As a student that has come straight from college these essay like blog tasks were honestly rather mundane to write. although i enjoyed the lectures and i do genuinely have an interest in the topics i didn’t feel like any of the questions really stood out as something i was instantly excited to go off and research. i found myself looking at the questions asking myself which ones i could write the quickest and with the least amount of required references. i also initially thought that the 500 word limit might be an issue but i found myself running out of interesting things to say on the questions bar giving an opinion that i’m not sure where  it originated from, and without a ‘credible source’ i felt like i almost wasn’t allowed to say it.

during my process i took notes during the lecture (and proceeded to completely ignore them when actually writing the posts). i also took my time management very (not at all) seriously ensuring i completed all of the tasks in reasonable time (2 hours before the deadline). I made good use (none at all) of the resources available to me in the library and also made use of the recorded sessions to give myself a reminder of the details of the lecture (i actually did this one)

the subjects that i found most interesting were AI and HCI. the lectures re-enforced my existing understanding  of the subjects and gave me a new way to look at them and more resources to learn about them.  something i researched more in my own time was HCI for disabled gamers. i was already familiar with the charity special effect who create custom control systems for disabled gamers and I spent a good amount of time pursuing this interest (admittedly to the detriment of my sleep). 

I found the referencing seriously confusing at times and i’m almost certain i’ve done it wrong however i am happy to blame the fact that we were only told how to go about it a few weeks before the deadline and that gave us very little time to go back and add or adapt it.

I am going to be honest and say i didn’t enjoy this project however i do respect that it is something to get us to show our understanding and it is important for us to know how to go about writing in an essay format. I can’t say i made a great effort on these but i’m fairly sure of my understanding of the topics. if i were to repeat the task i would like to spend more time talking with the lecturers and finding where they got the information for the lectures they provided. i think if i were to do that i would have a considerable amount more to talk about and with that more to research and find interest in.

1. What do you see as the positives and negatives around copyright?

Copyright is a system that allows people to have total ownership of their own intellectual property. This already sounds wonderful as a concept and if you take the definition given by The UK Copyright Service it seemingly gets better as it states that “ It gives the author specific rights in relation to the work, prohibits unauthorised actions, and allows the author to take legal action against instances of infringement or plagiarism.”. That’s great right? Anything new I make is protected and belongs to me. The problem with it is enforcing copyright law is expensive so if something you do does get copied, if the company is big enough, it’s probably not worth the time and resources to sue them for it. The obvious plus is that you have the right to sue them of course, but I wouldn’t call it time well spent unless you’re able to make a considerable amount of money from doing it.

References

Unknown (n.d.) Summary of intellectual property rights. The UK Copyright Service. Available at: https://www.copyrightservice.co.uk/copyright/intellectual_property

2. Is it possible to make anything new?

Absolutely. The easiest example is to shuffle a deck of cards. There are 80,658,175,170,943,878,571,660,636,856,403,766,975,289,505,440,883,277,824,000,000,000,000 possible permutations of a deck of 52 cards and based on the number of potential outcomes It is stupidly unlikely that the order of the cards in your hand has ever been seen before in all of human history. The same theory goes for simply drawing a line on a piece of paper. Has there ever been a line like it in history? There are more than likely many very similar lines but maybe the length or curvature or line weight of your line varies from them making it unique. But that is all small generally irrelevant stuff. It is definitely possible to make new things but bare in mind there will always be similarities to many other things as our minds take inspiration and ideas from everything we come across in everyday life, whether we like it or not.

References

Unknown (n.d.) One of A Kind, Quite Interesting Limited. Available at: http://qi.com/infocloud/playing-cards

1. Behavioural modelling is an important part of NPC development for games. Should emotive modelling be part of that development?

For human NPCs, the exact emulation of human nature is the ultimate goal. It is a seemingly impossible goal as much of the human mind is still not totally understood and human nature doesn’t have one way of working but still developers will try their very best to create characters that represent people as closely as possible. In the interest of creating as accurate a representation as possible, emotive modelling should definitely be a part of NPC development. Currently developers make characters appear human and often work around giving characters emotions by programming them to respond specifically to scripted events. for example in many RPGs killing a passive character will anger certain characters causing them to attack where as other characters will become fearful instead and run away. Both of these are portrayals of emotion however it is very noticeably scripted where emotive modelling in combination with the normal behavioural modelling would make the response seem more natural and representative of an actual human.

2. Consider your favorite video game. If it contains AI controlled agents how individualistic are they and their behaviors, and, how might you set about improving them?

Taking Civilization V as an example for individualistic AI is like taking Brian May as an example of a ‘good’ guitarist. Each character in Civ V is a world leader from history and they were all thoroughly researched to create an AI that truly represented that leaders personality traits as accurately as possible. That said there are definitely many things wrong with Civ V. In fact there was one bug from the original civilisation game that was so wrong and so humorous that the developers decided to play on that bug in every game following it.

The bug as described in these images causes Gandhi, arguably one of the most peaceful leaders in human history, to become more aggressive than what should be possible within the games restraints. Immediately there is room for improvement to this AI however I also personally love this bug and it’s hilarity within the flow of play is something I quite enjoy.

