Week 5: Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs in games – GTA V

Stage 1: Physiological Needs

These are the basic human needs that an individual requires in order to survive, such as breathing, eating, drinking, sleeping and excretion. GTA V does not follow all of these basic human needs. For example if you do not take a player to eat or drink, he will still stay alive. This also applies for sleeping and excretion. Excretion isn’t even included in the game. Breathing on the other hand is the only physiological need that fits for example when a player goes swimming underwater, his breathing becomes more limited as time goes by, and will eventually die if the player stays underwater for too long.

Stage 2: Safety

After our physiological needs are taken care of, we would want to take care of ourselves further by providing safety for ourselves. This can be achieved by earning money, creating resources and build ourselves a shelter i.e a house. GTA V follows this stage very well, albeit somewhat in a slightly extreme way at times. Earning money in GTA V is mostly done by assassinating and robbing people or performing heists, however you can make money by investing in stocks as well, (buy low, sell high). GTA V has a lot of resources as well such as weapons, first aid kits and armour to protect yourself from shooters. GTA V also has properties which you can purchase which can then be used to generate income from and as a storage for vehicles.

Stage 3: Love and Belonging

After our physiological and safety needs are fulfilled, we want to feel a sense of belongingness. These include friendships, intimacy and family. In GTA V, the characters all have friends that they can hang out with and gangs to join and do missions with, which will in turn increase the player’s reputation.

Stage 4: Esteem

In this stage, we look for self-confidence and to gain respect from others. It’s about being someone and achieving something by putting our skills to use. In GTA V, one can purchase expensive cars and clothes by the money he’s earned or complete missions where it requires good driving skills as well as killing other gang members to gain respect. Competition is at its best in this stage.

Stage 5: Self-Actualization

This is the stage where we can relax and be what we want to be as long as the other 4 stages are being satisfied. The way I see this stage in GTA V is that a player can enter this stage at any point in time in the game and become whatever he wants to be. A player can simply create his own goals and go and achieve them whenever he likes (part of definition of play) and still be at peace.

References

Simply Psychology. (2018). Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. [online] Available at: https://www.simplypsychology.org/maslow.html [Accessed 25 Mar. 2018].

Reflective Writing – Post 8

Every week, since starting second semester in our new unit ‘Psychology of Play’, we are required to write a 250-word blog post for one of our tasks.

I actually find them quite easy, because for the most part, all we have to do is write about what we covered in class and sometimes carry out our own research, which quite frankly I actually like doing. Since the subject is related to gaming, sometimes we have to play games before writing our blog posts which I also find enjoyable.

The problem  with this however is that although I find them quite easy, they take so much of my time. Two weeks ago I had this blog where it actually took me three hours to complete and I also ended up writing over 500 words instead of just 250. There was a lot of content to cover and I felt that most of what I was writing was important. Another reason why it takes me so long to complete is because I conduct a lot of research beforehand and search for information from a lot of different sources.

Carrying out the task this way is not actually bad in itself, however I still feel like three hours is too much for a simple 250-word blog post and I have other work of other assignments to finish and the deadlines are all close. Even when I talk with some of my classmates, they all say they finish them in half an hour or less most of the time, which makes me feel like I am doing something wrong.

I am still not quite sure if I should continue doing my blog posts this way, despite my feelings, or if I should perhaps learn to find just a few good and trusted sources and take my information from those. I am also not a very fast reader, and I find skimming through text quite difficult. I could perhaps make a habit of this, so that in the future I would be able to analyze long pieces of text quicker and more efficiently.

For next week’s blog I am going to try and stick to the word count, while also reducing the number of hours spent for each blog. I am also going to try and include more visuals and perhaps videos as well to support my write-up. This would hopefully reduce my word count as well.

Week 4: Clicktastic / Clickalicious – Cookie Clicker

I would like to start this blog by simply saying: “This game got me hooked!”. One week has passed since I first played the game and I still play it to the day. I can’t seem to get myself to close the game off and just forget about it. What is going on here? Well, I’m pretty sure my neurotransmitters are at PLAY here (pun intended).

