CS247G is one of my favorite classes at Stanford!
I have always been a gamer growing up. When I was 8 years old, I persuaded my parents to get me a PSP(It was very nice of them). I got the chance to play some of the biggest portable games at that time including Monster Hunter p3. I spent the whole summer of 2010 playing the game coop mission with my childhood friends. Then I had a brief PC phase in 2012 playing League of Legends and Crisis 2. Then I entered my craziest video gaming phase after I got an Xbox in 2013. I played Assassin’s Creed, Halo, Bioshock, COD, TItanfall, Battlefield, etc. I was able to experience so many models of storytelling. I think out of everything including mechanisms, visual effects, and level design, I was most intrigued by the story setting of the game. I think a player is essentially playing the world around the game.
I really liked learning different ways of telling stories in this class. We learned different modes of storytelling and played a lot of mystery, walk sim, and puzzle games. I think these games all had one thing in common which is there is a hook and the players need to interact with the game in different ways to find out what happens next. Various concepts and techniques for onboarding players and setting the scenes impact how immersive the gaming experience can be.
My team really enjoyed making our P2 game “Satoshi’s Gift.” Looking back, I think that we were really fortunate to have decided a “setting” at the beginning and all the different parts of the puzzle just fit and iterated really organically into the game. While we were designing it, we always brought ourselves into the setting first and see what would make the most sense in that setting.
I have several big takeaways after taking this class:
1. The creative process of a team > one person
– Before this class, I always had this one problem which is that I tend to let my creative side overflood the conversation and micro-manage a team project to be exactly how I want it to be. But during the class, I learned how to take a step back. I realized that some of the best decisions came from a discussion and iteration through ideas from different people. Some of the best puzzles that I think we have come up with were a combination of ideas from everyone on the team.
2. Setting the tone for a project/game/startup/app/experience is so freaking important
– Before the project even contextualize, we should have an idea of what the project should make the user feel. Then design different pieces around it.
In the future, I want to incorporate and enjoy the process of creating the “setting,” of my project/game/startup/film. I realized that I enjoy doing that much and think I should spend more time on it and do more projects where I let my creativity flow in that way. This class was definitely an enlightenment that is something that I really like doing and potentially good at. Thank you!
