New Entry 2 - Game Play and Critics

As I know, there are many types of game genre such as casual, racing, role-playing, arcade, puzzle, sports, strategy and much more. The game genre that I wish to choose is role-playing video games. Role-playing games consider to be a form of interactive and collaborative storytelling. Events, characters, and narrative structure give a sense of a narrative experience, and the game need not have a strongly-defined story line. Interactivity is the crucial difference between role-playing games and traditional fiction. Whereas a viewer of a television show is a passive observer, a player in a role-playing game makes choices that affect the story.

About Game that I choose - The Sims :

The games that I choose is The Sims. There are many versions of The Sims such as The Sims 1, 2, 3, 4 and so on. The Sims is a strategic life simulation video game series developed by Maxis and later by The Sims Studio, and published by Electronic Arts. 

Rules in the games :

Family Trait 
When creating your founder in The Sims, choose one of the founder’s 5 traits to become the ‘family trait’ for your legacy family. There after, every Sims born to the legacy family must possess this trait by the time they reach young adulthood. If they do not inherit it at birth, you must choose that trait the moment you are given the option to. The remaining traits still must be rolled for.

Matriarchy/Patriarchy 
Whatever gender your founder was, this must be the gender of every heir. Meaning if you started with a female founder, only female children may become the heir to bring in the next generation. Children of the other gender are still counted as part of the family bloodline and may still earn the family points, they simply may not bring in the next generation. A male dominant family is called a Patriarchy, a female dominant family is a Matriarchy.

The Sims character that you create are free to marry any other Sims, and have as many children as possible. But there are some rules to follow:

• your partner may be a sim made in CAS by you or another player as long as they do NOT have your special genes (relatives to your founder are ok to marry, though)
• every time you have the opportunity to choose traits for your Sim you must click the Random button
• the heir, the child who is going to continue the family, MUST have both the unique hair and eye colours. This sim has one exception to the previous rule, in that that one of eir traits must be Dislikes Children
• you are not allowed to dye Sim's hairs or changing their eye colour to make them heirs, a heir must be born as a heir

Characters in The Sims : 

Players can create virtual people called "Sims" and places them in houses and helps direct their moods and satisfy their desires. There are a bunch of different pre-made neighborhoods in The Sims that include an enormous amount of pre-made characters, such as ; Mortimer, Bella, and there are still many sims that already exist in the game when we start play it. We must also create a sims which is the part of create a family where individual sims are made. 

Besides the character that player create, there are also non-playable characters (NPC) in this game. Non-playable characters are characters that cannot be played by the player from the game's start like while townies are considered to be a class of NPC, they are largely outside the scope of this article. For an example, the maid, gardener, repairman, butler and also thief in the game that we couldn’t control them. They have special character files which contain their names and define their appearance, and which control what they can do and how (or whether) they can be interacted with. 

For an example, 

The maid, when hired, Brigit the Maid will visit everyday to clean the lot. She will clean dishes, pick up trash, mop up puddles and make beds.

Grim Reaper, The Grim Reaper appears when a Sim dies to claim their remains. If Death is in a good mood however, another Sim can be directed to challenge him, although children can't plead with the Grim Reaper.

There are many others characters like burglar, butler, repairman, and so on .. 

The design of The Sims :

A home is built, a family moves in, and Sim life takes its course. The Sims is nothing if not flexible-as much a digital bin of Lego as a proper video game-and players are encouraged to experiment. The Sims' construction and interior design aspects are as impressively realized as its "human" element. Players can easily mirror their real-world homes, and the game is designed with this inevitability in mind. "Build. Buy. Live." is the tagline of the game, and building is, accordingly, its first priority.The player can either purchase an undeveloped lot and build from the ground up, or, more impersonally, move the family into a modest, prefab domicile. The price of empty lots increases as square footage increases and is somewhat location-dependent. As in the real world, a view of the river will set the Sims back more than a view of the access road.

Our task is to either build her Sims a home or tailor the existing residence to better suit the sims character tastes and their needs. Construction is the more costly option, but allows for more creative freedom. The game's "build" mode provides a comprehensive, commendably intuitive architectural toolkit with which to work. Everything from landscaping to window treatments can be manipulated and clicked into place via a user-friendly, icon-based interface. If a room needs a door, the player need only drag and drop. The only great burden the player is saddled with at this stage is an almost paralytic array of design options. 

