First Assignment

We've been asked to play games for homework and choose three to write about.

First up - Killer Flu (http://www.persuasivegames.com/games/game.aspx?game=killerflu)

The main thing I noticed when playing this game was that it felt a lot like Roller Coaster Tycoon. Mainly the graphic style, camera angle, and basic interaction with the characters on the field. The game was made to demonstrate how the spreading of illness works, and how fast it can happen. The developers did a good job in getting this agenda across, and the game was even entertaining. I found myself enjoying the mischievous act of infecting citizens and sending them to doom their peers to a temporary life of misery. However, I do feel that they could have improved the infecting process. Sometimes the characters would not stop from a mouse over like they were supposed to.

My Second Choice - WolfQuest (http://www.wolfquest.org/)

Of the three games I've chosen, I felt that this one had a better interface than the others. I felt that you had a good amount of customization for your character, and it was nice to have locations for quests marked on your map. I would like to believe that the game was made to educate users on wolves and how they live; mainly because that's what it does. I don't know much about wolves, but I did see everything I already knew about them present in the game. Things like animation, health bars, and textures could be greatly improved. I felt at times that the game did not even have textures for the ground and they chose a single, solid color. I think that more than one tree model could have improved the game as well. One thing that it did have going for it though: a surprisingly high view distance from lack of graphic quality. Were I a child, or had any children of my own, I would probably enjoy this game because it wasn't nearly as bad as some that I played tonight.

Third Choice - Hungry Caterpillar (http://www.kidsplaypark.com/games/caterpillar/)

I felt the need to choose this game for one of my three as an example of what not to do. As a game, it's nothing special: a rehashed Snake with a caterpillar and cherries as replacements for the usual snake and dots. What I found the game to do wrong was that, while it was on a site for education, it did not seem to meet the agenda. All the other games on the educational site used math, spelling, chemistry, and other notable areas of education. Hungry Caterpillar on the other hand, did not. Had they incorporated some time of math system into it, the game would have been more appropriate. I think an improvement I would personally add would be to have a UI where each of the four directions of the arrow keys had a simple math problem. When the user types in the answer to the problem on the desired arrow, the snake then goes in that direction. My only other thought on this game was that the "Yum" sound effect was very unnecessary.

Overall, the majority of the games on these sites were simple, but some were well done. The main downfall for the majority was having subjects that are incredibly hard to make fun and appealing.