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- Creators: Computing and Informatics Program
Description
Last Hymn was created by the team of Tyler Pinho, Jefferson Le, and Curtis Spence with the desire to create an eccentric Role Playing Game focused on the exploration of a strange, dying world. Battles in the game are based off of rhythm games like Dance Dance Revolution using a procedural generation algorithm that makes every encounter unique. This is then complemented with the path system where each enemy has unique rhythm patterns to give them different types of combat opportunities. In Last Hymn, the player arrives on a train at the World's End Train Station where they are greeted by a mysterious figure and guided to the Forest where they witness the end of the world and find themselves back at the train station before they left for the Forest. With only a limited amount of time per cycle of the world, the player must constantly weigh the opportunity cost of each decision, and only with careful thought, conviction, and tenacity will the player find a conclusion from the never ending cycle of rebirth. Blending both Shinto architecture and modern elements, Last Hymn used a "fantasy-chic" aesthetic in order to provide memorable locations and dissonant imagery. As the player explores they will struggle against puzzles and dynamic, rhythm based combat while trying to unravel the mystery of the world's looping time. Last Hymn was designed to develop innovative and dynamic new solutions for combat, exploration, and mapping. From this project all three team members were able to grow their software development and game design skills, achieving goals like improved level design, improved asset pipelines while simultaneously aiming to craft an experience that will be unforgettable for players everywhere.
ContributorsPinho, Tyler (Co-author) / Le, Jefferson (Co-author) / Spence, Curtis (Co-author) / Nelson, Brian (Thesis director) / Walker, Erin (Committee member) / Kobayashi, Yoshihiro (Committee member) / Computer Science and Engineering Program (Contributor) / Computing and Informatics Program (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2016-12
Description
During the height of COVID-19 in the summer of 2020, most major sports leagues were shut down or postponed, to limit the spread of COVID-19. However, people still yearned for the community of cheering on their favorite team. To that end, The Game Band, a Los Angeles-based game development studio, decided to make America's favorite pastime, baseball, virtual. Just like that, Blaseball was born.
In this creative project, the Season Twelve version of Blaseball.com was subjected to analysis of its user interface and user experience elements by the author of this paper in the role of the researcher. The research questions posited by this project were as follows:
- What user interface/user experience elements of the Season Twelve version of Blaseball.com were effective, and what elements detracted from the purpose of the site?
- What recommendations could be made by the researcher to improve the user experience and allow for a more effective user experience of the Season Twelve version of Blaseball.com?
To answer these questions, two deliverables were decided upon. The first was a research study consisting of a usability survey and interviews with web developers who worked on Blaseball or Blaseball-related projects. The second deliverable was an industry-level analysis of the Season Twelve version of Blaseball.com to be presented as a culmination of the research and work. Through this process, it had been discovered that while the site was simplistic and could easily direct users to other pages, as intended by the developers, UI elements on individual pages confused and misled users. As such, clarifications and a more in-depth UI were recommended.
ContributorsLyons, Jacob (Author) / Selgrad, Justin (Thesis director) / Gray, Robert (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / Computing and Informatics Program (Contributor) / Computer Science and Engineering Program (Contributor)
Created2022-05