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.

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.    

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

Task3- Reflection

Task3-Reflection 

101102020 Tiffany 陳季荷

Our project is "The Romance of Three Kingdoms", which is composed of Wei, Su, and Wu kingdoms. Our story mixes the historical events with romantic imagination, creating our own version of Three Kingdoms. Each student portraits a historical person and designs a game. We play the game twice and have invited total of six foreign students to join our project.

My role is an unimportant soldier named Nobody. My task is Carrot Squats, which is also a funny game. Since the first two tasks are more serious, we want to put some relaxing element in it. Originally my game is to combine gestures and numbers. They have to say the number when doing the gesture. Two people cannot say the same number at the same time. However, after the first experience, I find it difficult to play this game in Second Life because the lack of eye contact. It is hard to have two people say the same number. Therefore, I change the game. In the second time, foreign students need to repeat the gestures I do and say the name of it. I think this time it goes much more smoothly than the first time. This time I slowly explain to them how to do the gesture, so they won’t be confused like the students of first time. Yet we do face other problem. One of the student’s computer had some problems that she couldn’t do the gesture. Eventually, we let her guess the name of the gesture so she can participate in as well.

The three gestures I choose are bow, laughing, and whistle. It is different from my original plan, but I decide to go something easier in the last minute. I think it works well. The students know which gesture it is immediately. Whistle, the last gesture, makes the game more interesting. In the end everyone is laughing.

The first time we encounter some problems but we are able to finish the game in time. After it, we revise our script and adjust our games to make it easier for foreigner students. The second time we still face some problems, but overall everything goes well. I think our project is quite successful.

Through this project, I realize how challenging communication can be. Sometimes I explain the rules many times but they just couldn’t get it. Sometimes they don’t give any response. I think it’s not only about improving English but also changing the way of explaining. I learn some techniques of communicating through this project.

 

Reflection- Sunnie

“Second life” is an extraordinary game imitating human behavior in the online world. We can create and dress up avatars as various kinds. In this class, we intent to construct a story which adapts to the Chinese history and present a brand new atmosphere with modern elements.

I am responsible for the task 2 which is treasure hunt. My character is Chung Liao who shows abundant royalty to the great leader, Chao Chao. Besides, he is a smart general coming up with a great plan to fight against rivals. As a result, his words sounds brawny, wise and honorable. The hiding tools are sword, helmet and glasses in the first version. And Chung Liao is set beside a huge boat in the port. In the first rehearsal, the international students, Frisky, Japan and Elsa, succeeded in finding out my hiding objects in Chao Chao’s house. However, they could not take them as I assumed. Afterwards, I realized that I should set the access for others. It’s a good process to learn functions in parallel with playing.   

        In second playing with Himit, Ha and Nadia. New elements were added in the revised version of treasure hunt. In addition to finding objects, the players also needed to learn how to use “take” and “wear” functions as avatars. To improve the mistake last time– the objects should be allowed for new owners. I asked classmates to help me test the object’s access in advance. Fortunately, there were two players (Himit & Ha) succeeded in finding out and taking objects during the games. Furthermore, they followed my instruction as follows to wear on them. ‘First, you click “inventory” which is the third one on the left side of your screen. Then open “object” folder and choose the object and click it. And you will wear it!’ In the end, one of them (Ha) made it. Another one (Himit) also wore a thing on, though he wore not a helmet but a box.

In these two playing, I learned not only about the details and complicated functions of Second Life, but also about the difficulty to operate a good game online.Sometimes, we as host in the game did not explain clearly. On the other hand, the players may not follow the instruction or not be active much in interacting with guides. These reasons all affect the game a lot. And it was a special experience to visualize our fancy and learn professional English phrases while playing. 

Task4: Reflection

This semester we as a class group has selected "The Romance of Three Kingdoms" as our topics on   

the Second Life. Personally because I was not in the discussion of the topics, but I find myself in

favor of this topics a lot. It is just a huge topic along with rich knowledge behind it that happened

long before in the real life that I think is essential to our purpose of playing the Second Life.

I did not only want to do something crazy and imaginary here but instead,  I would rather do 

something that is somehow helpful for both us and the international students to understand at least a 

little bit of Chinese culture.


And to be frank I think I did ok in my part, I helped constructing the storyline with my background 

knowledge of the Three Kingdoms, building the entire frame, platform for my group in a somehow 

creative way. Due to my experience of the Youth Ambassador to Belize and also Chinese Tea 

House, I choose to design my game relatively in an easier way. I hope that everyone could 

understand my game in a short time and obtain the story of 桃園三結義 that I would wanted to tell, 

through a way that could also learn some practical skills such as PinYin.

It worked quite well actually, I got two videos work fluently and they all come up with some 

interesting Pin Yin, like Pao (袍子) is really surprising me that I could not even understand the 

meaning of it because to me I thought it is a difficult word to learn. I think that my strategy of 

playing an easy game is helpful for both me operating the game and also the international students to 

feel a bit joyful of the journey. I would recommend that there are so many upcoming technologies 

about virtual reality and I found it more interesting and futuristic that we as student may needed to 

learn.

Task 8 reflection

      My game is to ask everyone singing that love song with me in order to accomplish my proposal. I came up with this idea when I knew we can upload music to Second Life. I thought that if we can hear music in Second Life, including speaking, then singing game probably would be a good task for our group. However, during preparation, I realized it was not that simple as I thought before. I was not familiar with the functions in Second Life enough, every function seemed a huge challenge for me. When the teacher told us that we are the key for the whole story, I felt stressful, because I didn’t know how to make it well. I studied the textbook, testing it many times to upload my music. After several failure, I noticed the codes TA gave was wrong, and I tried to correct it. I had the sense of accomplishment.

