First, I will explain what we did for our project. Then, I will comment on our product and discuss what we can do to improve the quality of our piece. Finally, I will chat about how this project affected me.
Our main goal of this podcast was to make natural, just like a conversation between two people. First, we made a framework of the podcast about the League of Legends, using Google Docs. This framework was done by bullet-pointing topics that we were going to discuss. Then, we looked for resources we could use for our project. The main producer interviewed an experienced player, and we looked for suitable pieces of background music. Then, we started taking voice recordings.
The first impression or feeling I had towards our piece after podcasting is unsatisfactory. As Professor Morgen told us, I was stressed by voice (mostly because of my accent and fluency). However, these problems cannot be resolved in a brief time. Therefore, what I can do for the future is to imagine many kinds of scenarios and organize my thoughts for each scenario so that at least I can speak fluently and this fluency can make listeners more comfortable. The second improvement we can make is preparation for podcasting. We, the producer and the assistant producer should first play together so that we can share our opinions about the game before we start podcasting. This preparation should work as a “practice round” for the podcast. When we share our opinions, we can add some important aspects that can relate to the broader medium and eliminate topics that take too much time, which can make listeners bored, and topics that are hard for listeners to understand. Overall, I found many places that we can improve on, so we will make use of these failures for the next podcast. Our goal will be to make our piece more smooth and interesting. If this goal is reached quickly, then we can work on the naturality.
Although I only talked about the negative side of our product, I also have a positive attitude towards this project. I was glad that I was able to experience podcasting (I enjoyed taking podcast). Although I am a person who does not talk in front of people, this project forces me to speak and I could feel that I was getting used to speaking. Interestingly, I am looking forward to making the new podcast episode.
Steven Johnson argues that board games do not require any probing skills. I played Betrayal at House on the Hill with the other three players. In the game, I became the traitor and the other players became heroes. My goal was to kill all the other heroes using myself and a monster. As Steven claims so, there is no probation of the physics of the game. This is apparent because the physics of the game is just a connection of tiles that represent distinct rooms. Although we are able to discover new rooms, each tile already tells what it does. However, strategic decision making, or telescoping, is needed because we need to explore the tiles cleverly and sometimes use to improve a player’s circumstance. In my case, my monster was able to teleport to the “omen” tiles by lowering its might to 3. Also, I had a choice to land on a specific tile to increase its might by 1. By using the advantage of the immortality of the monster, I teleported to the “omen” tile when there was a player on it. Although my chance of winning the fight against a player becomes lower (since I can only roll 3 dice now), I was able to scare them because they thought that my monster was overpowered, although it was not as strong as they believed. In the beginning, they thought my monster could teleport to any space and just gain a might every turn and can steal an item if I win the combat. Therefore, during the game, I realized that I had to consider both the mental and physical states of other players. In the end, I was not able to find the requirements for them to win, so I lost the game. The game itself was very complex for us. We end up reading the rule book for about two hours. But, after we understood the game, it was so fun, and it was like a video game for me.
Although I have seen fireworks many times and have heard the sounds of explosions from my house, I have only gone once to a place where people see fireworks. Fireworks are called as 花火 (pronounced as Hanabi) in Japanese, meaning fire flowers. In this quest, I drew out a group of people standing on a sandy beach, watching fireworks. Instead of drawing fireworks, I placed artificial flowers to show the beauty of fireworks. After taking a photo of the art piece, I understood the reason why Japanese ancestors named fireworks as fire flowers. In real fireworks, viewers, with excitement and hope, wait until the powder to explode. However, the beautiful explosion does not last long; it just disappears in the sky in a few seconds. Flowers prepare many months just to bloom for a month or two. Then, they just become wilted forever. This way of life may have reminded the Japanese of fireworks.
