I learned about what goes into creating a proper mobile game. Something as classic as chess can still be hard to innovate upon, but with a good enough idea, I created a spin off that would be fun to play.

2. What was easy?

Once I had the idea of what I wanted to do, I got to work immediately. Creating the amount of assets I did was surprisingly easy, and it was only about a day’s work. Unfortunately, I was over ambitious and didn’t get to use many of them.

3. What was challenging?

Trying to make the game look good. Even still, I’m not sure if I made the right choices between transitions. I didn’t want to overuse the smart animate feature, so it led me to only using it when it really looked good. I went with instant transitions a lot because it seemed to be the least jarring of all transitions so I was able to use it a lot without it feeling repetitive.

4. How could your submission be improved?

If I could, I would’ve tried to use the drag feature to move the pieces. It didn’t allow me to when I first tried to, so I ended up not using it at all. I still think I did a fairly good job without it, but it would’ve felt more interactive than just tapping places.

Also I got very ambitious. It was something I was warned about at the very start, but I didn’t listen. I had very high hopes for this project, but the tools of making a full chess computer opponent weren’t there. I settled for one minigame and the tutorial, but I wanted to fully build out the game. Looking back on it, it’s incredibly unrealistic, but I had high hopes.

5. How could the professor improve the assignment for the next class?

I wasn’t a fan of the micro interaction lab. I didn’t want to shoehorn in a micro interaction, and I didn’t feel as if there was much room for one in my game. I ended up doing it anyway cause I had to, but it didn’t come out the way I wanted it to because of certain figma limitations.

6. How might you apply your knowledge in future assignments or work scenarios?

A big part should be setting my expectations straight. Being ambitious can be a good thing, but being overly ambitious can lead to a product with a lot of unused ideas and content. Focusing on what I know I can do rather than what I want should help with my next project.

I learned how to code. It’s something that I had never done before, and while I’m certainly not good at it yet, I learned some of the basics and I’m happy with that.

2. What was easy?

The design of the website was fairly easy, considering it was just a copy of an old website but changed up to make it look better design wise.

3. What was challenging?

Coding. Because it was something completely new, I had a very difficult time following along and learning how to do everything. On top of that, I use a Mac at home, so the difference between Mac and Windows coding created a weird shift where certain things wouldn’t work well on Mac, yet work perfectly on Windows. Finding the right code to balance the two was difficult and annoying. I left feeling grumpy most days because my code wouldn’t work properly.

4. How could your submission be improved?

It doesn’t look 1 to 1 with the Figma file, so there’s always minor improvements to be made to catch it up with that. There’s a lot more stuff I could’ve added as well if I knew how to code properly. There are also various bugs to be fixed, but as I mentioned before, It’s a bit hard to fix bugs when the bug can be a Windows or Mac exclusive bug.

5. How could the professor improve the assignment for the next class?

If I was in control of the project, I’d try and get rid of a lot of the coding aspects, but I’m probably bias. For the project, there’s not much code that you can get rid of while still having a complete project. Realistically, I’d try to give a couple more personal work days instead of following directions on how to code things, since everyone’s project is slightly different, everyone needs a bit of individual help.

6. How might you apply your knowledge in future assignments or work scenarios?

I can understand what makes a good mobile design. Computer designs to mobile ports are a very different process from what I originally thought. Understanding what makes a good mobile port will hopefully help with future designs.

I learned a bit more about Figma, but I felt like I learned a lot more about design. Choosing different color schemes carefully, experimenting to see what works and what doesn’t. I scrapped my first idea entirely because It didn’t look or function well.

2. What was easy?

Coming up with a color scheme. My first idea was to have a cool dark color scheme to match with my original theme of “nightlife”. It was the only thing I didn’t change while converting it into it’s current state, Cur8or.

3. What was challenging?

Coming up with a concept that was different enough. It makes no sense to have the same functionality as another music service such as Spotify or Soundcloud. I had two ideas originally, a mood based music app, or a silent disco streamed worldwide. Neither of which have been popularized. I ended up using the mood based music app.

4. How could your submission be improved?

I used many placeholders to represent different song choices. It’s not outright said that they are placeholders, so the use of the Cur8or logo everywhere can get confusing. I just didn’t want to find a bunch of different album covers for different mood based songs, cause I mostly only listen to one genre.

5. How could the professor improve the assignment for the next class?

There’s not too much to be improved upon. I personally found it a bit difficult to force myself to stay with one of the current design fad “isms”. I ended up choosing neumorphism, but it doesn’t really fit with what I wanted. I would’ve liked to do a flat style, but because it was considered outdated, I didn’t use it.

6. How might you apply your knowledge in future assignments or work scenarios?

Understanding different design fads will help me appeal more to different companies in the future. By studying their products, finding out what style they use, I can use that to my advantage while putting together a portfolio.

Here is a link to the Figma project below:

https://www.figma.com/file/MmWI5rv7Cy2mfSpRkBUkYs/Project-1-SToth?node-id=0-1&t=L07tcrZYSjr1Gioj-0