      However, the biggest challenge is not the preparation, but the interaction with international students. How to carry out our tasks became the most difficult problem. Although all of us were very familiar with the love song 《Would you marry me》, the international students were not. Teaching them how to sing the song was not easy as I thought. If not others sing with international students, my task would totally a failure. The climax in my task was my transformation. In the first time, it was totally disaster, because no one saw me become human from fox. As a result, I knew there had to be a stage for audience to see us, because international students were not familiar with us. Then, we took teacher’s advice, using the incantation and animation to catch people’s attention, and that pretending the first time didn’t work. With the modification, second time was more successful than the first time. I noticed some international students were surprised at the animation.

       To sum up, the activities were big deals for all of us to accomplish. We need brain storming, to amaze everyone, to create interesting games. After the project, I learned a lot of knowledge and information from the different field which I would never intend to know. I learned how to negotiate with group members and to compromise as well. All of these make me stronger to face the next challenge which could much more difficult than this.  

task 7 reflection

           The Reflection of Second Life

      It is really special and impressive experience from designing the plot to playing the games with different international students twice.

To be honest, as second life is an online game which is not an easy job for the students who involved in online learning rarely. Fortunately, tutor transformed such tedious and strange challenge into an online play which contained plots, games, story, virtual characters etc. It is worth to mention that all the ideas are designed by us and we also adopted a famous historic story and combined it with some other fairy tales, for instance, the idea of our group is spirited from the story named Beast and Beauty.

 Furthermore, we also designed our clothing and scene according to the plot and the features of our characters. As for our part, it takes place in the forest which has a big bell tower nearby. Because the last part of the plot is a kind of romantic story, so the beautiful scene is really suit for the background of the story. Furthermore, it is obvious that the diary from Hottie who is a demon with magic is the love story with her ex, and the beautiful scene can make the story more impressive. As a result, the forest is the perfect and ideal place let alone the big bell tower is the place where Zhouyu hided which means we made good use of the benefit of our place.

Besides, I think this class also taught the importance of rehearsal. We have done the process from part 1 to part 3 twice. After the first time which seem to play a role of rehearsal, we realize and correct the shortages occur in the first time and we can feel that we make a great progress in the last time. After that, the processes are more smooth and the order more regular than the first time so that we can sure that everyone get involve in and make it clear to the international students who were confused last time. For example, at the first time, I lead them to the bell tower spent a lot of time because they get lost while the second time we can go to destination efficiently. And I think it provides us experience that we should do rehearsal before the formal one no matter when we are students or workers.

All in all, after those two classes, we get a great deal of abilities. We know how to design our dressing and the area in second life as our like, and learn how to be a great director and figure out a creative play let alone learning English when we use second life to communicate with foreigners. 

Task 1 Reflection Robert

The scene of our project is based on the “Romance of Three Kingdoms (三國演義)”, this is very famous Chinese romance about the conflict between three kingdoms, the “Wei Kingdom(魏國)”, the “Su Kingdom(蜀國)” and the “Wu Kingdom (吳國)” together struggling to become the only emperor of China after the fall of Han Dynasty (漢朝). Although this is a Chinese classic, the plot is lengthy so considering the possibility of doing it we adopt only the most thrilling scenes and characters.

Figure 1 The Leader of Wei Kingdom Cao Cao

I was assigned to the “Wei Kingdom(魏國)” and I chose to become the Wei leader Cao Cao (曹操). The first challenge for me is how to portray this character. As many readers of the romance know, Cao Cao is described as a cunning and hypocritical villain. However, if we view him at a different point he is also considered as the most influential ruler. Cao Cao is one of the leaders during the Romance of three Kingdoms. Cao Cao was originally called the Cao minister (曹丞相) because he saved the young emperor of Han dynasty. Although Cao Cao did not claim himself to be the emperor he is actually the one who had the power over the last emperor of Han dynasty. In order to represent the role of Cao Cao, I had my avatar dressed in Cheongsam (長衫/旗袍) that had a golden dragon sewed on it to show the character’s status and influence. In ancient China dragon is considered as the symbol of power and only emperor can have dragon sewed on his garments. Most importantly, I chose to represent Cao Cao in a female figure because I attempt to re-define the character.

Figure 2 Cao Cao is thought to be the most influential leader

The second challenge of this project is to come up with the script. This is not an easy task because the words or sentences used by particular characters have to match with their personalities based on historical recordings. As a result, I adopted many famous quotations by Cao Cao such as “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(生於亂世是為不幸，但如能變亂為治，豈非不幸中之大幸！)” Moreover, I marked many intonation alterations to match the personality of Cao Cao on my script.

Last but not least, I think the program Second Life needs some technical upgrades and improvements. Many of its functions require higher techniques to perform certain actions such as coding; it is extremely hard for beginners to get used to it. Moreover, many of the design like the way of changing clothes is also very complicated which may take a lot of time for beginners.

Furthermore, I think Second Life requires a lot of communication strategies as well as patience because we are all players in the virtual so how to interact with the others depend deeply on the way we instruct verbally. I think this is very hard especially when you are doing something that is not English because it requires many explanations to it. For example, the scene of our project is “The Romance of Three Kingdoms” so we have to adopt many Chinese culture and sayings. This is not only very hard for foreign students to understand the meaning behind each game we designed but also difficult for us to express something that is originally Chinese. However, I think it is during the explanations between us and the foreign students that we learned ways to communicate with others using communication skills. 

After all, I think our project on the “Romance of Three Kingdoms” is successful. Despite some technical problems we faced everything moves smoothly. The story is really interesting for we can learn from the reaction of the foreign students. I think our project is very entertaining and is a success. Yet, I could not help but to complain that this game really takes a lot of patience and time.   

Figure 3 Extraordinary person does extraordinary achievements