Another week, and we're getting close to the final presentation.
There's a couple of groups that can move forward and begin with their final presentation of their product and I'm actually giddy with excitement! Not just for the two groups, but for the whole class!
So I'll just keep it short and continue to the updates:
Selling Game
Nothing new on the presentation here, so no new pictures - sorry guys :P
Many adjustment to the rules and they undergo a very serious testing session this week with a bunch of expert gamers. These tester were brought in to try to come up with a strategy to broke their system.
Let's just say it's a kind of a success and they will have a new adjustment to their system next week.
Island Escape
Major new add on to the game!
Now every player have their own player board to keep track of their status and belongings. A couple of adjustment and new cards in the event deck. A few changes in the map
just a couple more step to the finished work!
Trick or Treat Game
This week we see a major changed on the board movement. The map became this Harvest-Moon-esque town.
The player have to run around, with a dice roll to visit each house to get their candies.
After testing, we found that this game, played with 6 player and will dice roll, doesn't involve a whole lot of player's decision (which is crucial in a game - otherwise it's just something running on it's own) and it took very very long to finish.
This group get a lot of feedback not just from me but from other players and lecturers in the class, I think they might end up changing the rule AND the map at the same time.
Thief Game
The thief game also get some changes to its system. For instance, instead of the player knows who is the thief at the start of the game, the thief identity is hidden and the player other player have to move and guess the other player's behavior to determine the real Thief.
The system is in place, there's a little bit of adjustment to be done, but everything move to the right direction.
And oh, it's completely different to "Scotland Yard" now :D
Looking for Love Game
This 'looking for love' game although sounds interesting in concept, turns out to have a major problem.
The game, as in its state now, is boring to play after 2 maps, not to mention trying to finish all 5 maps. Most of the problem came to:
- Dice Roll movement
- a lot of space to cover in just one map (a player can reach the top of the map in 'just' 5 turns if the roll a 6 one after another, playing in two player might sounds okay, but after 3 players (or more?) it became a disaster in time :P
- no difference between the city; most of the city are the same with nothing to differentiate them with. Instead of feeling like the player visiting a new location each time, it feels like playing 5 same maps
Some changes in their systems and paces are needed here, so after a few discussion, and after suggestion, they seemed to have a new system ready to be used and now it's up to them to expand on those suggestions and ideas.
Like I said above, I can't wait to see the end result :)
Due to a combination of busyness/laziness/sickness, I didn't update the class progress last week. My bad. So here I am, just minutes away from taking off to class, updating my blog :P
(God, this connection is so slow when you need them the most :( )
Selling Game
Nothing new to report here, just minor adjustment to the cards and rules
Island Escape
Map already being made, although still on the rough side, more adjustment to the rule
Trick or Treat Game
This one is not available for review last week. This game is about Trick or Treating, where the player have to visit the houses in order to gain candies (as victory points), the will need various costumes and a lot of events will happens to them in each turn.
A lot to modify in this game, the game and its presentation is still very rough, imo
Thief Game
This one is a detective game. The players have to work together to catch the thief player. While the thief player give out a couple of hints in where he go and by what, the other player have to figure out where the thief actually is and trap them.
Pretty good and playable, but the bad things is, this is close to "Scotland Yard" but just in different skin. Lot will have to be reworked to make it dissimilar.
Looking for Love Game
Now this is a very interesting concept and a (planned) presentation. This one about three girls pursuing their love, who happen to be the same guy (lol).
They pursue them across the world and in whole different cities. They planned this to mix it with pop up book presentation, only time will tell how will that go :)
The look of this toys is very VERY close to the original product, with a couple of notable details. Of course, for the UNinformed (e.g. lots of parents EVERYWHERE), this toy could pass as the real deal. ESPECIALLY without the fugly package.
This Jazz is missing the light-pimping feature on his eyes, the side light on the front, transforming nunchuck exhaust, and the ball join on its neck.
It retain almost all of the original articulation (as you can see in the pictures)
I know, for some, this can be considered a blasphemy on the series., but consider this:
Transformer toys cost no twice, but almost THREE times its original value in the states. A TF movie deluxe that cost $12 in the states will easily cost Rp.300.000,- (about $31 on current exchange) here (I live in Indonesia, btw). This will make toys like this a luxury goods instead of, you know, toys for kids.
IF I have kids, most likely I'll be buying these cheap knock off for them and 'keeping' the original save for 'when they're older' :D. There is now way I'll let kids handle something so expensive if they could amuse themselves with something so cheap :D
Most people who's close to me would know by know, the most unexpected development in my life.
