Blog 11: Lesson 1 Reflection

1. What are you most proud of in your lesson, and why? 

If I had to decide, I was quite proud of the beginning of my presentation - the hook as well as the starting portion of the foundation lecture content. I thought my hook - which was to have a volunteer come from the audience and name the colors of color-coded words without actually reading them - was a bit creative in that it the connection between it and my video game design topic wasn't obvious.  The activity was meaningful to me, too; I didn't think of it until I was re-listening to the 2nd interview with my mentor Tracy Fullerton and recalled her advice on game designers needing dual-thinking (intuitive and technical) to succeed. I didn't actually make the chart, but it was something I remembered pertaining to left-right-brain clashing and realized that it suited Tracy's words. 

Personally, despite my extreme nervousness, I felt I was able to start off strong by being able to segue between the hook and my initial idea about rapidly shifting brain processes. I used the same examples my mentor had used to help me understand the idea, which was to have someone ask themselves, "How is this supposed to feel?" and "How can I implement this?" because that was the 


2. What assessment would you give yourself on your lesson? Explain why you earned that grade using evidence from the component contract.

P. While I would love to say that I deserved an AE, I would be lying if I did. Besides a rather unusual hook and a few strong points and references to my mentors, I didn't really do anything extraordinary. My only defense of this is that, having a topic that relies a lot on virtual media, there's was not much I could convey with visuals, and so I was limited to what I could only remember. Of course, there were other ways I could have more cleverly weaved some visuals in (see 3.) 

Based on the component contract, I feel I did manage to fulfill most spaces in the P range, including volume/enunciation, body language/eye contact, at least 2 published source citations, mentorship and/or interview referenced, and everything that falls in the category of "P Consideration".  The rest, I'll admit, are questionable, but I still don't believe I did anything straight-up terrible.

(I'm scraping gum here, but I would also like to add that I was one of the first people to present).


3. If you could go back, what would you change about your lesson?  How can you use that knowledge to give a better Lesson 2?

OH BOY. For one, I would definitely make sure not to admit my faltering moments by apologizing in the middle of my presentations, and I would do more to hide my nervousness when I couldn't grasp what my next point would be. I had practiced my presentation with something akin to a script because I was terrified of not making time; if we were under less time constraints, I would have been much more open with just explaining things as I went. 

I also wish I had more visuals, even if they were just screenshots of photos of me in my mentorship with my three mentors and a photo of the board game activity I had mentioned. It would have added depth into it without violating any of the rubric requirements.

We were told that it's better to not make time but to have not relied on guides than if we made time but depended on them a little too much. While I was able to make time without the use of guides, I feel that next time I'll make sure to have my lesson plan on the side for EXTREME EMERGENCIES. I'll definitely try to not rely on it in my next presentation at all as I had done with this one, but after experience that dreaded "brain fart" moment that I had today, I want to avoid that even if it means just glancing back at a piece of paper. It's not so much that I had little material that I couldn't fill it in in the segment of time where I was silent, but because I had lost track of where I had been in the sort of "script" I had been practicing on. In fact, in most of my practice sessions I had before, I would too often go over the time limit and so I cut down my material dramatically. I'll admit here also that the reason I had frozen up was due to me looking at the stopwatch on the I-Pad. I wasn't sure if that 8 minutes that it seemed to be one was for the entire lecture that I had commenced or if it was just for my foundation lecture content (and it was at this thought I panicked). 

Transitions also troubled me in the presentation. In my rehearsals, which would involve me occasionally side-eyeing my Lesson Plan, I knew exactly how I needed to transition between my ideas. But in the actual presentation, I began to zigzag with my mental script and couldn't remember what my transitions had been, especially because I had nothing to guide me. Again, the time constraint was what obligated me to the script approach with this presentation which I now regret, and I feel I would have been able to have natural transitions if I had done this any other way.

Blog 10 - Interview 2 Reflection

Click here for Interview 2

1. Please explain how you are spending your mentorship time (Is it at a workplace or somewhere else?  Are you shadowing?  Are you able to do tasks that are meaningfully related to the topic?  If so, what?  Are there other people who are experts in the location?  Etc...)

