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Prompt 1: The space is organized as a long horizontal set of levels that include pitfalls for the player to fall into with the goals at the end of each level with platforms above a main flat area where if you fall you can still be relatively safe. Why relatively safe? Well there are also enemies that will make you start over if you get hit by them, with platforms above you it can make the levels feel somewhat restrictive when going up against the enemies. These contrasts of open space for pitfalls and closed areas for enemy combat makes the player feel as though they are focused on the enemy’s danger when in closed spaces, but they can always jump up to the platforms to take a second to collect their thoughts and decide a new plan of attack. With the platforming across pits in the game, they have no ceiling above and no enemies which makes it ideal for the player to focus on the jumps they have to make. These are the wide and narrow parts of the game and they are used very well to make the player feel certain emotions like panic during narrow parts and concentration in the wide open parts. The player collides with the enemies which will reset the player to the beginning of the level. The player also talks to the cows when they collide and the screen shakes violently which catches the players attention and makes them focus on what the cows say since they only say their dialogue once.

Prompt 2: The game takes the perspective of a forest animal that I think looks like it could be a deer, but since there is a deer in the game I think the most logical guess is that it’s a raccoon. The reason being is that the raccoon is smaller and the name of the game is called “Trash”. I also think it’s a raccoon since the down walking animation looks like it has dark spots around its eyes like a raccoon mask. It foreshadows a wishing well and that you can make a wish if you throw a coin in. Well if you find the coin you can throw it in but it doesn’t appear to have an effect. What it seems to show is that being helpful leads to a good ending. By catching fish and helping the deer lift the log, you get to have a nice dinner with your forest family. The rules of the game are to get new objects and explore how they interact with the environment. By getting the right items in the right order, you’re able to complete the game and have a happy outcome. This argues that the process and the journey along the way are worth it in the end. I would argue that they are convincing since it helps you see the world and understand a deeper meaning of what’s happening in the setting which leads you to become more immersed as the player. Because you’re more immersed it’s easier to understand the arguments the game make that helping others leads to a better outcome.

Prompt 5- “Drawing Tool” is a mesmerizing tool especially when using the mirror mode tool. Comparing it to a drug is hard, but I assume it means to compare it to having your only view of the world through it. I feel as though your only way of viewing the world through it would make you appreciate the sheer complexity of the world around you while still making  you appreciate the elegance of it all. What do I mean? Well in the game you are able to choose many options for drawing yet they’re all kept to a simple brush with the special brush and random brush tool providing the random element that the world seems to have everywhere we look. The simplicity of red black and blue brushes reminds you of school and pens you would use, where you could also choose a random color and make anything you want but the convenience that you would normally have in everyday life is taken from you and you must work to get the color and brush you desire. Not only is this a metaphor for the rewards of hard work and labor in life but it also makes you appreciate and use the color more than you normally would. Taking something such as being able to pick the exact color you want at any given moment and turning it into chance not only adds some excitement to it but it shows us how much  we’re shaped our world to convenience us at every turn and working hard for the simple things is no longer needed unless forced upon us.

Prompt 2:

In the drawing game “Colorful Snowmen”, it felt very random because of how the coloring system worked in hand with the snowmen. It picks a random color while the mouse is down, then once you release the mouse it prints the color for the snowman tool. This made it feel like it was tricky to get the right color. The game also felt uncertain when I was changing the brush strokes. The reason why was because the brush strokes did not seem to have a limit. I tried clicking the increase as much as possible but it didn’t seem to have an upper bound and when I went back and tried decreasing the line weight I found out that there was no limit to the line weight and that you could get rid of it entirely. This actually was pretty useful and the randomness made it enjoyable. The game then also hides the information of the current brush size and what tool you currently have selected so the only way to view the tool you have equipped if you come back to it later is by drawing on the page. In a way that makes it feel like a real canvas, something with no undo button like in real life. The only way to see what the snowman tool did was to try it out. Not to mention the enlarge and shrink tools only applied to the snowmen which made it consistent for manipulating the brush size while having large and small snowmen.