Our lecturer introduced this game called cookie clicker to us and at first I was actually a bit skeptical about it and would have never thought that I would actually end up playing it for long periods of hours. The name itself even sounded comical and the interface as well as the graphics of the game were very plain, flat and nothing too special.

As for the game itself? All one had to do was simply CLICK, and so that is what me and my classmates started doing together at the same time. The game was slow at first and for each click, we were receiving a cookie which was a fast reward for very little effort and then we learned that the cookies we got, could be spent on resources which help the player achieve more cookies per second and more cookies per click. This instinctively made me feel more motivated to get more cookies so that I could buy more resources and continue getting more cookies.

Research shows that motivation to do something, in this case me spamming my mouse to get more cookies, is associated with the release of dopamine, a neurotransmitter that is released when, as we are playing a game, we expect a reward or anything of consequence. When dopamine is released, we are compelled to play. (Koob, 2014) which was why during this particular game, I couldn’t get myself to stop clicking. I was constantly being motivated by an effortless reward, and what’s more? The game also gave achievements which was another motivator in itself! which brings me to the next neurotransmitter…

…That is serotonin. Each time I got a new achievement, bought more resources and got more cookies per second (CpS) I felt pleased, fulfilled and satisfied with myself. Furthermore, while playing the game, at one point I was ahead of everyone else which gave me a bit of pride in myself and made me feel calm and happy. This was the serotonin neurotransmitter in play.

Our lecturer in the beginning of the game gave us a goal; to reach 500 CpS and be the first one before our classmates. This acted as a stimulant for me and become competitive with my classmates which in turn made me click the mouse like a madman. At one point my hand became weary, but I still continued clicking nonetheless and endorphins were being released at this stage, which helped me achieve the 500 CpS and feel good about it. An adrenaline rush also hit me during this experience, especially in the beginning of the game when everyone was at an equal score and I was thrilled to see who would finish first and was stressing myself to click as much as possible to finish first.

References

Koob, G. F., Arends, M. A., & Le Moal, M. (2014). Drugs, addiction, and the brain. Academic Press.

Anon, (2018). [online] Available at: https://www.gamified.uk/2015/01/05/neurotransmitters-you-should-know-about-in-gamification/ [Accessed 15 Mar. 2018].

Carlo, D. (2018). Can video games trigger an adrenaline response?. [online] Anxietyboss.com. Available at: https://anxietyboss.com/can-video-games-trigger-an-adrenaline-response/ [Accessed 15 Mar. 2018].

Learning Theories. (2018). Dopamine, Games, and Motivation – Learning Theories. [online] Available at: https://www.learning-theories.com/dopamine-games-motivation.html [Accessed 15 Mar. 2018].

Reflective Writing – Post 7

When semester one ended, we received our timetable for the second semester and then a few days later, me and my classmates received an email from the director notifying us that the unit ‘Introduction to AI’ was to start at a later stage.

Our original timetable

The email from our director we received on 8th February

About four weeks have passed and only just yesterday have we heard back from the director regarding our unit where he sent our class the email as shown below and attached to it was the updated timetable.

The email from our director we received on 13th March

Our updated timetable

During those four weeks with no lecturer, most of us had made other plans according to the first timetable that we were given and those of us that work, including myself, gave our timetables to our employers so that we could work extra hours after school.

I feel really annoyed with the way the MCAST system is working. First they gave us a timetable in one way and without a lecturer for four weeks and now four weeks later they change our timetable and give us a lecturer who has just graduated from school, instead of someone who is slightly more experienced in the subject, and on top of that, they expect us to finish our assignment on time and get good grades. This is also a subject that we have no experience on which makes it even worse.