For the most part, our mentors always find something for Clerisse and I to do; while shadowing is certainly is one of those choices, we've done much more already. It's not routine, so there's always something new and different. We've helped brainstorm ideas for a new video game at its primordial state, play-tested some of our mentors' work-in-progress games, attended a very sophisticated assembly meeting pertaining to the economic affects of video games in our country, listened in on their meetings, completed an assignment that all USC game design students have done (which is to make a game board), played some of the games designed by other students, and of course, we have interviewed them. All of these have provided us with an undiscovered aspect of video games we didn't think about before.

All of this happens in the USC campus, but mostly we associate in the Game Innovation Lab, where our mentors frequent the most. Yes, the place is populated with nothing but experts, given that they are mostly the teachers/professors of the subject! To be honest, I am very proud to have met so many sincere, talented adults who contribute so much to their field. They often discuss innovative ideas. They're often busy, but just listening to them in their element allows you to glean things you might never through secondary research. They try their best to have us involved to what they do, even though I feel our input is at best amateur.

2.  How did you find your mentor?  How did you convince this person to help you?  

I was very fortunate to have been able to establish my mentorship with Tracy Fullerton through e-mail. I found her e-mail address in USC's website, given her important position in her division of work, and had sent a formal request explaining what the Senior Project entailed for me and for prospective mentors. I'll admit that I was extremely desperate at the time, and I repeatedly assured her that the very least she would need to do is allow me to shadow her in her work. Despite that, I made sure to explain everything thoroughly; not only did I explain Senior Project, but also the emphasis I-Poly has on projects.

Tracy was kind enough not only to agree, but expressed great interest when I talked about our high school. From the get-go, she has done more than the bare minimum that I asked her, which has been a blessing all on its own. She was honest enough to admit that she would be very busy some days, yet still introduced us to two of her associates - Sean Bouchard and Elizabeth Swensen - in her stead. Since then, I have been so grateful to have been bestowed with not one but three mentors. 

3. How would you rate your comfort level with your mentor at this point in your relationship?  How does this relate to the time you've spent so far at mentorship/with this person?

So far, I am comfortable with all three of my mentors and their colleagues I regularly come across. Since the beginning of the mentorship,  everyone at the Game Innovation Lab has been very kind and involved, often asking me questions that I sometimes forget to ask myself about our project. In fact, the entire Lab, with its gamut of encouraging experts, just automatically becomes a positive learning environment for us. If there's anything I'd wish to improve, it would simply be able to see them as well as my own mentors more frequently. While I can say that this comfort has grown from our time spent with them, it's easy to just say that the lab consists of naturally kind-hearted people. It's not just because we've visited there regularly. To be honest, I haven't been able to meet with my mentors as often as I'd like, mostly due to our schedule being cramped with assignments from our core curriculum. I would really just like to spend more time to learn from them.

4. What went well in this interview?  Why do you think so?  What do you still need to improve?  How do you know?  How will you go about it?

I was much better prepared with this interview than my last one, which had mostly been due to the fact that I was already familiar with my interviewee (my mentor). Because of this, I felt more at ease in asking her follow-up questions compared to my previous interviewee (who had respectfully and kindly asked me not to). In fact, I was able to fulfill this interview no more than a week after it was assigned to us thanks to how efficient our mentors were.

This interview did immensely in letting me feel closer to my mentor, Tracy Fullerton. In the past, we would see her much less than when we did with Sean and Elizabeth; truth be told, we might still see her less, because this interview won't change the fact that she has an important role to fulfill in the staff that obligates her to be occupied with other things on days that we visit. But in the time she manages to make for us, she is always helpful, earnest, funny, and always invites us to the most interesting events that relate to her (the assembly, for one). 

It's easy to figure out how much I was able to improve in this interview by using my first interview as a basis. However, something I realize as I was re-listening to the audio to transcribe the interview was that I often relied on my on body language and gestures to convey certain questions and comments, which can't really be detected in audio recordings.

For the most part, I made sure not to ask many follow-up questions within our 5 required questions because I was made to believe initially that we were supposed to only upload a 5-minute segment of the entire interview, and so I let Tracy know that any follow-up questions I wanted to ask during the main part of the interview would be asked later (I would jot down my question when I thought of them).

Blog 9 - Advisory Prep 3

1. State whether or not you currently have a mentor, and what the status of your interview is with that person (I have completed the interview, I have scheduled the interview, I have not scheduled the interview, etc).