Do you remember all the planets? Let’s see them from left to right… The first one is Mercury, the closest planet to the Sun. The second one is Venus, the hottest planet. The third one is Earth, where we live on. The fourth one is Mars, where we might live in the near future. The fifth one is Jupiter, a huge one. The sixth one is Saturn, which has cool rings. The seventh one is a melon, which always reminds me of craters of moon…
I encountered with two challenges. One was that I had no idea which pictures to choose and another was that the editing software “Paint 3D” crashes every time when I open it. I chose the following images:
There is no deep meaning to why I chose these images. A melon’s surface just looks like a planet, and I tried to edit so that the edited image seems to be right. I wonder why a melon looks like this way…
22:01 Entering to the lounge: “Oh shit my mouse is too sensitive that I cannot control my cursor well. Why I am moving so slow?”
22:04 Searching things on the right side: “Oh, I can open the shelf. Oh, here is a map. Wait, do I need this map after I go outside of this building?”
22:08 Opening the closest door on the right side “Oh no… I feel like there will be a creepy thing inside… Oh, it’s just a closet. There is a name tag. I should take a look at it. Oh my god, my screen is lagging.”
22:17 Looking at the shelf on the right side: “Is there anything behind the shelf? Oh wait, there is a question mark. Let me click on it. Oh, what is this. I’m going inside. Oh, there is a key to go to attic. Nice! I’m probably going to need this later. I feel like there are more hidden entrances.”
22:28 Finding out that the right door is locked: “Oh my god. This game might take longer time than what I am expecting. I should have started this game in the morning.”
22:30 Starting search the left side of the lounge and hearing a sudden Sam’s voice: “There is a folder. Oh, so they just moved here? Seriously? Do I have to memorize all the things? (Taking a picture of this instead…) Oh ****! (I freaked out by the Sam’s narration.)”
22:32 Finding a letter to Sam talking about Daniel: “This guy is pretty suspicious…”
22:35 Finding a letter from the principal and hearing a sudden Sam’s voice again: “Okay… (Taking a picture of the letter…) Oh ****! (I freaked out again by the Sam’s narration.) I cannot get used to this sudden narration. Oh, so this house is haunted…”
22:42 Looking around the parent’s room (?): “JFK… I don’t know how these things are all related…”
23:15 Finding an “interesting” magazine: “Oh, this is a book about JFK. I see. Yikes. (opening the ‘interesting’ magazine) Wait, I thought this game is horror.”
23:18 Finding the combination: “Oh there is a folder again. This number should be the combination for something.”
23:32 Starting to realize what is going on: “Oh so Lonnie and Sam love each other. There might be a problem between them, and that is why Sam probably left.”
00:12 Guessing the combination correctly: “I already know the last three digits. I should just guess one digit. Easy. Oh there is a key to basement.”
00:30 Finding out about the relationship between Sam and Lonnie and what happened to Lonnie: “Yeah, I kinda knew it. Oh that’s kinda sad. Did Same leave to find Lonnie?”
00:51 Finding the entrance to attic and searching around attic: “Finally I found the attic. Oh Lonnie asked Sam to meet her again. Oh there is a green book. Is this ending? I did not even explore basement. Oops.”
This game is not a mystery game or a horror game. This is more like a “story” for me. As I played through the game, I learned what the game is about. I probably should not realize that there was a hidden door to get the key to the attic. Although the sequence of how I played was probably not right, I believe that I got some key points of this game. This game tries to reproduce the atmosphere in 1995 by placing many items that were common back in 1995 like a radio. Also, I believe that LGBT was not considered a positive factor in 1995 and that fact could be inferred from the story. However, I could see her father’s effort to understand Sam’s situation. Each member in the family could not see each other’s effort, but there was the warmth of the family.
I am going to start playing Gone Home. The background music is pretty creepy. I hope that I am not going to freak out… Also, I like how I can hear the sound of rainfall and thunder. This makes the setting more serious and depressing. Since the note on the door says that Sam does not want me(Katie) to find out where he went, I probably need to find where he is (because that is usually how a game works). However, the sensitivity of my mouse is distracting from playing smoothly.
I usually carry around these items. Although these things are mundane, let me explain why I have them in my bag.
Pen and Memo Notebook: I am currently working at Whitehead Biomedical Researching Building every weekday. There, I do simple tasks, such as washing contaminated tools, autoclaving, spotting C. Elegans on plates, and etc. However, these tasks are sometimes hard to remember, so I always have a pen and a memo notebook with me so that I can take notes. This is the reason why I always have a pen out of my pencil case. The biggest problem is that I cannot read my handwriting, especially when I scribble.
