#So the size was the factor I felt justified me enough to get rid of it

[mydeclutterjourney]

I'm not ungrateful if I don't use a gift...

This is a hard message to accept personally. I was raised to accept gifts and keep them and use them whether you like them or not. It's been incredibly difficult to go against this, especially when the person who raised me to be this way is the one gifting.

Anyway, this is to say that I donated a brand new red jacket that I my mother gave to me for my birthday. Last year, she gave it to me in the spring for my summer birthday, and by autumn when it was cold enough to wear it, it was too big. It was supposed to be a gift for a family friend and the gift for me was different red jacket, but I didn't like the original so my mother did a switcheroo.

But I held onto it for another 5 months unsure whether to offer it back to my mother. It had been ages so she couldn't exactly return it and get a refund. And if it was too big for me it would have been waaaay to big for the original recipient. So I finally plucked it from the cupboard the morning of a charity shop run and got rid of it.

I'm still hoping my mother doesn't ask after it, like she's been known to do about some gifts because the residual guilt is definitely still there but I value my space more than a jacket that wasn't useful to me (do I value myself more than the fear of upsetting people though?)

#my declutter journey #declutter #decluttering #my post #Tbh it wasn't waterproof and was lined with white fleece which were already turning me off of it #So the size was the factor I felt justified me enough to get rid of it

[of-mice-and-dungeons-blog]

The Master’s Vault

The first campaign in what I hope to be many was aptly named ‘The Master’s Vault’, in reference to the main goal of our quest. Our party consists of a brash and somewhat arrogant halfing monk named Scrum, a wood elf ranger named Dontos, who has made first contact with civilization in his 100 year life, and myself, Alvar, a reclusive human druid who removed himself from society to live in the woods.

The first thing to consider in any dungeons and dragons campaign is simply; where and why? Where have our characters met, and for what reason are they traveling together? If the all the players at the table wish to role play their character seriously, there needs to be a reasonable explanation for their gathering, lest arguments break out over who wishes to do what. All to often I have began campaigns in a generic tavern or inn, only to have a series of ideologically opposed traveling mercenaries at each others throats before the DM has even had an opportunity to introduce a plot. The Master’s Vault tackles this issue well by placing the group of strangers together at the manor house of Elaria, an elven survivalist and combat instructor. Though each character will have their own reasons for attending her academy, the players will be able to forgo the need to justify their mistrust, instead being told that they have spent the past six months together training as peers. Though this may not appeal too more veteran players who would prefer to develop organic relationships with their party, it helps to make the game accessible to newer players, or people who struggle to role play in general.

The first challenge thrown at us was a simple warm up exercise in the basement of Elaria’s mansion. Six, giant rats had made their home in the store room, and we were responsible for getting rid of them. Before we could reach the rats however, we were faced with a locked door. We battered through the door with assistance of the DM controlled Kholgrim (a generic dwarf fighter), not thinking to check for traps. Immediately, poor Scrum had his lungs filled with a noxious, poison gas, much to our amusement. This did not stop us from making short work of the rats, and we quickly returned to our tutor, who congratulated us on a job well done.

Now that our ‘tutorial’ fight was over, we were ready to go out into the world. We graduated from the school, and headed over into the centre of town in hopes we would find some quest or adventure, as we were still uncertain how the titular vault would factor into the story. We were told that after three days had passed, a sobbing gnome woman was approaching us, bearing unfortunate news. As it happened, our master Elaria had died, and named us her heirs. We proceeded to follow the gnome, curious to see what was in store for us. As it happened, Elaria’s will contained instructions on how to enter her treasure vault and claim our inheritance. This plot hook was enticing enough that the party all immediately agreed to search for the components necessary to open the vault, whilst open ended enough to create the feeling of freedom. That is to say, no one felt that the DM was forcing the story upon us. Though rather simplistic, it was well done and interesting enough for a first quest.

The vault door required a set of nine tiles to open, spread across the land in groups of three. Fortunately, none of the tiles were too far from each other, and the whole journey took us almost a week in game, and only three sessions ranging between 2-4 hours each.

