Team Project Final Overviews

WEEK 20:
During Week 19 I consulted briefly with Lee on the Testing documentation, while continuing to make notes on the other design documentation.
WEEK 21:
During Week 21 work increased again on completing a playable final build of the level. Every team member was involved at this point.
WEEK 22:
During Week 22 the team delivered their Milestone 3 presentation, which went very well and raised many questions from the tutors.
WEEK 23:
During Week 23 we discussed with the tutors how we would demonstrate some of our writing, and it was agreed that I would be responsible for this piece. We also performed our Milestone 4 presentation, which was a disappointment due to lack of preparation.
WEEK 24:
During Week 24 the team prepared for testing, with Lee emailing tutors whose lessons we would be taking candidates from while I prepared a chart of rooms and lessons we could use for testing. We finalised the questionnaires ready to begin testing next week.
WEEK 25:
During Week 25 we presented the sample report work I’d written and we began testing. Testing was a slow process but our method is very robust and we were able to get many candidates tested. We aim to have tested 50 candidates total by next week, ready to begin data analysis before Christmas.
WEEK 26:
During Week 26 we met with Dr. Steve Manning, a statistician who offered to help us with our data analysis. We continued to test candidates and provided Dr. Manning with a complete set of our data before beginning work on our final milestone presentation.
WEEK 27:
During Week 27 we had several more meetings with Dr. Steve Manning where I was taught how to properly analyse our data, including an introduction to statistics and a piece of practice analysis. This will be very helpful for my work over Christmas. We also delivered our Milestone 5 presentation, which was a great success and made up for the weaker previous milestone.
WEEK 28:
The team spent Week 28 discussing the Final Report and allocating writing sections. We decided to keep our formatting similar to the way I’d demonstrated during milestone 1, and everyone ended the week with a clear idea of what they needed to contribute. I continued in greater detail the data analysis I’d begun for the final milestone presentation.
CHRISTMAS:
During Christmas I spent a lot of time updating and preparing the documents that would make up my part of the report and the data analysis. The latter was quite difficult but I’m confident in the work that I’ve produced and my understanding of it. Despite the multiple updates I made to the existing documents, I’m concerned there may be too many words for my section available, as there are several areas (such as Personality Modelling) that very much informed the creation of our NPC I would be wary of ignoring.

Week XIX - Overview

During Week 19 we had a brief meeting to discuss how the level designs lined up, and work has begun on the first draft of the current design documentation.

Week XVIII - Overview

During Week 18 we worked on our second Milestone presentation, though the delivery was disappointing as we hadn’t thoroughly prepared. We have scheduled and are preparing our next two Milestones, while still working on collating our summer work.

Week XVII - Overview

During Week 17 the group has been collating the work performed over the summer, which consisted of the admittedly Spartan Alpha Build and various relevant researches.

Week XVI - Overview

During Week XVI we allocated Summer roles according to the set plan. My roles include overviewing the research of other team members and producing the 'Underground' section of the level.

Week XV - Overview

During Week 15 we finalised our Summer Plan and presented it in the form of a verbal report during our meeting.

Week XIV - Overview

During Week 14 project progress was slow due to deadlines approaching in other subjects. We started work on our Summer Plan, which we will pitch next week during our meetings.

Week XIII - Overview

During Week 13 I wrote an 'Environment Study' of the Janus Syndicate Base from GoldenEye, which can be found here.

Week XII - Overview

During Week 12 the group prepared and delivered Milestone 1, demonstrating the research phase of our project and discussing a general overview of our project. I feel the Milestone went comparatively well, though we had many different facets to our presentation and over-ran slightly.

Week XI - Overview

During Week 11 the group discussed testing methodologies and planned the types of data we were aiming to collect. We also discussed methods of provoking interaction with the NPC, such as simple puzzles and combat sections.

Easter - Overview

During the three Easter weeks I worked on many ideas for the project, including the design of the character and level, as well as ideas for the testing and further research. These are all available in the post 'Elements Of Consideration'.

Week VII - Overview

During Week 7 I wrote a Source Analysis of E. Hall's 'The Silent Language'. I also started making notes for my work over the Easter break, in three main fields; Test Design, NPC Design and Level Design.

Week VI - Overview

During Week 6 we presented our Design Document to Brian and Phil, and I think we were very successful with our demonstration. We were able to show a deep understanding of the research in our field, were able to demonstrate thoroughly why our project is worth its time and discussed any changes and additions the lecturers would make to our test.

I'm planning during the week to agree with the team some way of making the three-week Easter break productive but still a break, and my current thinking is to suggest a free-form assignment where each person produces a series of ideas and thoughts about how to design the level and character and brings them all to the table in the week following. This will be posted on the Team Blog when my idea is concrete.

Week V - Overview

During Week 5 all that was required from our group was to finalise our Design Document, which we did relatively quickly and to a high standard, and to begin work on the presentation for Week 6. The first step was to single out elements of the document which translate especially well to presentation, and to put each element in the hands of someone who would have the most interesting perspective on each element.

Week IV - Overview

During Week 4 I had an uncharacteristically-simple week, where all I needed to do was write up the results of both of my surveys, tie together all the elements of our Design/Pitch/Plan document and write a Character Study of Mass Effect 2's Miranda Lawson. I also assisted in creating a 'work index' page for the Team Blog based on the one I use here.

Week III - Overview

During Week 3 I continued to gather questionnaires (my findings will be shown next week), as well as writing Source Analysis of C. Crawford's 'Chris Crawford On Interactive Storytelling' and S. Graner Ray's 'Gender-Inclusive Games Design'. I also wrote an External Research piece, 'Comic-Book Characterisation & Personality Theory' and completed Phase Two of our Design Document.

Week II - Overview

During Week 2 I continued to gather questionnaires, as well as writing a Source Analysis of M. Krawczyk & J. Novak's 'Game Story & Character Development'. I also wrote a Character Study of Dragon Age's Loghain Mac Tir, and worked on many technical elements of the project, such as the Design Document and our possible tests.

Week I - Overview

During Week 1 I created a research questionnaire, asking respondents to rank the characters from Dragon Age. The questionnaire has been sent to multiple candidates who will hopefully reply fairly quickly. The data I gather here is integral to moving forward with the right understanding of the traits we should and should not attempt to test. The data will be reposted in its completed form here, but relevant analysis will be contained on the aformentioned blog.

Week I - Introduction

This is the personal blog of Kyle Cherry, member of Level 3 Team Project Group "Team Fable."

Here I will record any elements of my personal work not directly related to the project's main aim; for example, write-ups of sources I find especially informative, research surveys and case studies. Other work will be found on the main Team Fable blog, and cross-linked here where necessary.