The meeting portion of my game was essential. It is a back-and-forth exchange between characters in the game but without player involvement. I wanted to simulate a meeting from the beginning of my plans. Still, conversations can’t just happen in IF, so I had to get the player to make turns happen somehow. Dr. Jerz showed me how to set up the following code:

Before going up in the newspaper office for the first time:
Dr Important welcomes the audience in zero turn from now;
Suzy inserts her opinion in one turns from now;
Dr Important asks a question in two turns from now;
Josh answers the question in three turns from now;
Suzy defends her opinion in four turns from now;
Dr Important closes the meeting in five turns from now;

After doing that we had to specify what happened when these actions were enacted. For example, this was the first code that actually made the meeting happen.

At the time when Dr Important welcomes the audience:
if the player can see Dr Important, say “The meeting begins. [paragraph break] ‘We, as the administration, want the student’s feedback on what we should do with the school pool. It’s been out of commission for some time and we are unsure if it received enough use when it was working to put the time and money into fixing in,’ Dr. Important said.”

From my first user test, I noted that there were some problems. Doing actions to make the meeting happen was not intuitive at all. I added the idea of “using” an iPad or notebook to take notes while the meeting was happening. This worked better but was still hard to understand for new IF players. My solution required some intense directiveness. When a player enters the meeting, they are given the following instructions:

It looks like the meeting is just about to begin. Make sure to take notes as the people are talking by using your iPad or your notebook. Type ‘use notebook’ or ‘use iPad’ until the meeting ends.

This didn’t start out being so pointed, but after my multiple other user testers looked at the game, I realized something needed to happen to make this part of the game understandable and therefore functional. My directions worked, and the focus is still on the learning of journalism which was my goal.

Still, this part of my game is still not what I wanted it to be, but I learned a lot about understanding people and problem solving. I didn’t anticipate how much trouble new players would have at first. My priority for this class was getting a working game that was focused on the learning not the cleverness of the Inform 7 coding. My solution was writing up directions and just including them. Something I realized though, was that I wasn’t satisfied with how that worked especially in the meeting.

What I learned from this failure was that there is a difference between what you want to do and what you can do. Creative problem solving on one’s own in necessary to make something work on a deadline, but it’s not an all-time fix. Just a little bit of collaboration in the class today lead me to a much better idea, but even if I had thought of it a couple of days ago, I’m not sure if I could have implemented it. Now that I have editors and professors interested in my game, however, I have motivation to work on this project more (even though I’ve already done the portion that will be graded) and improve it to be more interactive and less directive.

In the “real world” this is important. You have to do the project you are assigned (or you pitch) by your deadline. It might not be perfectly the way you intended but you have to make it work. If you can sell improvements and convince your boss that you should be paid to work on the project more, then you get to fully complete something you are really passionate about.

I want to make more journalism teaching games and I want to improve this one, but I’m also a student with lots of responsibilities. This busyness is never going to go away, however, because that’s how I operate. Learning how to fail successfully will be essential for me because I get big ideas and I can’t always fulfill them to the level I imagine them being fulfilled at the beginning. This class and this project specifically taught me a lot about glorious failure.

My original goals line up with my finished product pretty well, but I know that there is a lot of room for improvement. I feel like I failed properly though; I still have more goals and more ideas for how to achieve my original goals in a better way, but I have a working project.

What blogging was valuable for tall practicing talking about our projects coherently. One of the course goals was to “produce professional-quality technical reports that document your progress” and “articulate your strategy for learning a new tool.” Blogging was a great way to practicetechnical writing without too much pressure. When writing my formal technical reports, I looked back to my blogs and the job was easier.  Blogging also was often a good way to practice articulating what and how we were learning. I could aggregate my videos and written thoughget for a well rounded picture of what we did.

Lastly, blogging became a place where we could “assess the usefulness of our best mistakes.” When I was frustrated I could rant about mistakes and problems. Through comments we gained solidarity in our struggles. Later then, we could assess what our failures meant and what we learned. In our blogging we could be a little rougher and more frustrated which was helpful (it’s an emotional journey to set out for eventual failure) but then we could take a step back and focus on the learning.