The first stop on our journey was the grave of one of Elaria’s pupils, whose restless soul now guarded three of the tiles. Unfortunately, the handbook for this event specified a series of class based challenges to complete, that did not extend to the classes we were playing. I feel that the campaign would have benefited from more vague challenges that could be offered out to any class, though it was not difficult for the DM to simply improvise a task for us. That being said, we failed the task completely. In order to test our survival skills, the specter asked that our monk climb to the top of a tall tree in under a minute. Poor dice rolling instead led to Scrum struggling up the tree rather pathetically, drawing snide remarks from the spirit. Failing to do as we were asked, we tried diplomacy. The ghost was convinced by our fantastic role play (lucky rolls) and granted us the first three tiles. Oh, I forgot to mention, I was mauled into unconsciousness by a pack of wolves along the way. Typical.

Next, we traveled to a waterfall, which hid behind its rushing waters a medium sized cave. However, while attempting to climb into the cave, Kholgrim, the fearless dwarf, lost his footing and fell backwards onto the rocks, breaking his back. He fell into the river and was swept away, screaming for help. Though we tried to save him, the water was too strong and our dear friend was lost. Given the fact that he was never an actual player to begin with, the whole ordeal was rather amusing.

We were told the cave was home to a large spider, and soon discovered that a group of Kobolds made their home here too. After quickly dispatching the small lizardmen, we were confronted by the spider. Over 11ft in length, the spider filled a good portion of the cavern we were in. Having had our practice battles, we were now ready for a challenge. We threw our first series of attacks at the beast, all of us hitting our mark, something unprecedented in my experience playing D&D. The spider struck back, biting hard into Scrum, and dealing significant damage to him. One more round of well placed hits and the beast was dead. We retrieved the next three tiles and leveled up, which is always the most exciting part of the game.

Though over quickly and not all together challenging, the spider seemed like an appropriate first ‘boss’ for us to face, as it served as a good tool for our DM to measure our strength with.

The final stop on our journey lay on a plateau up the side of a small mountain. In order to reach the mountain however, we first had to navigate an enchanted valley, constantly muddling our minds and sense of direction. Within this magical mountain pass, we met a friendly wizard whose cart had broken down. After fixing his cart, we were rewarded with a small puzzle box with a large skull on the lid. Needless to say, after spending the better part of an hour cracking the code, we opened the box to discover evil living within. The lid flung open, and a great, green cloud flew out and killed the kindly wizard immediately. Oops. Once we had vanquished the evil spirit of disease, we claimed the magical ring from the box, buried the poor wizard and continued on our way. The canyon provided us with a solid hour of confusion before we were able to escape, and was a refreshing change of pace from combat.

Upon leaving the mysterious maze, we faced the most dangerous enemy yet; cliffs. Scrum and Dontos made their way to the top with ease, though I was not to be so lucky. Three times I lost my footing and slip, though on all occasions I was able to save myself from the full fall. Eventually we arrived at the top and claimed the next three pieces of the puzzle from the solitary dragonborn who lived there. He was a friendly chap, and he provided us with dinner and a place to sleep. The next morning, as we prepared to make our descent, Dontos explained to us that he believed he could survive the forty foot drop by executing a well timed combat role before he hit the ground. Despite telling him that he was a misguided ass, he leapt anyway. He did survive, though he snapped both of his legs. Our dragonborn host ran to his aid, but also fell down the cliff, breaking his back. Making our way down, Scrum and I were able to save both of them with a combination of medicine and magic.

With the nine tiles in hand, we returned to the manor house to claim our reward. Along the way we met an oafish bridge troll who demanded that we pay his toll. I felt the toll to be extortionate, and decided I would find another crossing. Before I could suggest this to the group, Scrum squared up to the troll, belted out some weak threats, before unleashing a torrent of fists against his portly body. In all honesty, the only thing that surprised me is that he landed three out of four hits. Dontos and I jumped to his aid, though over the course of the fight, Dontos landed only two blows, and I mysef landed none. In the end, it was basically a one on one between the biggest and smallest of men. For his arrogance, Scrum was brought to deaths door not once, but twice during the fight. The encounter challenged the party sufficiently, and had it not been for the healing of Dontos, we may have lost one of our own.

Finally we returned to Elaria’s manor and opened the vault, claiming our reward.

Overall Rating

New players 7/10.

Experienced players 5/10.

For a new player, it offers the chance to role play your character, and at least one challenging encounter. The story is simple and straight forward, and there is little room for intrigue, but that’s fine, as it can be quite daunting for someone without any experience in role playing games to be thrown into a complicated political mess or at the helm of an army. More veteran players may find the campaign a tad too simplistic, though inoffensive, as it does not challenge your ability to think laterally very much.

Spoilers beyond this point!