Unknown (n.d.) Tumblr

Aside from deliberately kept bugs there are still many things wrong with the games AI. For example the AI characters don’t understand the concept of hypocrisy as they will often tell you not to settle a city near to their land but will then settle right next to you very shortly after. In the latest iteration, Civ VI, this action can be used as a reason to declare war on an opponent however the act still occurs far too frequently and is something that I think could be improved upon, not necessarily by removing it completely but by making it a more deeply considered action by factoring in how close the nearest non-friendly city is.

Reference

Various Unknown (n.d.) Tumblr, available at: https://prokopetz.tumblr.com/post/78145553694/chaz-gelf-sixmilliondeadinternets-gandhi-has

HCI

1. Select one game of your interest and explain why it has good/bad game UI

Fig1: LeBlanc M. (2014) Twitter

User interface is arguably one of the most important aspects of human computer interaction. Without an interface there would be very little to interact with and so the user’s actions will receive very minimal response if any at all. By this idea every game has some sort of user interface regardless of how simple it still counts. One of my favourite games has a UI that appears anything but simple by first glance but once understood, is one of the most intuitive UI designs I have come across.

Fig2: Messelink R. (2015)

Sid Meier’s Civilisation V is my all-time favourite game and part of a series that I have put easily over 1000 hours into and I would like to think I understand the interface very well. The icons used for each element of the UI make perfect sense once they have been explained. For example the symbol for espionage (top right) looks like the silhouette of a stereotypical spy. This theme is used throughout and symbols always match across assets. Notice the symbol in the top left used to represent a golden age is also used on the tab on the left as the unit selected is a special unit that can begin or extend a golden age. The consistency and logical symbolism of the design is what in my opinion makes it a great UI. Although many feel it is overwhelming to a newcomer I believe it is intuitive and actually simpler to understand than people think.

References

LeBlanc M. (2014) Twitter (https://twitter.com/martinleblanc/status/466638260195041280)

Messelink R. (2015) (http://publichistory.humanities.uva.nl/blog/age-of-empires-in-the-classroom/)

2. Discuss how technology augments human abilities. Reflect upon the implications of the future of HCI

The technology of a standard form controller is enough to allow people to play games provided they are capable of holding and interacting with the controller. There is however a small portion of gamers who are unable to do this and for them gaming at the same standard as an able bodied person seems like an impossibility. Thankfully this no longer has to be the case as technology has been adapted to use many different inputs to allow almost anyone to join in and compete. Special effect have been one of the leading teams developing and implementing this technology into people’s homes allowing the disabled to be as capable as the abled.

I would hope that in the future this technology and HCI as a whole continues to develop as I believe it could have a huge benefit in other fields. I think that the augmentation of human ability is something that has not been explored enough yet to understand what it could become but I hope to see more of it and I think it will have a long and interesting future

References

Special effect: https://www.specialeffect.org.uk/who-we-helped , https://www.specialeffect.org.uk/what-we-do

1. Why could you say that the “Indie” game scene is not a new thing and explain, give examples?

The term ‘Indie’ refers simply to something that is independently developed. It is typically used in association with music but has more recently been related to games. Although the term is only now getting more use, the ‘indie’ games have still been around from the very beginning the only difference being that the original ‘indie’ games were ‘indie’ in a far more literal sense whereas recently the term has also been used to somewhat refer to a style of game as well. Following that ‘indie’ is simply independently developed, the entire gaming industry started with an indie game. Tennis for two is widely recognised as the first ever video game. Developed in 1958 on the oscilloscope, the game is a representation of tennis played by turning a knob to angle the ‘racket’ and pressing a button to hit the ‘ball’ over the net. Its creation is credited solely to nuclear physicist William Higinbotham and by that statement it can be defined as an indie game. Following that: Spacewar, the first computer game originally developed by Steve Russell, a student at MIT; and Computer space, the first commercially sold coin operated video game by Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney, are both by definition ‘Indie’. In fact the first notable game that wouldn’t be considered ‘indie’ was pong by Atari incorporated in 1972. It is worth noting that Spacewar and computer space were both later published by other companies but it is the original development of the game that I am referring to as ‘indie’

References

(n.d.) the first video game? Brookhaven national laboratory. Available at: https://www.bnl.gov/about/history/firstvideo.php

Bellis M. (2017) The History of Spacewar. Available at: https://www.thoughtco.com/history-of-spacewar-1992412

Modine A. (2008) Before Pong, there was Computer Space. Available at: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/12/13/tob_computer_space/

2.Has the term indie become meaningless?

After writing the answer to question A. yes it has. I’m not sure it’s even a word anymore. Joking aside I don’t think it ever had a meaning to lose besides its literal definition and that can’t change and even in severe overuse it can’t lose meaning. I think what is now defined as indie is exactly what indie is and always has been, small independent teams or individuals creating without the support of any larger external companies. The part of indie that may have been lost over the years is how big a team can be before it’s not indie anymore and I honestly don’t know that an answer even exists, the line between indie and small company is discernible only by legality and that slightly defeats the term indie as some individuals have created companies to deal with monetary issues but are still a lone developer and should still be considered indie. To sum up this mess of an answer it has a single definition, albeit a loose one, and hasn’t really had or lost any other meaning.