Blogging served a different purpose in this class but a productive one nonetheless. It fit perfectly with the objectives of this class which were based around us being able to write about our learning and progress. Though some of the typical blogging conventions seemed silly, like commenting, they allowed us to commiserate with our classmates especially when it came to our term projects.

via Portfolio 5.

I hope that I created something that is helpful for my coworkers and for future SHU journalists. The project was fun for me, but it will mean so much more if a student can use it to feel more prepared before his/her first assignment.

A Teaching Game for New Journalists

            “First Time on the Job” is an interactive fiction (IF) game that is meant to be used as a training tool for new journalists. The player of the game is a young journalist who is given an assignment and must carry it out by attending a meeting and interviewing some of the main actors in the meeting.  The player then returns to the office and is given a response from the editor and a score. Interviewing different kinds of people is an important skill in this game, as the responses depend not only on the questions asked but the order they are asked.  Scores are based on asking the “right” questions at the “right” time.  Asking the “wrong” question may result in a character leaving early.

Main Actors and Skills Associated with Them

            There are three major characters at the meeting the player attends.  Each represents a outrageous character that can be found on a campus like Seton Hill University. The first character Dr. Important, is a school official. If you ask her a “hard hitting” question right away, she comes up with an excuse to leave. If you lead into it, however, you get a better answer. Suzy McOpinion is a very vocal and determined in the meeting. In this case, asking a too general question leads to an angry rant, where a specific question leads to a more usable quote and a happier interviewee. Lastly, Josh Quiet represents an overly shy student. He gives short answers. The main skills taught through this game include:

• Listening and analyzing characters from interactions in meetings
• Introducing oneself as a reporter before beginning an interview
• Gathering names and majors from students
• Leading into tough questions with softer questions
• Avoiding questions that are too general especially to verbal students
• Asking multiple questions to quiet students
• Avoiding yes/no questions for reluctant students

Here’s a run down (from my technical report) of the testing:

Usability Testing

             The goal of my tests were to have students who were journalism students or at least involved with the Setonian but who had also never taken the “News Writing” class. The usability testing was done in stages so my goals became more developed as the project continued. My main questions in usability testing were:

• What did users new to IF struggle with in the game?
• Were the concepts trying to be taught understandable?
• Did the students experience growth in their interviewing knowledge?
• What technical errors were in the game?

These overarching questions were important to me throughout all of my tests, though the answers changed as I made changes to the game in response feedback.

User One

            User One was a male, freshman journalism student at Seton Hill University (SHU). I explained the concept of IF to him briefly and set him loose on the game. He spent a great deal of time figuring out the medium. Because of this, the meeting in the second chapter started before he arrived in the room. The start time was based on a lower number of turns than he used originally while exploring. He required some prompting for conventions and immediately tried to talk to the characters, not understanding how the meeting worked. He also did not understand that characters were “leaving” the space because they could still be spoken too, even after the text said they left or wanted to leave.  He pointed out that one of the characters gave an inappropriate response. In the end, he was unsure what to do to finish the game. Once he got to the editor’s response, he thought that he won because the screen just said that the game ended. After reading the editor’s comments more closely, he understood that he didn’t do as well as he thought but because the score was out of zero, he said he had “bonus points.” He expressed growth by explaining why some of his could have been better, after reflection. After User One, I fixed/added the following elements to the game:

• A more descriptive ending with named winning and losing
• A score out of 10 possible points instead of zero
• A “meeting” portion that starts only after the player has entered the room
• A correction to the text of Josh’s Litany
• Characters that could leave play when offended
• An action (using the iPad or Notebook) to keep the meeting going since it requires turns

User Two:

            User Two was a senior at SHU who recently added a journalism minor this semester. User two was given a brief overview of IF and a list of verbs she would use. She struggled with the format of IF and wished for a set of written instructions. As a result, she required a lot of prompting and reviewing of her previous actions. She recognized and commented on  the personalities of the characters in the meeting. Her score was low, but she was able to evaluate it based on the new winning/losing scenario. Her main request was for more specific direction before the game started and more prompting within the game’s framework itself.  After User Two, I fixed/added the following elements to the game:

• A thorough set of instructions before the game started including a list of verbs that would be used
• More prompting for picking up the iPad/notebook and using them in the meeting