Elements in this game

The Sims bringing over all the elements that people love, but we can imagining them in new ways. So stuff like creative tools, they've always been really powerful tools in the past, When we are Create A Sims and we need to just, pushing, pulling, poking and grabbing. It's changes your Sims, it's very direct manipulation and it's the exact same thing with our Build Mode where we are going in and grab a room and we can just drag out the sides of it. We can pick it up, drop it down and everything moves with it.

Many real-life songs have been performed in Sims, to be featured in various games or expansion packs. There have been multiple attempts to try and translate Sims phrases into real languages, to varying levels of success.

This game interactivity

I am using computer to play this game. While playing this game, I use mouse to click all the things such as clicking on a things to ask my sims to do the things like clicking on the rubbish which means to ask my sims to throw the rubbish away. For this game, we must click on the item, which give the sims signals to follow our instruction and do the things.

Initial Experience when playing this game

I enjoy playing this game very much and still addicted with it until now. There are many funny things will happen in this game such as a Grim Reaper appears when a Sim dies to claim their remains. If Death is in a good mood however, another Sim can be directed to challenge him, although children can't plead with the Grim Reaper. If he accepts, he will either play rock, paper, scissors with or a shell game. If the Sim wins the game, the deceased is brought back to life for a second chance, but if the Sim loses, Death will either take the corpse or create a zombie. When the Sim is turned into a zombie, they will have no personality and their skin will be coloured into green. That's was too funny.
In additions, you will be in a virtual world and you can control your adventure. In The Sims your sims can be anybody you want them to be and do things you wouldn't or couldn't do in real life. Some people even consider it their "happy place". Besides, I love to decorates so, in this game, i can design and decorates my own house with the ways I love.



References : 

• http://www.thesims.com/en-us
  
• http://www.ea.com/sims
  
• http://compsimgames.about.com/od/gamereviews/gr/thesims_review.htm

Extra EnTrY ---> aBouT SociaL MeD!a ..

Many people do not know that social media is also a part of interactive media. They thought that social media is standing alone and not related to any things. Social media refers to interaction among people in which they create, share, and/or exchange information and ideas in virtual communities and networks.

• Refer to Andreas Kaplan and Michael Haenlein define social media as "a group of Internet-based applications that build on the ideological and technological foundations of Web 2.0, and that allow the creation and exchange of user-generated content.".
•  Furthermore, social media depends on mobile and web-based technologies to create highly interactive platforms through which individuals and communities share, co-create, discuss, and modify user-generated content. It introduces substantial and pervasive changes to communication between organizations, communities, and individuals.

Types of Social Media

• Social Networks - Services that allow you to connect with other people of similar interests and background.  Usually they consist of a profile, various ways to interact with other users, ability to setup groups, etc. The most popular are Facebook and LinkedIn.

• Bookmarking Sites - Services that allow you to save, organize and manage links to various websites and resources around the internet.  Most allow you to “tag” your links to make them easy to search and share.  The most popular are Delicious and  StumbleUpon.

• Social News
     -   Services that allow people to post various news items or links to outside articles and then allows it’s users to”vote” on the items.  The voting is the core social aspect as the items that get the most votes are displayed the most prominently.  The community decides which news items get seen by more people.  The most popular are Digg and Reddit.

• Media Sharing - Services that allow you to upload and share various media such as pictures and video.  Most services have additional social features such as profiles, commenting, etc.  The most popular are YouTube and Flickr.

• Micro-blogging - Services that focus on short updates that are pushed out to anyone subscribed to receive the updates.  The most popular is Twitter.

• Blog Comments and Forums - Online forums allow members to hold conversations by posting messages.  Blog comments are similar except they are attached to blogs and usually the discussion centers around the topic of the blog post.  There are MANY popular blogs and forums.

Social Media brings Advantages or Disadvantages ??

Advantages of Social Media

• Social media has the power to drive traffic to your website, blog, articles, etc.

• Social media could be the spark you are looking for to attract attention to your site, product or service. It could also be used to further build loyalty and long-term relations with your audience.

• Social media is able to bring people together, especially when promoting global products or cause-related campaigns and ideas since it allows people from the different geographical location to meet at a single point and express their views.