While reflecting on this experience and actually writing down my feelings and thoughts about it, I realize that perhaps my emotions are getting the best of me. Even though I strongly feel that I have been ‘cheated’ on, I’m not really sure how my feelings can help me finish my course successfully.

Thinking about it, maybe MCAST does not have any choice and maybe they have done all they can to find us a lecturer and also judging the teacher which hasn’t taught us one lesson yet is not the right way to evaluate things. Emotions can sometimes really cloud my judgement, which is a bad form.

This does not however remove the fact that I still feel frustrated, and having to finish school two times a week at 19:30 does not help the case. What I realize I have to do now is to re-schedule my personal timetable accordingly and also prioritize what’s most important to me right now, whether if it’s staying late and for long hours at school or give importance to other stuff such as my hobbies and my part-time work.

For this I am going to try my best to balance my workload and manage my time better. I should build enough courage to overcome this obstacle which is to prioritize school above all else, however difficult it may seem, because right now getting a degree and passing all units is my main and most important goal.

 

 

 

Reflective Writing – Post 6

There is so much information and a great deal of school content to remember and stay updated with nowadays, that it is with great ease to forget school material and fall behind in subjects if one does not revise and apart from school there are other things we have to deal with at home such as family and hobbies.

The worst part though is that at first, during the first few weeks of MCAST, we do not get a lot of work or have a lot of assignments, but then at the end of the semester, we are bombarded with assignments and school work from all units, which makes it hard keeping up and this happened last semester to me and my classmates.

I have no control over this or the deadlines of my assignments which is somewhat frustrating, however sometimes, when I compare myself to other students, most of the time I find that I still end up finishing last. Then I realize that this is also partly my fault, mainly because I leave the subjects that I am bad at for last. Another factor is that when I am at home on my computer, I tend to have a lot of distractions around. Whether it be a Facebook tab open or an online game or even a simple book that I read for pleasure, it redirects my focus from what I should be doing.

I should make it a habit that when I am about to do school related work, I close out and remove everything which is not related to school. Building up this habit can be somewhat challenging, since knowing me, I tend to get distracted easily, but there are a few things I could try to help me out. I could create a better study place; a place where distractions are minimum. Instead of doing my school work in the kitchen where a lot of noise happens, I could stay in my room upstairs and remove from my desk anything which is not related. Noise is a huge distraction to me, so music, TV and radio would not be allowed. Furthermore I should politely ask family members to not distract me during those hours.

In my future assignments I should also start by doing the hardest assignments and give  more attention to harder units, so that I will have enough energy to carry them out. I should also take regular breaks and get enough sleep every night. This would probably give me enough time to finish my assignments beforehand and not panic as much to try and reach all the deadlines at once like last semester.

References

wikiHow. (2018). How to Improve Your Study Skills. [online] Available at: https://www.wikihow.com/Improve-Your-Study-Skills [Accessed 12 Mar. 2018].

Reflective Writing – Post 5

Semester one has passed and with the end of the first semester, new units are introduced in our course. Particularly I would like to address a new subject which was introduced to us this semester and give my thoughts about it.

The name of the subject is Critical Studies and Research Methods. Firstly, I would like to point out that I do get the reason for why this subject was introduced to us this semester which is to prepare us for our dissertation next year and I feel that certain tasks are important and points us in the right direction, however there are other tasks which I consider as insignificant and does little to no cause into improving our learning. One of these tasks is the one below:

I felt as if doing this task did not in any way give me any learning experience whatsoever and that I was not making use of any of my skills and I kept asking myself – What am I really achieving by gathering information about a peer’s persona?

By thinking about this task in this way, I did not put my full effort in it and I felt angry at myself with the end result for I knew I could have done better in the end. I was also frustrated with the assignment and the lecturer himself for giving us this task, but in the end, no good came out of these emotions. On the contrary I was quite sulky for the whole day and felt as if I was no good at the subject.

