Yueqing Dai

I have my first 30min meeting with Gregory. For this first meeting, we focused on introducing ourselves to each other. It is close to my first 1-1 meeting with Sarah, but I have more to show about my thesis. Besides that, G gave me some advice on the interview part after the player played the game. He pointed out that this progress should not only be an “interview.” The interview form might not be the one I want since an interview is usually dull and not “interesting” at all. After this meeting with him, I decided to polish the “after the game” part and have a letter of invitation that the player can share both on social media and with older people in the family.

Finished my final Show-A-Thing on Friday with Moon. This progress is super useful. Besides the advice I got, even repeating talking about my thesis helped me clear my mind a lot. Each time I go through the slides, I gain a little and have a better mood for the next time.

I do wish I could have more time to talk with them. I would say 40min*3times is a better plan for me.

I got advice and help from different perspectives and also some useful references.

Heidi helped me to reorganize my slides. Now I know that the slides can have the same order as how I developed my thesis. They all gave me a lot of useful references, including games, websites, and organizations. I have not finished researching all of them, but this information has already helped me reform my thesis.

Moon mentioned that I could have a clearer target player and a clearer purpose. I realized that one side of my game could be an educational game for teenagers. Teenagers may be afraid of talking to the elderly in their family, but the elderly can create a game with the stories and let the young play it. Now the game become the bridge between the old and the young.

For these two group meetings, we shared our progress for each week and also the difficulties we are facing, and the help we need.

Group meeting #3 is about catching up on the proposal and some technical tests we tried.

In group meeting #4, I shared part of my interview results. Danni gave us advice about how to prepare for the show-one-thing event and also she reminded me that for the next interview, I could take some pictures for the documentation.

After our peer group meeting, I had my one-on-one meeting with Danni, so we continued our conversation around my proposal. We talked about my plan, and Danni pointed out some parts that weren’t very clear and didn’t make sense. She was right about my explanation of metaphors – I needed to give more detail. I agreed with her. Since I mentioned “connection” in my plan, we discussed whether the project could better show two-way connections. It made me realize that I initially thought older people wanted to bond with younger people, and it’s actually the other way around – young people often ignore older people. I need to check if this is true to start my project in the right direction.

I was busy with my work last week, so this is my second peer group meeting. Danni helped me to catch up. I went through my proposal with Yunshan and Beth and received some helpful feedback and questions. I will update them in my folder for the thesis later.

One interesting question I never think about is whether the animals in the valley grow up in my game. It brings out some new possibilities for my project. Also, through this share & feedback progress, I realized there are some logical problems in my proposal because I forgot to update the second half when I edited the completed version.

Then we shared our progress. Yunshan and I have the same question. We want to get some technic support in Unity in NYUSH if possible.

Had my second meeting with Sarah at midnight. We went through my proposal draft.

Sarah helps me to try some different central questions. I am surprised how these questions can lead my thesis in various directions. For now, I update my central questions to “How can a game inspire young people to connect with the elderly people in their lives?” with a sub-question of  “What kind of new conversations between young people and elders can a game inspire?” 

One thing I realized after this meeting is that my thesis can be a fun game and also more than a fun game. (since here is IMA, not Game Center, and this is why I choose IMA :D) I used to think a fun game and a game for change were in conflict, and Sarah told me this could be my central question.

A VR game I plan to try this weekend: https://www.oculus.com/experiences/quest/2406880882663555/

Time flys! We talked about some of my past work and also what I planned for the thesis. I made a link for the meeting notes (with a lot of typos in it). I got a lot of things to do after this meeting with a more clear direction to go forward. Imaging my thesis in a public area like a park is an interesting practice and brings out more possible interactions.  Also, since we are still at the start stage, I will try to think broader with different forms and different target audiences.

After meeting:

• A dream review
• Character study & user cases: Developing the interview questions first would help more than random talk (I am nervous about this)
• Imagine my project in three different forms and see how it does or does not communicate and why
• Define “the elderly” in a more detailed form: age range, background, and living situation. etc
• have a user portrait for my target audience
• Review some games that do something similar. Is it successful? why it is successful? which part? Which part doesn’t? Is that the success I want?

useful links:

• https://storycorps.org/
• https://www.tfiny.org/films/detail/truth_booth
• https://www.fastcompany.com/90338379/i-wrote-the-book-on-user-friendly-design-what-i-see-today-horrifies-me

Members: Danni, Yunshan, Ada, Jun, Elizabeth, and I

I have this folder for the notes of peer group meetings: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1lvnsDLIJP7Iw2l81jpj9HWPT-bVwliVe?usp=sharing

It is super interesting, exciting, and helpful! Having a chance to talk out the idea is already very helpful. It is interesting that Ada’s, Jun’s, and my topic for the thesis are somehow related. Maybe we can try to work together in the future.

Some helpful questions I received: Who are the target audience? Will the art style be attractive? The deep meaning of using animals instead of human features. Can I finish all I planned in time?

Some useful references:

Chinese Parents：https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.cig.chineseparents.gp&hl=en_US&gl=US

Animal Crossing: New Horizons: https://www.animal-crossing.com/new-horizons/