• Social networking offers many benefits. It is now easier than ever to keep in contact with old friends and colleagues. The professional networking site Facebook even allows users to request introductions to business people who are known to their contacts. The potential of this enhanced connectivity is huge; whereas once you would be left sifting through business cards after a networking event, trying to remember details about each person, you can now easily look up a connection’s credentials and business interests on their social media profile. Your profile is designed to function as an online resume, detailing your education, career history (with recommendations from your colleagues), and creative portfolio. The platform encourages users to connect with people working in their organizations, and to endorse their colleagues for the skills they display in their daily work. 

Disadvantages of Social Media

• The wrong online brand strategy could put you at a viral social disadvantage and may even damage your reputation, example, when you make a mistake offline, a few will know but when you make a mistake in front of hundreds or thousands of you online audience, most of them will know!

• Social media can have a negative influence on worker productivity. Employees may waste valuable time using social media channels such as Facebook and Twitter. They can also use social media to attack people reputation!

• When social media is used excessively or in the wrong way, it could have serious detrimental outcomes on both mental and even physical health of individuals.

• The one potential risk of social networking cited most often is that of hacking. Incidents of profiles and accounts being hacked into are commonplace. While this could be restricted to simply playing a practical joke on a friend, it sometimes leads to the more serious misdemeanour of identity theft. This requires a low level of technical skill and is referred to as social engineering. This technique banks upon the psychological aspect of a ‘friend’ connection; the hacker uses common interests, background and professional information (all of which are posted on profiles) to extract sensitive information, like passwords and other details from the targeted individual and use them to create an alternate identity. Just using simple data like date of birth, name and location allows hackers to create fake social security cards, driver’s licenses and ID cards.

           In conclusion, social media is the hottest online trend of the last few years. Not only do social media sites provide a way to keep in contact with friends, but they can also offer opportunities for professional online networking. Social media could be advantageous for your career, but there are also disadvantages to consider. Could the time you spend interacting online be put to better use? Social media has brought to the world a common medium for thoughts, words and expression. However its correct and efficient usage is completely dependent on how it is managed. Being aware of the risks and vulnerabilities that we are exposed to through these media only empowers further to use them in a positive way. It is up to us to make sure that social networking does not turn into social dysfunction. 








Reference : 

http://outthinkgroup.com/tips/the-6-types-of-social-media

http://www.clickz.com/clickz/column/2290890/advantages-of-social-media-and-social-media-automation

http://www.e-guillotine.com/the-pros-of-social-media.php

Entry 3 - How VR Technologies have develops in human life ..

Virtual Reality (VR) is generally defined as a three-dimensional computer-generated world that can be explored interactively through a variety of computer peripheral devices. Virtual reality (VR) can also refer to a computer-simulated environment that can simulate physical presence in places in the real world or imagined worlds. Most current virtual reality environments are primarily visual experiences, displayed either on a computer screen or through special stereoscopic displays, but some simulations include additional sensory information, such as sound through speakers or headphones. VR systems are configured to display the computer-generated world, or virtual environment, so that the image changes continuously depending upon the orientation and gaze of the user. Nowadays, human senses have allowed the interaction between human and VR technologies. These VR technologies have many usages in some specific area like in health, education and so on.

Health and Medical     

       These VR technologies can be use in health, it can also be use as a medical tool. Healthcare is one of the biggest adopters of virtual reality which encompasses surgery simulation, phobia treatment, robotic surgery and skills training. One of the advantages of this technology is that it allows healthcare professionals to learn new skills as well as refreshing existing ones in a safe environment. Plus it allows this without causing any danger to the patients. Virtual reality is quickly finding wide acceptance in the medical community as researchers and clinicians become aware of its potential benefits. In the United States, significant public dollars have been invested in the research and development of VR technologies, especially by the military which views VR as a promising tool for both training and physical and psychosocial rehabilitation. Revolutionary health care applications have been studied for surgical procedures (e.g., remote surgery), medical therapy, preventive medicine, visualization of databases, skill enhancement and rehabilitation, and medical education and training. VR has also been shown to be highly effective as a psychotherapeutic tool. It is often used to distract patients during painful medical procedures or to provide graded exposure during treatment for a wider range of anxiety disorders including posttraumatic stress disorder. VR can provide a blend of both distraction and experiential therapies that teach patients these techniques within a structured, safe environment. Virtual reality is often used as a diagnostic tool in that it enables doctors to arrive at a diagnosis in conjunction with other methods such as MRI scans. This removes the need for invasive procedures or surgery. Below is the example video of using VR to make surgery :