Prompt 3: An interesting interaction between a rule and a goal was with flowers and gaining access to a spot otherwise impossible to reach. In this game, you move a lawn with a person and mower that you’re able to control with wasd or arrow keys, but the player character is able to step on sticks where as the mower will break if it goes on the same tile as a stick. This surprised me at first but it made sense after thinking about it. Moving the mower around was simple enough and to navigate the maze of sticks took little effort unless you were trying to go fast through it which easily made me start over a few times. The mower had to cut all the grass in the level but when it went over a flower it would teleport the player and mower over 2 tiles. This made me wonder how it would affect the gameplay and quickly I realized that it can be set up to trap the player. This trap got me a few times as I didn’t realize why my mower was breaking after hitting the flower but it was set up to send the mower straight into the sticks. The other way the flower was used was to get into an area that wasn’t available otherwise by teleporting over a wall of sticks. This acted as a one way gate though as there was no way to get back over the wall of sticks since it was an enclosed area with no flower to teleport over with.

Prompt 1 - I played the puzzle Hungry Penguin and it was a fun cute puzzle game. It’s main concept is to complete the level by reaching the fish. In each level the penguin has to get past the water to reach the fish and can do so by freezing over the water by standing on a switch. Once standing on the switch the penguin cannot leave until the color corresponding to the switch is all frozen. There also happen to be rocks that can be moved around but not passed through. This adds a layer of complexity since you must be careful to move the rocks in a particular order and pattern so as to not block your penguin off from reaching a switch needed to complete the level. The levels increase in difficulty but always have a pattern of hitting switches in a certain order to freeze a path to the next until gaining a path to the goal (fish). From level to level it increases in difficulty by adding rocks in a way to almost trap the player if they move too fast or aren’t careful since there is no way to undo a move once it’s done. The penguin has a movement that is restricted to up down left and right and cannot go over water unless frozen and cannot go over rocks. The switches, ice, and fish are all able to be moved over and the switches will keep the penguin stuck until the water is frozen. It’s all about the correct movement of rocks since they are the only real obstacle in the puzzle.

The game is quite an interesting layout since you are able to roam around 4 rooms freely, make a choice, which then teleports you to another room where you must put on the hat and once that is done you get teleported back to the 4 rooms, only this time an exit is indicated on the far right room which takes the player to the end of the game. The rooms are quite interesting since it makes it feel like the player is in one very long hall. However the way that you get teleported after choosing a team feels like a room that just exists in the void of nowhere. The transitions between halls also make it feel like it's a hall and the way the colors change from room to room shows that the rooms are different as well. The rooms as they are currently set up makes it feel both like it's exploration and linear since you can go back to another room that you've been in before making it feel as though you have more control over the situation and which team you can join. It still feels linear since it forces the player into the hat room and through the 4 halls after talking to all the heads of the teams. The rooms are setup in a fast pace way with transitions between them that also make them feel as though they are not leaping through time or space except for the transition to the hat room after choosing a team.

The colors of the game were quite interesting. Not only did they stand out because of their extremely high contrast, but the colors had very unsaturated tones with the main colors being indigo, salmon, and light beige. Beige always seems to represent a neutral and balanced feeling which makes sense as to why the designer used it to build the foundation of the world. However, Indigo is so rarely used but invokes a calming feeling while the same can be said about the salmon coloring. The salmon could also be seen as a color that is almost opposite of indigo on the color spectrum which not only makes it easier for the player to tell things apart, but it also is quite pleasing to the eye. Nonetheless, these colors are not used that often and it makes the game feel almost refreshing. Now, if the walls and floor were instead a darker color it would feel as though the game would have an almost sinister tone to it and the floor would melt into the background which could make the player instead focus much more on the items and npc's in the game instead of splitting their attention between layout and interactable objects. On another note, the colors in the game can really easily relate back to almost any older supermarket that I have been to where the floor is tiled between a light gray/white/beige to an off tone primary color or even black which makes the player feel as though they may be in an older/abandoned supermarket.