Group Members: 

Angela Beckett, Brian Ham, Jackson Liang, Wynn Zhang

Exercise 6.1: Below the Surface

Take the subject of the last book or news article you read and think of its systematic aspects. Are there
objectives? Rules? Procedures? Resources? Conflict? Skills to be learned? Make a list of the systematic
elements of the subject or activity. Do this several times per week with different types of activities or
hobbies.

Article #1 https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/residents-moss-park-permanent-
housing-brute-force-city-toronto-homelessness-1.6087106

Subject Homeless housing issues

Objective To find safe housing options for the homeless

Rules Make sure all homeless have a place to live; Don’t go over budget; Don’t let social
unrest reach critical levels; Finish project before winter

Procedures Identify Homeless people; Find out about their housing needs; Purchases living
spaces; Creates low income housing; Revises budgets to

Resources Money; Space; Time; Community support; Building Materials; Health; Workers

Conflict Not enough space; Lack of Budget; Balancing needs of residences vs homeless
populations

Skills Financial Literacy; Community Engagement; Resource Management

Article #2 https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/23/business/tiki-bar-history.html

Subject The Tiki Bar

Objective Throw the best Tiki party on your block!

Rules Mix drinks for guests; Don’t over serve your guests; Don’t let the line of guests get
too long; Keep guests happy while waiting for drinks

Procedures Mix drinks according to Trader Vic or Donn Beach recipes; Use the correct garnishes
for each drink; Learn your guests favorite Tiki drinks; Have a signature cocktail

Resources Hard liquors; glassware; edible garnishes (fruits etc.); non-edible garnishes
(umbrellas etc.); Cocktail shaker; Muddler; Mixing spoon; Syrups; Other Mixes
(coconut milk etc.); Ice; Tiki hut bar
 Conflict Cultural Appropriation; Racism; Escapism vs. Reality

Skills Mixology (fancy bartender moves); Memorization (recipes); Speed (quick reflexes to
mix drinks faster); Design (presentation)

Exercise 6.4: Blue-Sky Brainstorm

In this exercise, use the techniques previously described to do a brainstorm for a “blue-sky” project. By
blue sky, I mean that this project could not technically be made today, but we are going to pretend it
could. The challenge is to come up with ideas for a “remote control” for a stereotypical character.
Choose a character from this list: • Door-to-door salesman • Busy mother • God • Superhero • Politician
First, brainstorm about the character: What does the character do? What makes the character
interesting? What aspect of the character would it be engaging to control? How does the character
react? Does the character have free will? Next, brainstorm features for your imaginary controller. What
will it look like? What could each button do? Remember, this is “blue sky,” so the buttons can do crazy
things. Have fun with this! Come up with as many ideas as you can.

We used a Google Jamboard to complete this exercise. Our chosen character is a Busy Mother. We
spread the suggested questions out over several whiteboard slides and added our ideas all at the
same time, using different colored sticky notes for each group member. The first slide was very easy
to add ideas to, but as the slides (and the questions) went on, it was more complicated to come up
with ideas. You can see our slides by clicking the link below (please let us know if there are
accessibility issues):
https://jamboard.google.com/d/1BSkJbiK90ftlNemIg2J8oQaVuoqkL8GfETK6hlrAsq0/edit?usp=sharing 

Exercise 6.5: Exquisite Corpse

This version of the game is played with words. Everyone writes an article and an adjective on a piece of
paper, then folds it to conceal the words and passes it to their neighbor. Now everyone writes a noun on
the paper they are holding, folds it again to conceal their word, and passes it to their neighbor. Repeat
with a verb; repeat with another article and adjective; finally, repeat with a noun. Everyone unfolds their
papers and reads the poems they are holding aloud. One of the first poems written this way was: “The
exquisite corpse shall drink the new wine,” which is how the game gets its name.

