Sandra Lopez

I played this game yesterday and it is crazy!!! Watch it ...

In briefly researching serious games, I found that these games are based on real life situations and are used as a training or teaching tool. A game like the SIMS wouldn't be a serious game because it does not reflect on real life where the consequences are enforced. In thinking about what I would want a serious game to be as a teaching tool, a game that reflects the experience of living on your own. It would be targeted toward high schoolers to get them to have an idea of what they need to do to prepare for the real world. It would simulate different events that happen in everyday life. For example, they would need to apply for a job, then they would receive a paycheck. They would need to decide what they use the money for, new outfit or go grocery shopping. Depending on their decisions, the game would give reactions. Another example would be if they didn't pay their phone bill, and bought something else, their phone would be cut off.

This screen shot shows the status of what I have done to contribute to the cause that I chose. My improvement for this part of the game would be to insert a status bar or percentage of how far I am into my succession. One problem I have with the game is that I don't really know what is going on and by inserting how far into success I am, it might help with knowing if I am progressing or not.

At times the best way to know the rules of the interaction is to just jump into it and start clicking. If the are rules that are needed to be defined at the beginning, then it would prepare you for what is to come but not really give you the same sense of what the interaction is like. The prepared interaction is still having an expectation of what it will be like but at the same time not knowing what it will be.

It could be compared to driving in the way of starting to learn how to do it. The study guide tells you what to do and tells you what you will interact with but will not give the same experience as actually driving in a car.

In fiction, like reading a book, there isn't a sense of what will happen next or knowing what needs to be payed attention to beforehand. the best way to figure that out is to go into it blindly and interact with it without knowing what the rules are.

This game takes place it seems in the near future in which a man is possessed and kills another man. Throughout the game, he tries to understand what is happening to him and why. At the same time there are two police officers that are trying to find him but only knowing that they are looking for a man's killer.

As the game progresses, the player gets to interchange between each of the main characters. Each decision affects what is happening to the storyline. For example, the whole point of playing the possesed man is to not get cought by the police. If a move is made that will bring suspicion or a clue that you are the killer, the game is over and you are arrested. When at play, there are times when two circular objects, like the ones above, pop up and light a certian color. Each color indicates a move that needs to be made by the player quickly. There are times that this part of the game determins your survival in the game. This is my favorite part of the game because it brings you that rush in the middle of a game that is mostly slow paced, which brings back the video game feel.

This game is by far one of my favorites now because of the level of interaction the player has witht the game. It is like a movie where things happen automatically but at the same time the storyline gets affected with the decisions made by the player. That makes it entertaining because the game follows a story and still lets the player investigate its surroundings and also decide where to go and what to do.