Weekly Meeting (Part 2)

KE 12.6 - Töölö library

Posted by: Esa (Pelkuri)

OBS! This text is based on what Hele (psykkis) has told me about the meeting, since i weren't present.

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We had our second meeting at Töölö's library since we didn't get a work-space from Oodi this time.

There were new people in the meeting - also couple coders that we were lacking previously. Hooray to that!

What did we do?

First of all, we did a little round where every participant had a possibility to define their dream-angle on this project. After that, we talked about the tasks and goals that group-members assigned to themselves last week. We also reviewed the workload by asking ourselves questions like: were there enough / too much / too little work to be done in the previous week? The incentive in this kind of reflection is to find the right window of tolerance for everyone - which is a key component in this kind of working method where we are trying to catch a flowing mental state.

We talked a lot about the game itself; core mechanics, perspective, etc. Helena (game designer) introduced an idea of the battle mode, where one has to climb to the top (using some kind of platforms) in order to reach the enemy's village, that will be raided. Different kind of strategies would emerge when trying to climb to the top; one is lurking behind the bush that one built on a specific platform for example. The battle would be happening in one view, and it would be ideal for 3v3 gaming. This idea resonated in the workgroup, and graphics-team promised to clarify the vision for everyone, by producing some kind of sketchy drawings of it for next Wednesday. The pictures attached to this blog are first sketches of the battle-mode, that one of our graphics-designer (Jesse) drew.

We talked about Gestalt therapy's contact-cycle, which is the background theory of hero-skills. It was concluded, that it's very important that everyone in the workgroup familiarize themselves personally with the contact-cycle, because all of the coding mechanics & graphics that are influenced by the theory (for example, how will deflective hero move and how will it visually look?) should be verified by every member in the workgroup. This way the solutions won't get too high-flown, as they remain at a collectively understandable level. You can read more about the thoughts already made on these defense-based hero-skills (and the game in general) from here: ALT- pelin drivekansio. It's only in Finnish for now, but we will have English versions of everything in the future.

We started the journey to the contact-cycle by focusing on two defenses, which were desensitization and introjection. After the theory-talk, we focused on the gamification of these defenses. Desensitization is a mental state, where one is unable to feel emotions etc. We need this defense in order to survey from traumatic situations, but it can also form a mental trap which is, for example, a foundation of psychopathic behavior. Natural gamification of this would be a heavy-built tank, that can eat a lot of damage, with the downside that there are no HP meters of any kind where the taken damage could be realized. This kind of gamification process will be done for every defense in a way that everybody familiar with the contact cycle could easily spot the link between the theory and hero-skill.

Introjection is a humane tendency to swallow impressions from the environment without critical thinking and reflection. It is in the core of every learning-act, but on the other hand, it can also prevent learning by causing static beliefs that don't have the flexibility which is needed in growth. There are many ways to gamification this, but one idea that came forward in the meeting (which is not actually a hero-skill per se) was an introjection-diamond, that heroes need in order to promote themselves. If one desires to cancel the promotion, a reflection-rubber will be needed. The idea of the promotion system itself came from the game Empires & Puzzles, where one needs a different kind of items in order to promote heroes. It's a cool game btw!

Anyway, these are only examples of the possibilities the gamification process can offer in defenses/ hero-skills -front.

Lastly, we talked about tasks for the upcoming week. Helena built an excel-table to help the process, where the available & assigned tasks are marked in different columns. The idea is that group-members would look at the available tasks, or suggest a new one (especially if one isn't present in the live-meeting) by themselves, and pick a suitable amount of them (by commenting) for the following week. Questions about the tasks or something else should be put to our discord or facebook (straight links at the end of this blog-site). Here is a link to the table: ALT -assignments (mostly in Finnish but in the future will be in English too).

Other things

On the back, my (Esa) role was defined as project coordinator. For now, I have been investigating workspace-possibilities for Wednesdays, and broadly a co-operation potentiality with different actors on the field. I'm going to post more on these things as soon as they are verified.

That's a wrap! I will be posting this kind of blog-texts every week, and maybe some additional update-posts, depending on the situation. So far this project feels really good, and I think we will make history together... If you are new to this project, please visit our facebook, and read the uploaded material and/or ask if there is something in your mind! You can also ask about the project right here, in the comment-sector of this blog, or by sending a message through the contact form. Join the journey!

Happy week to you all!