Education

         Besides, VR technologies can also be use in education. Education is another area which has adopted virtual reality for teaching and learning situations. The advantage of this is that it enables large groups of students to interact with each other as well as within a three dimensional environment. It is able to present complex data in an accessible way to students which is both fun and easy to learn. Plus these students can interact with the objects in that environment in order to discover more about them. For example, astronomy students can learn about the solar system and how it works by physical engagement with the objects within. They can move planets, see around stars and track the progress of a comet. This also enables them to see how abstract concepts work in a three dimensional environment which makes them easier to understand and retain. This is useful for students who have a particular learning style, e.g. creative or those who find it easier to learn using symbols, colours and textures. VR can also use in education like to train teachers before they teach their students. --> Virtual Reality Classroom Trains Teachers

            In conclusion, these types of studies may also be useful to explore related concepts which rely on the quality of information that is remembered and/or perceived within a virtual environment. The qualities of memories are also important in training in or learning from virtual environments. Since the Virtual Reality Monitoring decision process defines a measure of "realism" for a virtual reality, it can be correlated with transfer-of-training measures in order to determine if learning benefits from the degree of realism of the simulation.



Reference : 

• http://www.vrs.org.uk/virtual-reality-healthcare/index.html
• http://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/meetings/VRT/

Entry 2 - Game Play and Critics

As I know, there are many types of game genre such as casual, racing, role-playing, arcade, puzzle, sports, strategy and much more. The game genre that I wish to choose is role-playing video games. Role-playing games consider to be a form of interactive and collaborative storytelling. Events, characters, and narrative structure give a sense of a narrative experience, and the game need not have a strongly-defined story line. Interactivity is the crucial difference between role-playing games and traditional fiction. Whereas a viewer of a television show is a passive observer, a player in a role-playing game makes choices that affect the story.

The three games that I choose are The Sims, Harvest Moon and Smurf.

(a) The Sims

The freedom of The Sims will inspire you with endless creative possibilities and amuse you with unexpected moments of surprise and mischief. Players can create virtual people called "Sims" and places them in houses and helps direct their moods and satisfy their desires. Besides the character that player create, there are also non-playable characters (NPC) in this game.  Non-playable characters are characters that cannot be played by the player from the game's start like while townies are considered to be a class of NPC, they are largely outside the scope of this article. For an example, the maid, gardener, repairman, butler and also thief in the game that we couldn’t control them. Players can either place their Sims in pre-constructed homes or build them themselves. Each successive expansion pack and game in the series augmented what the player could do with their Sims. Sims farther from the center of the neighborhood spend more time commuting to work.

The game element and design:

• Have parties at public venues, such as pools and parks
• Have many more places to "public WooHoo" and the chance of getting caught in their underwear.
• The area of the town where Sims choose to live now depends on income. For example, Summer Hill Court is a more expensive residential lot.
• There are also new public events in The Sims, such as music concerts, movie premieres, pool parties, barbecues, sporting events, outdoor fishing, and the most civic-minded public activity in a Sims game to date, attending a public protest at the City Hall.

(b) Harvest Moon

Harvest Moon, known in Japan as Bokujō Monogatari, is a farm simulation role-playing video game series created by Yasuhiro Wada and produced by Victor Interactive Software. The main objective of the game is to rebuild a run-down old farm and turn it into a successful one. Over a period of time the player tends to crops and livestock, befriends nearby townsfolk, and eventually in some series get married and start a family.

Rules to play this game:

The player's character has primarily been male, but some games offer the option to play as a female character. The most common story line of the series involves the player taking over a farm that no longer has an owner tending to it, growing crops, raising livestock, making friends with the town's people and creating a family while running a successful farm. Each game provides objects to collect or goals to complete, whether it is befriending villagers, collecting musical notes, finding sprites, making rainbows, or ringing bells. Money is obtained by growing crops, raising livestock, fishing, mining, and foraging. With a limited time and limited energy, the player has to find a balance between the two in order to accomplish their work for the day.

