Prop design – Charlemagne’s sword Joyeuse

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Joyeuse concept

ConceptArt.org’s challenge was to redesign Charlemagne’s sword, Joyeuse. The sword is real, so the task is to reimagine it as a fantasy weapon.

The key features to the sword was that it changes color multiple times in a day, and it represented joyousness. More of a mass media weapon than a slaying device.

For the color feature, I settled on using opal as a material source. Opal was reputed to be a gemstone that changes color, even when the owner dies. The change of light throughout the day would change the refracted light from the sword, so it explains the color-changing feature. Continue reading →

Usability Testing Method for Design Students

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Usability Testing in KDU for Design Students

Previously I posted on the prototypes my game design students did for their game design classes. This post is on one of the processes we used to improve the design of their prototypes: usability testing.

The research and application started in 2013 where I was looking into the best ways to teach design for design students. As cited, one of the strongest feedback received was to get the design students to create prototypes. The second strongest feedback I got was to train them to design based on feedback. That is, to collect data from users, and to create a design that would respond to the issues pointed out by said data.

I recognized the application; it’s what online games do when they track user behavior and adapt their game to maximize wanted behavior. It’s a process used by Facebook games in the late 2000s and being used now on data collected from users on mobile games. The feedback made sense in terms of keeping designers relevant.

That means figuring out how to do playtesting for designers in order for them to collect data to analyze. Continue reading →

Industrial Design – NeoTokyo Police Car

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Neo Tokyo Police Car Industrial Design Concept by Hilmyworks
Tried out the Industrial Design Challenge of the Week at ConceptArt.org. The challenge is to design a police car made to track down illegal Internet comm sites.

Base idea was to have domed detector that can survey even tall buildings and pinpoint precise locations. Assuming futuristic Tokyo would be hard to navigate – with high-rises and complicated streets – drones will do the heavy work. The car will have a dedicated comms personnel surveying the site and managing the drones, while two police personnel will be able to go onsite and do arrests if needed.

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Prototyping for game design: What I taught game design students to do to prove themselves

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This is a collection of game prototypes from game design students taking my class on Game Genre Studies in KDU. In this class, they are tasked to work alone creating a game using an iterative process. What you see below are works from solo designers creating game prototypes, using a design-test-iterate model over a span of 5 or 10 iterations. Art used are rough placeholders, programming is limited by what the designers can figure out to do with Stencyl, but the designers have to show using testing that they’re able to *evolve* a prototype into a fun, playable game using testing feedback.

Do check ’em out and see if the prototypes prove that these students can do game design.

2016-01-Joshua-Prototype

10-week iteration process. Game is playable here at https://joshykc.wordpress.com/

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Enviroment Design – Photobash of Divumidas’s Construct

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Mugnas-Floating-Reservoir
Photobash of a World Design Construct using the refs indicated by the student’s game design doc. He referenced an ancient Indian reservoir – which I recognized due to the epic sense of scale – and thus mocked out how that reservoir would look based on his guidelines. Again, the purpose is to demonstrate how his designs can be visually interpreted by an artist.

One day work.