If you are a DM yourself, keep reading to see how the campaign ends, if you are a player and you feel like you might like to introduce this to a group of friends, stop here.

Upon opening the vault, a magical prerecorded message from Elaria explains that she was murdered by a cult of necromancers seeking the location of a dangerous artifact that she had hidden long ago. The vault contains a few magical items for the party, as well as the location of the artifact. She entrusts the party with this knowledge, and asks that you protect from the necromancers.

The campaign then ends with one final battle, as a necromancer follows you into the vault and summons four skeleton warriors to aid him. Though not a particularly difficult fight, it is a nice way to tie off the campaign.

Our DM decided to use the magical artifact as an overarching plot point for our characters. We shall continue to play through various campaigns, such as the the lost mines of Phandelver and the curse of Strahd, whilst we travel from land to land seeking the artifact described by Elaria. In this regard, the Master’s Vault serves as an excellent introductory campaign for newer players and more experienced players alike.

Thank you for reading my first post, the next campaign we play will be the Lost mines of Phandelvar, thought I shan’t have a review up any time soon.

#dungeons #and #dragons #dungeons and dragons #the master's vault

[daniel-ball]

[S/T]  Seamless Escape Evaluation

In this post I will analyse and evaluate my work from the Survive/Thrive project and reflect on what improvements I could make in order to help me develop my skills for the future.

  Concepts/ Implementations 

At first, we were a group of three (Jess, Xander and I) with the original idea of having a temple escape game (As interpreted from having to thrive with the resources you have, in order to survive being “captured”), themed with steam-punk design elements.  This was agreed within the group and was ready to be pitched with Jess being responsible for art, Xander for the graphic novel and I would be in charge of mechanics. However, whilst researching, we found out that our target audience thought that the steampunk theme was over-used and mis-used frequently, prompting us to change various elements of the game (Here). Despite the initial set back of this, with us having to think of a new idea and then start the development of it, I think it helped us greatly because we built up this idea and was able to flesh it out more than the previous, allowing us to answer some more difficult questions during the production stages as we previously identified subjects like our target audience and therefore gave me more time to build a successful demo for the pitch.

The core point and click genre would remain the same but artistic elements would change, as well as puzzles being more designed for our new theme; A more light-hearted pastel game with little bits of eeriness in designs and narrative development. The game would revolve the idea of children’s toys/games, therefore also inspiring different puzzles from our original idea. This was the idea that we kept until the end but was also altered with research, making us aim more towards the mechanics and feel of the game over the story. (Here, Here) I feel like this was a crucial decision in our game’s development as it would’ve drastically changed the game in either direction, however, I regret how late we made this decision because I feel like it didn’t give me enough time to research and implement more puzzles ideas, as seen in the un-implemented code. 

Research

Whilst developing Seamless Escape, i carried out a range of of research to gather as much information as i could to help improve the overall quality of our game. This research spanned from gathering data from interviewing developers of a similar game (Here) to reviewing female protagonists within comics (Here), allowing me to get a better understanding of our target audience and therefore tailor the game to best fit their wants. This was rather successful as i have acquired many key bits of information that have altered the game drastically for the better, the debate of story vs. mechanics being the main topics discovered through researching. The vast variety of the research conducted also allowed me to get both quantitative and qualitative data which was a massive help due to me being able to use their opinions to change our game then use the data to prove my points.

Despite this, having a large range of research has it’s downfalls, the time spent researching and collecting data for Seamless Escape could have been used to start pre-production/production stages earlier and therefore allow for more time to be spent creating the final product. Looking back however, the research has helped us so much that the time used by it was justified. 

Carrying out my research, i used a variety of methods to get a better range and knowledge of the subject investigated. An example would be my focus group research, in which i hosted to my target audience and received a lot of useful information, otherwise inaccessible if i only stuck to one method of research. Hosting the focus group was a massive success with their ideas/feedback (Here) changing the early development of our game, in my opinion, this was because of the more open answered questions used coupled with the fact that the audience had time/space to develop their answers and bounce ideas off each other. This can even be seen in my blog post where i wrote down their answers and they responded and communicated with not just me but themselves, allowing me to see the reasons why they thought a certain way and allowing me to better a better understanding of my target audience. Where-as if i asked them questions on something like a survey or questionnaire they might of felt more inclined to put a simplistic answer either out of ease (As it is easier to speak then to write, in many cases) or containment of the answer field. Something i regret and would change next time is being more professional when conducting research, not relying on my phone to record the gathering but using professional equipment or a studio, specifically designed to record things such as this because if it wasn’t for my simplistic note taking and rough understanding of the muffled recording, my research would’ve been lost/gone to waste. 