My mentors are Tracy Fullerton, Elizabeth Swensen, and Sean Bouchard. I have met them regularly every two weeks with Clerisse, and I have completed my interview (I just need to get to transcribing it).

2. At this point, your research is probably guiding your studies toward more specific areas within your topic.  Name the area or two you find most promising and explain your reasons. 

As of now, my highest interest within game design are as follows finding how to maximize either intended player experience OR how to maximize player learning experience. While both sound very similar, the meaning behind both of them are vastly different (at least, for me). The former is based on an entertainment and artistic level, whereas the latter 
entertainment and educational level. 

To elaborate on the first part: suppose the genre of my game is fantasy, and I want my game to convey the theme of regret. What elements of the game design process will be most essential in allowing for the player to understand these underlying (or ubiquitous) messages without it being a distraction from the gameplay?

Player learning experience, on the other hand, is a goal in which I want to understand how I can best use video games as a way of teaching players (depending on the age) certain information. Yes, I fully mean BRAINWASHING education via interactive media, which is certainly not an  unfamiliar concept. However, I do want to delve into understanding what is necessary to best ingrain information into video games without any expense of entertainment. Anyone can easily argue that many games already pull this off, but the processes are never never so clean-cut.

3. What kinds of sources do you think will help you in the next month to gain more research depth?  Where will you go to get them?

Fortunately, both Sean and Elizabeth are avid designers for the educational genre of video games, though it was pretty obvious I would to them for advice even if they weren't. However, since I've started this mentorship, I haven't been really asking them specific questions regarding this particular topic, and since I realize that I'm starting to lean that way now, more doors will definitely be open. I can definitely ask them for any sources they used.

With a single search, I was also able to find reliable books on the subject matter -  What Video Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy by James Paul Gee seems to be a good start (and it happens to also be at my local library). 

I still have my mentor's textbook Game Design Workshop  to go through, and there are still a variety of unread articles online that will go into depth in this topic. Of course, I can't always count on the Internet's reliability, but I still also have CPP Library's database to go through. Last I checked, it had other articles for me to read.

4. Write down a possible EQ.  Please don't worry about wording other than ensuring that it provides the option for multiple correct answers.  At this point, the senior team is most interested in understanding your thought process.

What elements are most essential in maximizing player learning experience in a video game, with minimal expense to the entertainment?

Blog 8: Independent Component 1 Proposal

1.  Describe in detail what you plan to do for your 30 hours.

Just as there are for books, films, and even architecture, there is a pre-production for video games, which is exactly want I want to focus on for my first independent component. Pre-production in video games is where the concept development and design - storyline, mood boards, characters - take root so that a interactive medium may grow into a full-fledged game, however simple it may be. Since the start of senior year, I have been wanting to dive into the process of making a video game using the RPGMaker software my brother had given me, but thanks to my mentorship and research that Senior Project entails, I have back-pedaled to realize that there is much more than just coding the game with the software; video games games, throughout modern history, has evolved beyond just Pong and mechanics to entertain the player. Our standards have been raised to the point where video games can pass as an artistic medium.

I want to understand the experience of this creative aspect of game design, where brainstorming is the default state of mind and the most spontaneous ideas have potential. I want to make this component so that, by the end, I have a detailed outline that will be ready to accompany me in the actual production process when that time comes. Of course, in this aspect of game design, there are certain things that must primarily be tackled.

The following is what I want to accomplish:
- Storyline: What is the plot of the game, and what are the lessons and themes that will play throughout with the player?
- Map outlines: I will sketch out and design a virtual recreation of the I-Poly campus, to which the game will be based on.
- Mood boards: Because I want the game to be of the puzzle-horror genre, what filters/mechanics can I use to maximize this experience? 
- Puzzles: The game is going to be designed so there are 16 main puzzles, 1 per core classroom the the virtual I-Poly setting. This will also connect to the plot.
- Character designs: I definitely want the character to be fictional, so they will have a customized sprite as well as portrait to accompany the player all the way through.
- Audio distribution: An essential to ever horror game is the use of sounds. At my disposal are public domain audio clips. How can I use them to maximize the player experience in a horror setting?

All of this will be compiled into a Game Design Document (GDD).

