ya.

GO: Okay, we are here now.

CF: You are all here?

GO: Ya.
ST: Ya, so we are going to testify the loyalty of Guan Yun Chang his Big Brother Liu Bei, so three of you need to be prepared for the challenges and questions.

GO: So, Let me check everybody is here now.

GO: Himit is here.

HI: Ya.

GO: Ha is here.

HA: Ya.

ST: And Nadya is here.

CF: Okay, so I’m starting, right?

ST: Yes.

Task5-Task 6

GO: Let’s go find the big brother.

Himit: Ok

KM: I fall down on the floor

ST: Just go up the slope go up the slope follow goldmountain, go up the slope

KM: Ok, follow goldmountain. I get lost

GO: There is a bridge

ST: There is a big gate. Go up, follow the red dress girl go up

ST: Yeah, Himit, you are here

Perlie: 動不了

ST: ok, so where is Ha and Nadya, Ha, you got to fly to the gate, fly to… can you see a big skull? The Gate. Come up

Nadya: I think I get lost

ST: You got lost? Nadya.

Nadya: Yeah, I am flying back, I am flying back, I flied to the see, I am flying back now. Yeah.

ST: Oh, you are here. So Ha are you here? oh yeah, everybody’s here.

Ending

ST: Okay, I think you’ve already passed all the challenges. Thank you all for participant this adventurous history.

ZY: You can stand.

ST: We hope you to understand more about Romance of the Three Kingdoms. I haven’t trusted the wrong ones. You are the best Guan Yun Chang (關雲長) ever!

GO: That’d right! You are the best, bravest and smartest man that I’ve seen! I gonna tell everybody your honor! See you someday! Don’t forget I’m the most informed man in the world! And now we are going to take a group photo to finish the diary. So, teleport back to the first place, Robert can you teleport us?

GO: Okay, wait a minute, I will teleport you.

(Class Photo)

Task 6 reflection

Our story is the romance of the three kingdoms, which is such a famous Chinese story that everyone knows it. On top of that, almost every boy has imagined that he were a general in the three kingdom period and killed enemies and enemy generals for the glory of his kingdom and brought victory to his king. It’ a chaotic dynasty that every king got a chance to be the ruler of China. So it’s really fascinating that we could choose it as our topic of these games and, as a game creator, I can take a role in this story.

I’m responsible for the task 6 “Big brother’s sandals. Honestly, I didn’t expect I will play a game like this. But, when I was assign Liu Bei I began to think that what kind of game I can create for such a character like Liu Bei. Then straw sandals came across my mind. Yes, Liu Bei was selling straw sandals when he was young. And, this time he has lost his beloved brother, Yun Chang. So I suppose that he must be very sad and suffer from an emotional breakdown and can’t be a king anymore. On this account, he chooses to sell sandals again and goes back to who he was in a mood that maybe he will meet Yun Chang again. And when they meet again, their brotherhood must be recovered to what it once was when they first met.  At the end, it turned out to be a very funny game. An old man selling sandals and he’s so stupid that he can’t tell the price.

In addition to what I did in my game, I also helped Mita to create the objects in her task. Which is pretty funny, too. When we were play the game, I thinks the biggest obstacle I met is that I can’t properly make international student figure out what I mean. Maybe next time we just attach the rules to an object or something, haha. Anyway, I think there’s much to improve in my task and I think next time I can get It better, if I get a chance to play a game like this some day.

task 5 reflection

I never play a game of virtual reality. Therefore, at the beginning, I am excited about playing Second life. I create an avatar who is a woman and to my surprise I can change the gender of my player anytime anywhere. When I log in this game I realize that it is indeed the virtual reality. Everything here looks like true things in our daily life. And then, we have to design a role-play gaming for international students. We choose “Romance of Three Kingdoms” as our topic. It is a story of Chinese history and we have to present a brand new feeling by Second life.