Pre-production

Within my pre-production i started planning and applying some earlier research to allow me to make the basic idea for our game and plan my time more effectively. My main pre-production documents included; Proposal, One-sheet, Pitch, Games Design Document and the Gannt Chart. All of these documents helped individually but the pitch and GDD complemented each other as the pitch helped us gather our ideas and then improve upon them with feed back then solidify them and expand them within the GDD. 

 A tool that really benefited me within these stages was the Gannt Chart (Here, Here) a document produced at first individually then later collaboratively between me and Jess. This document allowed me to have a visual interpretation of start points/deadlines set by both myself and the project. This tool was immensely helpful to me as i have a tendency to get side-tracked or forget things i have to do, whereas with this project i have stayed roughly on track with what i had to do. However, i feel that this tool became more valuable when Jess and i decided to make a group Gannt Chart, in order to track each other’s progress, we would review it every Friday morning to keep each other informed of what we had accomplished the week before and plan/ altar it accordingly. This was proven to be very effective when i was ill, due to my sickness i missed valuable time in which i could be working on the project and therefore on the friday we planned for the next week, changing various dates by which things had to be completed by and therefore didn't change our project massively.

Despite this, the Gannt chart did have it’s flaws, it was still planned by how long i thought a subject would take and therefore wasn’t 100% accurate, an example being scripts. I thought scripting would be a small task that could be completed in a week or two due to our lack of speech in our game, however it was a very big element of the project that i didnt plan for. The result in this lead to us getting rid of scripting to allow us more time to focus on our key areas because it was starting to drag down overall production and was impacting other areas of our project (Here). To prevent a replication of this flaw, next time i would research how long areas take and how big of a project these areas are,  not just roughly guess.

Production:

I was responsible for the mechanics of the game and the over-all physical design of it; this was a bigger task than i originally thought because i was responsible for more than i realised. This included minor things like providing Jess with dimensions sizes, something i didn't realise had massive impacts for our game and Jess if i needed them changed/altered, something i’ll take into consideration for the next time i contribute in a team. However, due to this and some minor sizing hiccups, it allowed for me and Jess to work on our communication skills to the point of them being greatly beneficial, our Gannt Chart for an example.   

A challenge we faced was towards the end of our project when some of my research returned that there was a split between story and mechanics within our audience. To fully understand our audience and also try to get rid of this problem was to conduct further research into the subject; which also returned another tie. Due to this, me and Jess decided to make the decision to focus on the mechanics of our game as this would be the most beneficial route and time conserving (Here). I regret most things involving this decision as i feel that it was too late in the development process to add any notable mechanics to the game like an extra puzzle etc. and therefore not completely fill my role to as best as i thought i could. 

Our primary target audience is 12-14 year old girls. Through analysing our research, i found out that this target audience is going through a lot of changes; both physically and emotionally. Another topic covered was that they would be in the transition from primary to secondary school and therefore experience a change in friendship groups etc. This transition is also commonly where most stages of bullying happen and so for our game we tried to make it relatable so they don’t feel like they were alone. Evie, Seamless Escape’s protagonist is a victim of bullying due to Queenie being more verbally abusive and locking her in a mansion. I felt this idea was successful as it raised awareness of bullying and could also give hope to anyone experiencing bullying.    

If i were to change something for next time,  it  would be to start the production stages earlier. Despite sticking to the Gannt Chart fairly well, i found that the time restraint was too small for the planned work, especially as i didnt plan for as many errors that occurred and the game would've been significantly improved if i factored in a few more weeks worth of work.  

Conclusion: 

Producing Seamless Escape has taught me many valuable things from more coding knowledge to how to design levels and most importantly, to not underestimate how long tasks will take. Next time i would look into and research how long tasks will take and try to get a more accurate Gannt Chart to follow/ use. Another vital skill i learnt was communication and how to manage team work effectively, a skill that will be used in our next FMP when the class will have to build an effective game together.  

With this project came some challenges, first being time restraints and how easy it was to over/underestimate how timely a section of the project would take. However, my most favourite part about this project was the feeling of accomplishment i got when we exported our game because that would show all of our hard work and the fact that we produced a full, working game.