User Three

            User Three was a junior at SHU and the Arts and Entertainment editor of the Setonian who has no formal journalism training. She tried to use full sentences at first and required prompting.  Her understanding of the characters and the journalistic comments was more thorough than any of the other users so far. Correctly used the iPad and Notebook to keep the meeting going. She was confused when characters left and took a while to figure it out. She didn’t know where to go after the meeting was over. However she was the first user to be in the second tier of scores because she earned 5 out of 10. After User Three, I fixed/added the following elements to the game:

• A specific one action at a time rule with one verb and one noun
• Prompting that informs players to type the number of the question they want to ask

User Four

            User Four was a senior at SHU who had taken the news writing class a year ago and had no other practice with journalism.  User Four played the game almost completely silently. She did not react to anything because “I just followed the directions and it made sense.” She also scored in the middle bracket of scores. I only made a couple of minor changes in the code to make one quip work better because I randomly noticed one was not properly disabled.

User Five

            User Five was a junior at SHU who acts as the Academics Editor of the Setonian but has no formal journalism training. User Five struggled in know when the meeting was over and when to stop using her iPad to make the meeting continue. She also struggled with knowing where to go after interviewing everyone. After earning a losing score, she asked to play the game. While verbally thinking through her answers, she scored a perfect score on the second run through, suggesting that she learned techniques from the game. After User Five, I fixed/added the following elements to the game:

• Prompting from the editor to tell players to return to the office after interviewing everyone.
• Combined Dr Important’s final remarks and the message that the meeting has ended so that was more clear
• Final grammar error fixes

Interaction for this class was different as well. Since we were in an online class, we only could interact through blogs and moodle posts. In a way, this was more challenging because in a class I contribute only if I have a really good thought, but in blogs, I had to comment every time. It was difficult without a physical class to schedule this blogging in, at first. In time it became second nature. This area was still probably the most challenging for me throughout the whole class, perhaps because I felt less of  a connection to the class since it was online.

The most important thing I learned about blogging in this class had to do with time management. When blogging for a class, it is important to keep the dates in mind and understand when the portfolios are coming up. I struggled with this particularly on my first portfolio. Sometimes when I’m particularly busy I write a shorter, less exceptional post understanding that the next one will have to be more detailed. You can’t expect every post you make to be spectacular, but focusing on what aspects you need to improve in a time limit on helps.

Getting in a routine also really helped me blog for this class. It helped me while I was reading to be watching for things I felt I could blog about. I’d highlight and notate my text more than I would if we were just going to discuss everything in class. Reading other students’ blogs helped to inform my ideas. I always forget, especially in online classes, how much the interaction of my classmates matters. Having time set aside to do both of these actions was very important. In my fourth portfolio, I was approaching the busiest part of my semester but I was able to keep up with my blogs because of my routine.

via Final Blogging Reflection.

I’m a journalism major so I wanted to use the skills I have to work on this creative project. I wrote a news story as if the characters (the Lion, Scarecrow, and Tin Woodsman in particular) actually were what they percieved themselves to be (cowardly, brainless, and heartless).  I also wanted it to look cool so I came up with a cute little layout for the Ozian Times.

As we finish up the class and as a result, finish reading Foster’s How to Read Literature Like a Professor, Foster brings up a good point. I’ve noticed that when I’m reading something that I enjoy and being creative, the interpretations flow more easily. I could follow Foster’s book all day and analyze works just like he describes, but I would never reach anything unique.

This creative project especially has brought out this point to me. I was going to do my project on Huck Finn, but I didn’t really enjoy analyzing that novel. When we read The Wizard of Oz, however, I found myself enjoying the interpretation much more. I really enjoyed looking at every element and trying to figure out what they meant.

Interpreting literature is not a black and white, right and wrong area of study. Every answer is not right but many can be argued. It’s better if you are talking about something you’ve enjoyed and are invested in. I’m an English student because I love the thrill of reading something that is ready for deep interpretation and coming to my own conclusions. In this class, I’ve exercised my skills and I’ve been able to play.

via Foster.

As I mention in the video, many of my problems came from my tester not understanding IF. I did gain interesting perspective however on the mindset of young journalists. I also found that my characters were being percieved as I wanted them to be, so that was a positive thing.  All and all I’m looking forward to more user testing!