I am sure that if I made more effort and took the task more seriously, I would have done better research and came with a better end product and that in turn would have made me feel good about myself, even though my thoughts about the task are that the task itself is insignificant to the course I am in.

‘Under any circumstance, always do your best, no more and no less. Just do your best – in any circumstance in your life. It doesn’t matter if you are sick or tired, if you always do your best there is no way you can judge yourself. And if you don’t judge yourself there is no way you are going to suffer from guilt, blame and self-punishment.’ (Ruiz, 1997)

For my future tasks, in any subject, I will always give my best. That way I would not have any guilt and blame myself or others, which would in turn, hopefully make me feel better and believe more in myself.

References

Ruiz, D.M. (1997). The Four Agreements. California: Amber-Allen Publishing, pp. 75, 77.

Week 3: Gamification in design / Create a game on tasks – Mind = Blown

For this week, I decided to come up with a game that was inspired by the stroop effect, albeit slightly different. Trying to call out the colours of a word instead of reading the word proved very difficult and challenging for me, since myself and most of us are used to reading and processing words much faster than having to actually say the name of the colour.

On the other hand, a young kid who have not yet learned to read or any adult who does not know how to read would find this task more easy than someone who can read, since the words would not have any meaning to them and they would simply call out the name of the colour.

In my game I decided to take this a STEP further. I decided to write down statements and the player would simply have to mark down if the answer is true or false. Some of the statements themselves contain words which are written in a colour that is anything BUT the colour of the written word for example the word green is written in a red colour. The statement also refers to a picture which is drawn in colour and the colour of the picture could either be the same as the word or the same as the colour of the word which makes it confusing for the player. To make it more interesting, I also included words such as NOT, NEITHER and OR which when tested on players, showed that they were getting confused by the statement and if they should tick TRUE or FALSE.

The following sketches will make the concept more clear as to how the game is played.

 

In this test the triangle was painted red, however the word red was written in a brown colour

In this test, I made use of the words NOT and NEITHER which would make the player double think before ticking True or False. This was inspired by the stroop effect.

This test was carried out in class and in this case the player answered wrong as you can see in the image above. Using the blue colour for the word “black” confused the player into thinking that the above statement was False.

 

 

Week 2: Classical / Operant conditioning in games – King of Thieves

King of thieves is a free multiplayer game and the aim of the game is to basically navigate through puzzles filled with traps and steal other players’ gems and become the king of thieves while also defending your own gems by laying down traps for other thieves.

The game rewards players with cash and experience every time one successfully navigates through a maze and gets to the gem. This is a form of positive reinforcement.

In King of Thieves, spending money to install and upgrade traps to deal more damage to other invaders and thieves who might steal your loot is a form of a negative reinforcement; It is a way of engaging in an action to avoid a negative result. [1]

For each time you hit a trap, your life points is deducted by an X amount of points depending on the damage of the trap, and when this happens, the amount of gold and chance of receiving a gem is decreased. This is a type of positive punishment; a negative consequence is given to an unwanted action. [2]

On the other hand there is negative punishment as well, which is similar to positive punishment, however in this case it involves the removal of an object; for example when trying to break into someone’s dungeon and try to guess the lock, if you guess wrong you are punished by losing the key.

Getting magic items in the game such as leaves are great rewards to get since I can get new outfits, craft and upgrade thrones which make them unconditioned stimulus. The game also offers orbs. At first I did not know what the orbs were used for so they acted as neutral stimulus, however after getting to play the game more, I found that you could buy magic items with those orbs, so now each time I get an orb I associate these as currency for magic items, making it a conditioned response. This is called classical conditioning. [3]

In the game, each time a level is passed flawlessly without triggering a trap not even once, apart from the usual rewards which are coins, gems and experience, the player also gains keys. This is an example of a Constant Reinforcement the game offers.

King of Thieves also offers a form of leveling up where you get experience points each time you pass a dungeon and steal from other players and after a fixed amount of experience points, one will level up and be able to buy better thrones. This is an example of a Fixed Ratio Reinforcement.