(c) Smurfs' Village

At this game, players must help our blue buddies (Smurf) rebuild their home after Gargamel discovers it and scatters the Smurfsthroughout the forest. The game features popular Smurfs like Brainy Smurf, Papa Smurf, and Smurfette. The scenery in Smurfs Village is, well, Smurfy. The developers at Capcom produced a world that's nearly identical to the original cartoon, and every house, Smurf, and rock is colorful and cute. We can see our favorite Smurf surroundings in amazing smurfy detail. All the aspects of the Smurfs village are here, right down to the roads and flowers. To get the smurf character we need to pass the game level. For an example, we get Papa Smurf and Brainy Smurf at level 1 then to get Timber Smurf we should reach level 7 and use some coins. in addition, to me, the character of smurfs are cute although they were in blue colour.

Reference from :

http://sims.wikia.com/wiki/File:Sims3map4.jpg

http://sims.wikia.com/wiki/Residential_lot

http://www.moonconnection.com/harvest_moon.phtml

www.mysmurfsvillage.com/‎

Entry 1 - Introduction to Interactive MeDia

In the introduction of the interactive media we have to learn about the concepts of interactive media, the history of interactive media and also the impact of interactive media. Interactive media refers to products and services on digital computer-based systems which respond to the user’s actions by presenting content such as text, graphics, animation, video, audio and games. Interactive media is related to the concepts interaction design, new media, interactivity, human computer interaction, cyber culture, digital culture and some specific cases such as, interactive television, interactive narrative, video games, social networks and so on.

History of Media Interactive

For example :

 

Interactive media are an instance of a computational method influenced by the sciences of cybernetics, creation and system theories, and challenging notions of reason and cognition, perception and memory, emotions and affection. Social networking websites are an example of interactive media. The sites use graphics and text to allow users to share photos and information about themselves, chat and play games. Video games are another type of interactive media. Players use controllers to respond to visual and sound cues on the screen that are generated by a computer program. In addition, interactive advertisement is also one of the examples of interactive media. Interactive advertisement is an online or offline interactive media that can communicate with consumer and to promote products, brands, and public services announcements and corporates.

In addition, interactive media are a combination of audio, visual, and cinematic communications, connected to form a coherent body of information. Unlike books or films, which present information in linear sequences, interactive media have nonlinear structures, allowing each viewer to pursue information along a personally chosen path. Interactive media are usually created by teams of professionals, including audiovisual specialists, writers, computer programmers, content specialists, directors, graphic designers, information architects, image-makers, and producers.

            If we talk about art in interactive media, we probably don’t want to dive into definitions behind the topic. It’s clear, that there must be media and someone who interacts with it. Most of people start to interact with world in early years, but there is no media jet. If we consider all around as an information, than we might say, that we start interact with information first. So we might say that all the media we consuming is just an information. Closer to media, there are a lot of media and multimedia channels available to consume these days. If we think about different channels we have used, than most of probably recall TV as medium to interact with. That’s also as an inspiration for current paper. To understand more, you can refer to What is Interactive Media Design?

The Impact of Interactive Media in Social and Emotional Development

Positive

• Interactive media can be used as a catalyst for social interaction and communication between students and with teachers and parents. Children who use the computer with classmates have demonstrated increased levels of spoken communication and cooperation during computer use. Children have been found to play within a set of rules, share leadership roles on the computer, take turns, and initiate interactions with others more frequently.
• Computers have also been found to enhance children’s self-concept and improve their attitudes about learning. Luckin, Connolly, Plowman & Airey (2003) found that age appropriate, interactive toys featuring lovable characters can help strengthen children’s emotional connection with the learning experience.

Negative

• One negative effect that interactive technologies have on children’s social and emotional development is the increase in aggressive behavior that some children experience after playing violent video and computer games. The great majority of research on interactive media focuses on the effects of violent games. This research overwhelmingly shows that preschoolers who play violent video games are more likely to behave aggressively than those who do not.

Lastly, I think interactive media is very interesting at what there are intended to do. There is a bit of redundancy as we go from element to element but I understand that being redundant visually may have been the objective of the website developer especially since this site is explaining and describing. Interactive media is also a particular relevance for practitioners wishing to engage directly with skills in interaction design, installation and user-centered design, whilst challenging perceptions of the production and delivery of content in new-media. The course provides the support necessary for such personal professional development: an informed critical environment, the use of professional creative design methodologies and exposure to industry-standard design and development processes.

Reference :
http://dppd.ubbcluj.ro/adn/article_5_2_3.pdf

http://global.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/289959/interactive-multimedia