Thanks to my mentor's textbook, Game Design Workshop, I have actually found a proper description and process in which I plan to execute this independent component. In the book, it's known as the Brainstorming and Physical Prototype steps in the process known as Iteration (the design, test, and evaluation of the game-making). Brainstorming simply refers to setting the player experience goals, deciding in what game concepts we want inside of the game.

2.  Discuss how or what you will do to meet the expectation of showing 30 hours of evidence.

This process will take a myriad of media: text for the storyline and plan for audio distribution, graph paper for the map outlines, and sketches/drawings for the mood boards, puzzles, and character designs. Each and everyone can be documented by either photos or screenshots. I will spend a certain amount of time in a given day, which will help me in my documentation of my hours. Each one is a small endeavor; there are 6 sections total. It is a pretty safe bet to say that each aspect will take an average of 5 hours to complete, and the compilation make take extra time.

3.  Explain how what you will be doing will help you explore your topic in more depth.

As mentioned before, game design has a great potential in society as an interactive, immersive medium. That is not to say that there aren't just games that are designed solely as brain-candy and are built to entertain, but there is a pool in the game industry that also tries to work beyond that. For me, I want to have an experience, even if it is that of a beginner, in designing video games. It is no different from someone who plans out a book, a movie, or even a building. There is so much behind the many products in our world, and creating a GDD will definitely serve as proof of that. Many memorable aspects of video games all are somehow derived from an idea that was made in pre-production, and that process is something I am deeply interested in.

4.  Update your Senior Project Hours log.

Check the link on the sidebar! It has been updated.

Blog 7 - Second Interview Preparation

1.  Who is your mentor and where do they work?  If their workplace does not reflect their expertise, what makes them an expert?

There are actually currently three mentors I have along with Clerisse, all of whom are prospective interviewees for this upcoming session:

As mentioned multiple times in my previous posts, my foremost established mentor is Tracy Fullerton, a seasoned experimental game designer, director of the USC Game Innovation Lab, author of the textbook Game Design Workshop, and Associate Professor of the Interactive Media Division. By description alone, she should have proven herself several times over to be a credible source of expertise for my topic, game design. Her primary work space is in the USC Game Innovation Lab, where she coordinates with multiple teams in designing multiple projects. She teaches several courses for game design students at the university. Her past developments include flOw, and she is currently working on The Night Journey as well as Walden.

Elizabeth Swenson and Sean Bouchard have been our go-to mentors on days where Tracy isn't around, but at this point, they have earned the right to be deemed mentors, full stop. Both are also staff of the Game Innovation Lab in USC who love designing educational games, but their talents are not limited to those genres. Both Swensen and Bouchard have received Masters of Fine Arts (MFAs) in Interactive Media, and are currently working on a game that simulates the field work of researching primitive life forms beneath the earth. Swensen and Bouchard have their own websites with information of their game productions, respectively here and here.

2.  What five questions will you ask them about their background?

- In brief, what college courses/internships/etc. did you take when you were first entering this field of work?

- In your opinion, what traits are most indispensable for a game designer to be well-off in what they do?

- What would you change about the journey you had taken to where you are now? 

- What were the biggest obstacles did you come across when you were still in training and/or academics? What are the biggest obstacles now?

- Who/what do you feel helped you the most to guide/motivate you to your current position in career?

Blog 6 - Advisory Prep

1. What has worked well for you concerning senior project this year?  What has made it a positive experience for you?  

I can confidently say that the best part of senior project thus far has been my mentorship experience. It has been filled with nothing but layers and layers of enjoyment; not only had I managed to get my first choice, but my mentorship takes place at one of my favorite universities. On top of that, I've been blessed to experience all this alongside my dear friend Clerisse, who I would be lost without (literally, too. I don't know my way around downtown LA and probably would have been kidnapped by now if it weren't for her). Simply traveling to our mentorship has become a learning experience thanks to her.

Meeting our mentors Tracy, Sean, Elizabeth, and the many frequenters of the USC Game Innovation Lab has been another grace in the mentorship. These people, who have all earnestly done everything they can to pass down their knowledge to us in game design, have put so much kind and sincere effort for us and have asked nothing in return. They are encouraging, frequently asking us what we plans we have for independent components and already suggesting ideas. They have made senior project infinitely more positive than I could have ever hoped, and I really hope that as we finish up the project, Clerisse and I will have independently created something worthwhile in the name of these people.