I am responsible for the task 5, at the first time the game is "Supporting the front" which is a easy game that asks international students to collects the Chinese items. Although the game run smoothly, teacher advises me to change the game. After the discussions with teacher, I change the game into “Jumping over the peg.” It is a chess game which is interesting and has relationship with my character. My character is KM who shows all his loyalty to his master in his life. Therefore, his personality is loyal and dedicated. Besides, he is a planer full of wisdom. As a result, his appearance is simple and pure and so does his house. He spends much of his time playing the chess game in order to training himself thinking and having different strategies. Therefore, the goal is to remove pegs from the board by jumping over each peg with another peg; this removes the "jumped" peg. The game is over when no more jumps are possible. You win the game by removing all the pegs except one from the board. A perfect game would leave one peg in the center position. However, the process of playing this game is not really smoothly because the rule is too complex. In fact, although I explain the rule a lot of times, they still feel a little confused. And it also makes me feel frustrated. It is a pity that there is no chance for me to improve the game. But they think this game is interesting so it makes me feel better.  

After playing this game with international students, I learned not only about the functions and skills of Second Life, but also the skills to design a good game. As the designer of the game, we often have difficulty in explaining the game clearly. Besides, when the players don’t follow the instruction and rules and behave active interacting with us, the game will have some problems. Therefore, we can learn a lot from this project just like the ability to solve problems and how to make the participant have interest in our game. For me, it is a special and interesting experience to visualize our dramatic spirit through this game and also a rare chance to interact with foreign students

Task 6 transcription

1:39~6:55 

He :hellgunner ST: storyteller G:gossiper H: himit N: nadia Ha: ha

He: OK, can you hear me?

H: yeah

N: Yes

He: OKOK

He: Ok, let’s begin. Yuan Chang, is that you? I have been believing that you would come back to me once again, now you are… Wait, how do I know you are my brother, Yuan Chang? Maybe you are just an assassin of Cao Cao who disguise as him! If you want me to trust you, you have to play a game and clear it to show me your loyalty. OK, then I will explain how to play this game. I will say two Chinese sentences which describe the colors and prices of the sandals on these objects. You have to move these objects to which these sandals attached into a logical order from left to right. Left cheaper, right more expensive. OK, can you understand?

ST: Let me explain the rules. Ummm…. Suppose that you all learned some Chinese before you come to the three kingdoms. And so Liu Bei because he usually… he used to sell sandals in front of the gate, so now he’s going to sell it, and he’s going to say two or three Chinese sentence with logic, and you need to arrange the sandals with logic. For example, from the cheapest to the most expensive. So can you understand? Can anybody answer me? Nadia?

Nadia: Yeah yeah, I’m here.

ST: Can you understand what we are going to do?

Nadia: Not fully understand. I’m not fully undertand.

ST: Not fully understand. Ummm…OK

G: So we… we have to put the order from the……..

He: OK I will say two….

G: We have to… Liu Bei, you can say the..

He: I have… I will say two Chinese sentence to describe the colors…you see the sandals? Which have colors, right? The price. Which is more expensive or which is cheaper? And… I will say these in Chinese. So you have to move these objects into an order from left to right. Left, cheaper. Right, more expensive. OK?

N: OK. The red? Cheaper than… From cheaper…

He: Yeah. From left to right. Right, the cheapest. Left, the cheapest. Right, the most expensive.

ST: And Liu Bei will say…

He: I will say…

ST: Tell you the prize.

He: yes yes. I will tell you in Chinese. So you have to… Can you understand Chinese?

ST: You just say it, just say it.

G: We will figure it out.

He: OK, 藍色比紅色便宜,then, 黑色最貴.

N: Oh.

ST: 藍色比紅色便宜, and 黑色最貴.

He: Yes.

ST: So which one should be on the left, on the very left side?

G: Left is the cheapest one.

ST: OK, so I think we got the answer, right?

He: OK, congratulation.

N: 藍

He: Yeah, 藍色

N: the cheapest.

He: Yeah, yeah

ST: 藍色比紅色便宜

N: I mean this, Blue, blue one.

ST: 藍色比紅色便宜, so it’s the cheapest one.

He: Yes.

ST: The most expensive one. So we got the answer right?

He: Yes, congratulations.

G: Congratulations. Oh do you know what the man he is? That is the king of the kingdom 蜀. Now, it’s really a hard time even the king has to sell sandals in front of the gate of his own castle