Instructions:
Round 1 - Article, Adjective - PASS
Round 2 - Add a noun - PASS
Round 3 - Add a verb - PASS
Round 4 - Article, Adjective - PASS
Round 5 - Add a noun - END

We used a Google Jamboard to complete this exercise; each group member chose a different colored
sticky note and started on their own whiteboard page. We then rotated through each other’s pages as
laid out by the instructions above and added words in our own colored sticky notes. In the end, each
of our pages had a poem made up of sticky notes from all group members. We took turns reading
 each one aloud. You can see our Jamboard by clicking the link below (please let us know if there are
accessibility issues):

https://jamboard.google.com/d/1Z08pZuvWIvl8PXJre_5IG9-j0NtwpCFn0TjMi_x7fVM/edit?
usp=sharing

Exercise 6.6: Do It
Now it is time to brainstorm your own idea. Get a potential team together—either in class or a group of
friends who are interested on working on a game with you. If you cannot get a group together, do it on
your own. As you did in Exercise 6.4, in the blue-sky brainstorm, state an interesting challenge for your
game, set up a whiteboard or a sheet of butcher paper, and use the techniques previously discussed to
generate 100 ideas related to your challenge in 60 minutes. This might sound like a lot, but if you can
keep the energy level up, you can do it.

We tried to use two different brainstorming methods from Fullerton to come up with our 100 ideas:

● The first 25 ideas are in a Google Sheets document, where we all entered ideas into the blank
lines at the same time. This way we could visibly see when we reached 25 ideas. You can find
the link to the spreadsheet here.

● The next ~75 ideas are in a coggle.it mind map; you can see an image of our mind map here.

We found this exercise to be very eye-opening because of the different ways our creativity flowed
depending on the medium. Some of us needed the linear and plain spreadsheet to type into, while
others needed the freedom to move around the mind map and make connections as they were
revealed. Some of us were too focused on the mechanics of how to use the coggle mind map tool and
did not feel particularly creative, while others felt stifled by the boring list-view of the spreadsheet.
Either way, it was important that we saw and felt this distinction as it happened!

Exercise 6.7: Describe Your Game

In one or two paragraphs, describe the essence of your game idea. Try to capture what makes it
interesting to you and how the basic gameplay will work. State your “X”—both razor and slogan—as a
part of your game description.

Razor A 2D platformer for PC that follows a family of bears trying to survive in

the Pacific Northwest.

Slogan Will you find a safe haven?

Wildlife depends on proper conditions for survival; what if they were thrust into uncertainty? Safe
 Haven is a 2D platformer for PC that follows a family of bears living in the Pacific Northwest as they
try to survive. Resources such as food, water, and shelter become more scarce as the environment
changes and humans consume and deplete the bears’ natural habitat. You take on the role of the
adult bear who, along the journey, encounters multiple obstacles to avoid or beat, such as forest fires
or other predators (natural hazards), hunters, bear traps, animal control, deforestation, contaminated
water, and roads (man-made hazards). As the chances of survival decrease, something must be done.
Will you find a safe haven?

Exercise 6.9: Feature Design Exercise, Part 1

Think of a feature you would like to see added to one of your favorite games. I am sure you have plenty
of ideas on this one. It does not matter how far-fetched or technically difficult the idea is at first because
you are not going to actually build it. Rather you are going to illustrate how it works using storyboards
and words.

Favorite Game Super Mario Bros. (1985)

Guiding Question Why does Mario always save Princess Peach, and not the other way around?
Feature to add Character choice / Character selection

Exercise 6.10: Feature Design Exercise, Part 2

Create a visual storyboard stepping through the use of the feature idea you came up with for Exercise
6.9. Assemble the storyboard so that it tells a visual story of a player successfully playing the game. For
example, the storyboard for Karaoke Revolution World Party could show all of the interfaces as if a
player starts as a beginner and moves all the way to winning a prize. Present your idea to an appropriate
group of people for critique, such as classmates or a game design club.

You can access our visual storyboard by clicking the link below:

https://jamboard.google.com/d/1Xw_8zxd4FS9Pk3miaFYoNxL5SQgiueMjsvwW3ee7Gko/edit?
usp=sharing