2. What are you finding difficult concerning senior project?  How can you adapt to make that portion work better for you?  How might the senior team help?

Concerning senior project, I would say the biggest difficulty I have found in senior topic is narrowing down my topic, since it seems to be a requirement. I'm not sure how specific of our topic the senior team wants us to have it, and even if I knew, I'm having trouble realizing what my narrowed-down topic should be. I already have an idea of what I would like to do for my independent component, but any independent component idea won't be approved until later. I mentioned in a previous post that this idea is to create a small game using a software that I have, which will be set in a virtual IPoly. The story is yet to be determined. This is something I absolutely want strive to complete in this project, but if I want to go through with it, I have to mold my topic/EQ to the game project (or vice versa), but that lends itself to me asking: is this something I should be doing?

Blog 5 - Interview 1 Reflection

1. What is the most important thing I learned from the interview?  Is there anything I would do differently for other interviews?

What I learned from the interview was not something I gleaned from the content itself (though that, too, was valuable and insightful.) Rather, the most important lesson came from the whole aftermath of the interview, as I listened to the audio again to transcribe it. I realized with much mortification that I didn't fulfill my role as the interviewer as I had hoped. Right before our session commenced, my interviewee Luke Peterson, had asked me to not ask many follow-up questions, since he was actually a last-minute stand-in for someone who originally was meant to be my interviewee but couldn't make it. I had eventually realized now that, despite his request, I should have found a way to make Luke comfortable to the point that he didn't even realize he was answering the follow-up questions that he apparently seemed to dread, being a rather reserved but sincere individual. Both of us had been nervous, I'll admit, but the faults of the interview that I identified subsequently were all on my behalf. There were many questions I failed to ask due to my 

Luke was an absolutely fantastic interviewee; he was friendly and gave valuable responses to all the questions I had asked. More importantly, he had been kind enough to accept the interview within such a short notice. He's actually a game design animator, and I'm regretful to have not asked more specific questions to this aspect of his field, since I myself am interested in this creative design of the field. I still don't know if this will pertain to my EQ or if it will even be my topic narrowed down, but asking Luke these questions would have let him know that I was more interested in his work beyond what I was required to know. Though I would never intentionally want to be rude, I should have at least tested the limits of Luke's request by sprinkling in some simple but non-redundant questions. Then I would have asked if it bothered him, rather than take the safe route entirely. Or, at the very least, I should have emphasized to him that follow-up questions were important for me to learn more.

All of this chagrin has led up to a better understanding what I must do for all my other interviews. Next time, should my interviewee ask a similar request as Luke's, I'll let them know about their importance. I won't hold back any more of my questions, even if I accidentally spill out a redundant one; I would rather take a chance of asking too many questions than repeat the role I had played in this recent interview. That is not to say, of course, that I won't be careful to filter some questions. I want to be as courteous as possible, because I owe the team at USC who has helped me thus far in the mentorship so much, and it's the least I can do.

2. Did I get additional resources and contacts?  What is the most useful?  Why?

Yes! Luke offered plenty of resources - mostly books that I will most likely use for my research - and contacts. Half-Real by Jesper Juul, The Art of the Game Design by Jesse Schell are two books he likes. He's offered to have the graduate students or even incoming students to be some of our interviewees in future sessions. This is perfect, since having experienced and beginning a game designers would be refreshing for research. This is the most useful, I would say, since these students game designers are the closest game designers I can possibly have for Senior Project. 

3. What makes my interviewee qualified to help me? 

Lucas Peterson is a game designer working in the Game Innovation Lab at USC, which (as I have mentioned multiple times before and would like to apologize for doing so) has the number one ranked game design program in the US. He is currently working with Tracy Fullerton, director of the Interactive Media Division and associate professor, as well as my two other mentors. He works on the animation of the video games, one of the prominent aspects of the field. Animators, I have learned from my mentorship, are so valued and essential of a game development team member that they are one of the most "wanted" in the field at USC.

Blog 4 - House Advisory Prep 1

What do I hope to accomplish through my senior project topic, which happens to be game design?