I became a university lecture, teaching Game Development Class.
Me.
Lecturer.
For most people who know me,
personally,
for a long time, that's probably the biggest joke in life :D
SO, never mind about that.
The point is, my class is about game development and it's divided into two semester. Well, it was planned that the class consist of IT students and design students, for some reason unknown to me, the class wasn't offered to the IT students.
SO to compensate, me and Erik, a fellow lecture, bent on teaching how to design a workable gameplay mechanic.
Without IT students
The result? We asked them to create a board game. Since, That way, we though, it would enable them to create a game without an IT students, and learn about gameplay design at the same time.
So, up to this month, 11th week not counting mid-term, after few weeks of theory and practice, they created a nice, playable and a very good Prototype.
Most of them, at least.
Selling Game
The first game we tested today, was a game about selling stuff to customer, the customer ask for certain things, and it's the job of the player to provide it to them to score points.
The Media is card game, there's still a lot to improve, for instance, a score board for easier tracking, but so far it's playable to finish.
The 2nd game tested was a game about escaping Island. A bunch of of kids stranded in a Island, and they have to escape. Actually, the means of escape is already there, but they have to pay.
So the kids have to treasure hunt across the islands, gathering coins while checking how much food they have, to get to the leaving ship.
It probably have the best reaction fo the two, with the students shouting "Huurahs" every time a harvest card event get revealed.
In their adventure the kids will get to find sunken ship, meet pirates ship, moneky island (not the game, in literal sense).
So if the groups in my class happen to read this, there's a keyword to describe what will happen
look it up.
Ever since I saw the first preview of this product, I always knew I'm going to get it, especially the ravage one. Now after a long wait, we get to see the actual product photo and its packaging.
Truthfully? I think it's a rip off for a 2Gb Thumb Drive, really.
But the cool factor negates all logic (in my brain, at least). A thumb drive that transform to Ravage! Imagine that!
Pretty big for a thumb drive, isn't it?
The Packaging.
The back of the box shows the other in the line, which is USB Drive Ravage, Optical mouse Grimlock, and USB Hub Blaster. They said you could put a cassetron inside blaster.
Now THAT's tempting
I wonder if he comes with this clear stand?
Simple transformation, but cool nonetheless
The memory encase in it's head, you just have to flip it out to reveal the usb connector
Ravage & Tigatron together
I worked on Hoi Hoi San last night and finished her too. Boy, she's something alright. Took me about 4 hours doing her while watching a couple of episode of Ninkyo helper.
She's pretty good when finished, can't say I'm a fan of Kotobukiya plamo Quality though. Sometimes there are pieces that doesn't fit really well with each other and I need to cut a bit off in order for them to fit.
And no, this is not my first experience with Kotobukiya kit. My First one is a Hucklebein (from super robot war), even then the quality of material and mold is still far compared to Bandai.
Hoi Hoi San, 4 years later, have better quality than Hucklebein, to be honest. SO I have no regrets in getting her
Like Gundam, you start from the feet, up to her waist. Even building her panties too. No Problem so far, but the feet and the ankle does not fit snugly enough for my taste
I wish the skirt are made of rubber though, since it's plastic, though it's not flexible for articulation. It still look good.
Now this photo shows her torso opened. At first I had planned to fit a MP3 player onsode her. But seeing how small her torso is from the inside, Especially with the ball jointed waist, Now I'm not so sure. At least, I'm not so sure I can fit something inside of her AND keeping her articulation at the same time.
This shows the USB connector slot on the side, which the base of my idead, now I'm not so sure
Torso and Skirt assembled, showing details on her apron.
This is the 'face' that comes with her. At her promotion picture, I though there will be some kind of mechanism for her eye, I'm mistaken. Sadly :P
Head finished! If you notice, her eyelash and eyebrow are pre painted. but you got the water decal as well should you decide to paint her
This is the most troublesome part of HoiHoi San, The hair. The middle hair are two piece part,a hair and a ball joint connector. It's not molded together, and you HAVE to glue it together otherwise it'll fall off easily. Even the manual state so
Hoi Hoi San, ready for action!
Now Yotsuba-chan have a friend to play with
I'd say I'm really happy with my purchase, there are a few gripes, but they are minor. I'm pretty sure Kotobukiya surprised by her popularity and now decide to milk her dry, as evidenced by the last plamo show