 

Every hour, King of Thieves also provide the player with a fixed amount of money. This can also be upgraded to offer more money. This is an example of Fixed Interval Reinforcement. On the other hand there is also a gem being mined out every hour and a half, however the reward and the rarity of the gem would not be known to the player, making this a great enforcer to check the game to see what gems you received. This is an example of Variable Interval Reinforcement.

 

References

[1] Verywell Mind. (2018). This Is Why Negative Reinforcement Is Effective. [online] Available at: https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-negative-reinforcement-2795410 [Accessed 4 Mar. 2018].

[2] Therapy, N. (2018). What’s The Difference Between Positive and Negative Punishment? – North Shore Pediatric Therapy. [online] North Shore Pediatric Therapy. Available at: https://nspt4kids.com/parenting/the-difference-between-positive-and-negative-punishment/ [Accessed 4 Mar. 2018].

[3] Verywell Mind. (2018). How Classical Conditioning Works: An Overview With Examples. [online] Available at: https://www.verywellmind.com/classical-conditioning-2794859 [Accessed 4 Mar. 2018].

 

 

Week 1: General player experience – Everyday the same Dream

 

Right from the start, when the game was loaded and the first frame was displayed, I noticed how dull the game was. The black and white picture, as well as the lack of detail in most objects pushed me away and immediately made me start to lose interest. The game mechanics were very easy to grasp as well and at first I didn’t see much of an objective to the game or any challenge ; it was very plain and very dull, but still I was interested to find out what the story was behind the game.

As I started progressing through the game and interact with the objects when required, I felt just how monotonous and repetitive the game was. The thing that made it even worse was the music itself. It was also repetitive and played the same tune over and over and the tune was not a happy one. Quite depressing actually.

When the game took me back to the first frame (which was quite a number of times), I started to change the steps I took; not wearing clothes, getting out of the car, not sitting in my cubicle and each time I did something differently the elevator lady reduced the number of steps left until I became a “new person”, whatever that was, so I kept trying different things until I had no steps left so I could finally figure out the story behind the game.

Finally after all steps were complete, I went back to the first frame and as I was progressing throughout the game once more, I noticed how everyone left. This gave me a sad and lonesome feeling and in the end when I reached the part where I could jump and saw a doppelganger jumping instead of me the reaction I had was:

“What the hell?”

After the guy jumped, the game ended and boy did that bring me down. A sad ending to a monotonous game. Very depressing indeed.

Reflective Writing – Post 4

For this post, I would like to write about the two subjects in my course that I find the most challenging which are PHP and Databases and App development and present ideas as to why I find these subjects more difficult than others and perhaps what actions I should take to understand these subjects better.

Every time we have a lecture on said subjects, I feel like I am learning a lot by following and writing exactly step-by-step what the lecturer is typing, however when I try and do what the lecturer did in the lesson on my own, I do not manage to meet my expectations and have to rely on the lecturer for an answer which makes it frustrating for me.

This has been happening to me for quite a while now, occurring mostly when it comes to coding. I keep fooling myself over and over again that just by listening to what the lecturer is saying in class and by taking the notes down myself, I am learning a lot and it is enough, but I should know better.

A new subject we had for example was 3D modelling. I immediately found that I had a passion for it. In class I followed what the lecturer told us to do and I did find it difficult at first to learn the basics and follow along. When I went home, I practised and created models of my own and as time went by, I got pretty confident in the subject. This was not the case with coding. Once I went home I did not revise the subjects or practised them and now time has passed and the subjects got more complex and I am finding it more difficult to understand the lectures.

I believe that everyone has different learning techniques and my best method of learning a subject is to practise what I learned on my own so that I can encounter mistakes and figure out how to solve them.

As a next step, if I want to get better at coding I must practise it at home and not just during lectures because this way I get to learn and become more confident in the subjects, just like I did in 3D modelling.