In the literal sense, my greatest hope is to learn the basics to design my own video game, however primitive it may turn out, by using the role-playing game software my brother had given me. Besides my appreciation for these digital outlets that had shaped my childhood, my brother's gift was one of the things that had pushed me to choose this topic. The concept of the game I have in mind will have I-Poly's setting recreated, and will take the player through a virtual allegory of the most important ideas this high school has given us.

In the figurative sense, I want to find myself. Specifically, my goal is to explore this field, which is a prospective career of my choice. I love video games well enough, but the real, underlying personal goal of this project goes beyond that. Is this something I will be wanting to do after high school, professionally? There's no guarantee that I will even find this answer by the end of the year; after all, there's only so much I can discover within a single year, and I might still need a better "feel" of what this field is like. But I'm glad I'll at least be taking the chance to dive into it.

Blog 3 - First Interview Preparation

1.  Who do you plan to interview?  Why?

I'm very fortunate to have up to three mentors who are good candidates for the interview: Tracy Fullerton, Sean Bouchard, and Elizabeth Swensen, who have been mentioned in my previous posts. Seeing as how we will be doing two interviews throughout Senior Project that will allow mentors, any of the three are possible candidates for this first one. Clerisse and I are sharing this mentorship, but there are many ways we can get around how we will interview; both of us can ensure that we each have different sets of questions prior, and then we conduct the interview at the same time, taking turns asking and receiving responses. Or, we can each decide on any of our mentors, and as the year progresses and we must have additional interviews, we switch and/or rotate our mentors as the interviewees. 

Tracy, Sean, and Elizabeth are all prospective interviewees for the assignment. I have decided that for this first one, I will be interviewing Sean Bouchard. This will be a perfect introductory setup for this project component, seeing as how Sean (as well as Elizabeth) are Game Innovation Lab Associates in USC. Not only is he one of my mentors, he is also well experienced in the art of game-making, particularly ones that are aimed to educate youth. I am confident that he will offer a lot of valuable advice and information regarding this topic of interest. Through this, I hope I'll narrow my topic of "game design" to something more specific in which I can channel my energy and work towards for Senior Project. 

While I'm only interviewing Sean as of now, one thing is true about all three of my mentors: each has their own unique wisdom to be shared in the world about their passion and skill in game design. Through these interviews, I am hopeful that their positive and sincere influence in a work that they love will be spread to all passionate people.

2.  Five questions will be assigned to all seniors to ask.  What additional questions do you plan to ask?  

• What made you realize you wanted to do game design for a living?
• What motivates you to create video games?
• In your opinion, what is the best part of being in this field?
• Did you envision yourself becoming a game designer when you were younger? 
• If yes, how did you achieve this vision?
• If no, what changed your mind?
• What has been your greatest accomplishment in this field of work?

Blog 2 - Summer Mentorship

At the center is my mentor, Tracy Fullerton. On the right is my dear friend Clerisse Cornejo, who is also a student of this mentorship. I am at the left.

In order are Clerisse, myself, Elizabeth Swensen, and Sean Bouchard.

Click here to view my Senior Project Hours.

1. List the contact name, phone number, and organization of the person with whom you volunteered.

• Primary Mentor
• Tracy Fullerton (Associate Professor and Chair,  Interactive Media Division Electronic Arts Endowed Chair, Interactive Entertainment)
• Work Phone: 213-740-6981
• Organization: University of Southern California, School of Cinematic Arts; Game Innovation Lab
• Secondary Mentors (are present when Primary is unavailable)
• Sean Bouchard
• E-mail: seanbouchard@gmail.com
• Organization: USC, School of Cinematic Arts; Game Innovation Lab
• Elizabeth Swensen
• E-mail: swenyo@gmail.com
• Organization: USC, School of Cinematic Arts; Game Innovation Lab

2.  What qualified this person as an expert in your topic choice?  

My mentors are all affiliated with USC's Interactive Media & Games Division, which according to The Princeton Review, happens to have the highest-ranking Game Design program in the United States. This information alone gives a good inkling of if how qualified my mentors are. Not only is Tracy Fullerton a seasoned experimental game designer, she is also the Director of the USC Game Innovation Lab, author of the textbook Game Design Workshop, and Associate Professor of the Interactive Media Division. These, of course, only scratch the surface of what she has done in this subject; before joining USC, she was the president/founder of  Spiderdance, Inc., an interactive television game developer. Fullerton has also contributed to the production of recent games such as The Night Journey and Walden.