Clear Blue Case and Red “Composition” Notebook: As I said before, I work at the lab. I also have my own research, given by my instructor. In the beginning, I worried about starting my own research because I already forgot most of the concepts I learned in the Biology class that I took back in my Sophomore year. However, when I consulted about this research opportunity with my faculty advisor, he told me that people learn basic things by doing research. Therefore, I decided to carry out my research. As expected, I had no idea what I was doing with my research. I was frustrated about my ignorance, so I read many research papers and googled many words since last October. Some of those papers are printed and are kept in the clear blue case. I also found several ideas from my research, which are written in the red “composition” notebook, or a laboratory research notebook.
Blue Folder and Pencil Case: These are just ordinary items for classes. There is nothing special.
Wallet: This is a wallet I bought last summer in Japan. The bland of this wallet is called Hunting World. I do not really know whether this is a famous bland in the US, but this bland used to be very popular in Japan. The problem with recent wallets is that they do not have a coin pocket. However, I am used to a wallet with a coin pocket, so when I found this wallet, I bought it immediately. This was the most expensive item I bought last summer. Probably I am not going back to Japan for a while, so this wallet is somewhat important for me to remember Japan.
A Pair of Glasses: I found this pair of glasses last December. Well, technically, a burglar found it. Every weekend, I go back home so that I get a ride to Japanese Language School to teach mathematics. Last December, when I went back to my house, I was the first one to get into the house, followed by my mother. I just walked into the living room and then turned around to see the kitchen to find any food I could eat. But, I just saw a big mess there. I first suspected my parents to be very disorganized. But then that would be very strange because it was the place where all the important documents and cash were placed and they do not touch cabinets frequently. Just in case, I asked my mother whether they made a mess, and she was so confused about why I asked the question. Obviously, they were confused because they did not make the mess before leaving the house. Yes, the next person to be suspicious is Santa Claus; he tried to find a place to hide my Christmas present. But, I also suspected a burglar or burglars to be the one who made the mess. My mother also turned around to see the kitchen and was surprised. She asked me who made the mess, and I obviously do not know who made the big mess because I was at Emory forty minutes ago. Then, we immediately concluded that our house got burgled. We went out of the house with a rush because burglars might still be in the house and had weapons. Well, we did what we supposed to do, such as calling police officers. When they were investigating the crime, we were told to look for things we got stolen. So, the detective, my mother and I went around each room. It was time to check my room. We went to my room, and he asked me whether anything is stolen. I felt like nothing seemed to be stolen. I looked over my desk and there was an opened spectacle case covered with dust. Then, I told the detective that the burglar found my favorite glasses, which I could not find for two years.
Key strap and Keys: I have a key strap with two keys: one is for my dorm and the other one is for the lab locker. I use a key strap because I tend to forget bringing either key. Also, the design for my key strap is football because my brother used to play football at his university.
Tissue: I have an allergy and get nosebleed frequently.
Bag: I have a cute blue Kanken bag. I see many people toting around those small bags. But, the purpose of having a bag is to put items inside. For the sake of its role, I use this bigger bag.
I have seen many YouTubers showing what they have inside their bags, and it is hard to believe that I would do the same thing. Although I do not think this bag explained who I am, it is an interesting idea to describe myself by using my belongings. I place items so that the ones in the first row to be things that can distinguish myself from other students and the ones in the second row to be things that are common with other people. The challenge of this assignment was to recall what events caused me to have them with me. I believe that this is one type of writing because as I said before, this writing could be an amusing way to describe myself and might help readers to know my personality by looking at the items and reading the descriptions.
Ever since I was little, I have been interested in the art of mathematics. One of the factors that I really love about this field is visible but complex patterns, like the image above. Therefore, I decided to draw something that everyone might think of it as an art piece. However, I had difficulty in selecting graphs because there are many interesting patterns. I end up choosing two graphs (x,y)=(cos(4\theta),cos(3\theta)) and (x,y)=(cos(3\theta),cos(4\theta)), which are simple symmetrical parametric equations. I picked them because they look like a flower.
#sq1