Sean Bouchard and Elizabeth Swensen also deserve to be recognized. They both have put a lot of effort of acting as our mentors when Fullerton is not present, despite the fact that Fullerton was the one we had officially cemented the mentorship with. Both are staff of the Game Innovation Lab in USC who love designing educational games, but their talents are not limited to those genres. Both Swensen and Bouchard have received Masters of Fine Arts (MFAs) and Interactive Media, and are currently working on a game that simulates the field work of researching primitive life forms beneath the earth. Swensen and Bouchard have their own websites with information of their game productions, respectively here and here.

3. List three questions for further exploration now that you've completed your summer hours.

• In depth,  how does one best combine esoteric ideas into video games so that they can be produced to help give the public a higher understanding of those ideas? (If I wanted to teach something such as bio-medical engineering, what is the best way to do that?)
• In general, if I had an idea of what I wanted a video game to be, how should I begin designing it?
• How much programming experience does one need to be able to properly create a video game?

4. What is the most important thing you gained from this experience? Why?

There was one fact I remember that was conveyed during our introductory tour in the Game Innovation Lab, and that was that the objectives of video games can go beyond just entertainment. This was something I was already aware, evidenced clearly through educational games, but I never really thought of it any more thoroughly than that. That is until I had mentioned talked my conflict about deciding on whether I would like to pursue computer science for gaming or go for bio-medical engineering, be it for Senior Project or college. Elizabeth and Sean had then reassuringly explained to me that, not only has the gaming industry boomed in recent years, the genres of its products are utterly vast. There are some games have been created specifically for more than entertainment, that aren't just the mainstream, console games (and I don't mean to disregard the values of those either);  some are indirectly and directly therapeutic in both mind and physicality. Some have been designed to guide students the college application process. In a more specific and relevant case for me, some people have even made some that integrate the basis of bio-medical engineering and teach it or even help the patients in need of such engineering. It can either be an art form or something very scientific, and can branch into anything.

5. What is your senior project topic going to be?  How did mentorship help you make your decision?  Please explain.

As I had mentioned, one of the dilemmas I fell into this summer in seeking a mentorship was deciding what topic I wanted - game design or bio-medical engineering? I had actually managed to attain a prospective permanent mentor in the latter choice as well. I knew I wanted to spend some of the summer properly weighing the options. As evidenced in this post, I had chosen game design, but not for the reason that I thought it was superior in any way or that I thought it was even more interesting than the other. However,  the very first day of my game design mentorship had been quick to capture my heart, especially given its location of the USC campus. I know very well that pursuing game design is a risky business, given the rapid expansion of its industry and competition. Tracy, Sean, and Elizabeth have been very amazing and dedicated individuals. Shadowing the meetings, seeing the complex process that goes behind the things that shaped a good part of my childhood, and glimpsing the teamwork in those productions that groups at IPoly can only dream of made the idea of game design was exciting. In a rare opportunity, we were able to visit a Congress of Assemblymen that talked about the impact of both the gaming industry in the economy and hear the success stories that all began in USC. Just thinking about what it would mean to pursue something like this after graduation is both scary and thrilling.

It's all a very romantic mindset, and I'm aware of that. One can strive to be a game designer and flop in the industry, as a writer or an artist might. If I were to pursue something such as bio-medical engineering, I would have a much more steady and sure path in life that doesn't rely on the social interests of people. I may not know about bio-medical engineering as much as I know about game design right now, but it is part of a field I know will always be necessary and constantly take in all the individuals who willingly go into it. Game design is not.

Which is all the more reason I ultimately chose game design. After all, the purpose of the Senior Project isn't to dive into a topic I am certain to go for in college. It's meant to explore something of our interest, and if I dive into it only to realize that game design may not be the right choice of a career path for me in the future, then I will have learned a lesson and choose bio-medical engineering or any other form of computer science. There's not much to lose, because I'm committing to a Senior Project, not declaring a major. I want to have a taste of the industry that is precarious for the young individual who is still deciding on what they want. It'll help me decide if it will be right for me in college. I have already been assured of a keen interest in bio-medical engineering when I had volunteered for the Red Cross and through other means. I even have a constant interest for the general field of computer science rather than the specific category of game design. And if a game design is not my path in college, I rather realize it now than to pursue then regret it later. 

(Or, I can learn to love both somehow, and fall into another dilemma, but that's a problem for another day that might not exist.)

Blog 1 – Senior Final Lesson/Interview Reflection

1.  What three lessons were most helpful for you to see, and why?

Digital Publishing, Sarah Regan's lesson, had been the first of the Senior presentations I had seen, and for me, it was an example as what not to do when it is time for my own presentation. Regan's Hook Activity opened up with a bad impression; she tried to engage us by having us weave a story with sentences that began with, "And then there was...". It was an interesting concept, but she had mistakenly written it as, "An then there was...". The error would have been overlooked if it weren't for the fact that she kept insisting it was correct when someone in the audience tried to correct her, leading the rest of the Hook activity without realizing what was wrong. Her topic was about publishing, the mistake stuck out like a sore thumb. Her later activity was one that could not be completed with the time she allotted, and so we were rushed. Moreover, whenever her assistant would accidentally skip a slide, a wholly understandable mistake that occurs often in slideshow presentations, Regan would dwell on it excessively, aggressively criticizing the assistant. Not only would it completely draw us from the presentation, it was extremely rude and embarrassing for her assistant. And, in general, she relied too much on the slide texts.

Two other lessons, Security and Editorial Publishing, were more positive examples of Senior presentations. Mike Rivera (Security) had an extremely unique Hook activity by having a staged robbery happen outside the class. Our activity was to describe the robber's appearance that we managed to glimpse. In addition, during the presentation, Rivera physically demonstrated a security guard's techniques of defense against people, and our other activities were to mimic those techniques. In Editorial Publishing, we were put into groups, given materials, and told to design a yearbook cover of a fictional school based on a few random key words. The results were very entertaining, and the presenter, Elijah Garcia, later cleverly tied the details of the activity together to one of the answers to his EQ. Both seniors were very articulate in their presentations, relying only on a few words every slide to convey a lot of interesting and relevant information.

2. List one thing that you learned about the senior project in interviews that will help you get off to a good start?

Getting an early start in finding mentorships was emphasized in every interview with the Seniors I recorded. Most talked about how many of their mentorships eventually fell apart due to distance and scheduling, and so they would lose time in pursuing another. Some had ex-mentors that broke off from them simply because they had become disinterested, so I was further advised that, when I find a mentor, they should be from someone who will most likely form a strong bond with me.

3. What topic(s) are you considering, and why?

Bio-medical engineering has been one of my first choices, not only for its interesting subject of prosthetics but also because of my own interest in it as a prospective career. I've always believed that I would most likely pursue engineering in college, but my parents have always felt strongly in me being in the medical field. Bio-medical engineering, to me, is almost like a compromise, one that I am happily for; one of my idols happens to be a bio-medical engineer, a fact that first sparked my interest.

Game Development has been another one of my considerations, which is an interest that has increased recently. In the past few years, I have become very fascinated by programming, and I've always enjoyed video games. The video game industry has also rapidly grown in the past years, now being an extremely competitive field. I would love to get a glimpse of what it would be like through a mentor in this topic, but I feel it might be too ambitious. At the very least, I've already talked to some Seniors and teachers about connections of this relevance, and responses are pending.

Software Engineering, Tissue Engineering, or Biodegradable Plastics have been other considerations.

4. What EQ do you think might be interesting to consider in guiding a project like this? 

What is the most effective way in closing the gap between the engineering and medicine fields?

or

What aspect of a video game is most essential to develop one that is successful/engaging?

5. What are some ideas you have about finding summer mentorship?

I mentioned before that I have talked to some Seniors and a few teachers regarding any connections they may have that are in Game Development. Some have said yes and will contact them about my interest for their mentorship, and I am currently waiting on those responses. 

A mentorship for Bio-medical engineering has been more difficult to pinpoint, given that I know almost no connections in the general medical field at all. I will be regularly volunteering at a hospital soon, so I plan on asking around there. But, as of now, prospects are bleak. I will also be touring in some college campuses this summer, so I will also be seeking some connections there.