Tag Archives: Interactive

Google Maps April Fool’s Plan

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Tomorrow is one of the best days for those of us with a little bit of mischief in our blood. April fool’s day is infamous for putting people on edge as no one can be trusted, now not even companies can be trusted. Over the last few years, companies have taken advantage of April fool’s for marketing promotions such as, LuLu Lemon who advertised their own fake Amazon Alexa that just said “Ommm”. Another example of this was Taco Bell, which promoted their bell symbol as the liberty bell, they had claimed they had bought it. This type of marketing has skyrocketed in recent years as companies have noticed how effective it is.

This year following the current trends Google just came out with their own promotion for April fools in their app Google maps. They are temporarily adding a game, which is their own take on the old and beloved game “Snakes”. The user can choose from a list of cities from all over the world. Using all different types of transportation vehicles the user passes over the character in the game to pick them up. The goal is to pick up as many as you can before you reach game over. They are keeping the game up for the rest of the week to reach maximum users. Also, if someone does not own a compatible device the game is offered as its own website.

I am a huge fan of any kind of creative promotions that companies come up with. It is so fun to interact with these promotions and I think they are extremely effective. 

Source: https://www.theverge.com/2019/3/31/18289518/google-maps-app-snakes-game-april-fools-day

Is a Pixel Smartphone really worth it?

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Google uncovered its first mobile phone this week, named “Pixel,” hailing the association’s transform into an industry since a long time prior ruled by any similarity of Apple and Samsung.

With its curved edges, smooth outline, and two size choices, the Pixel is reminiscent of Apple’s iPhone; even its prices. The 5-creep Pixel has a 1080p screen — 1440 x 2160 on the 5.5-crawl Pixel XL — 4GB of RAM and either 32GB or 128GB of capacity. The new iPhone 7 has comparable specs: the screen determination is 1334 x 750, with 2GB of RAM and size choices of 32GB, 128GB or 256GB. Moreover, it seems as though Google is trying to compete and make a statement with this new smartphone. Also, the Pixel phone appears to have a large photograph and video distributed storage, which may subdue some mobile clients’ feelings of trepidation of achieving their stockpiling limit. That’s apparently not the only unusual feature of this new phone; the Pixel to emphasize the phone’s name has a 12.3-megapixel rear camera which from experience seems to be one of the best cameras a smartphone ever had. In other words, this camera has gone through rigorous testing and test showed that the Pixel’s camera outperformed each other cell phone camera at present available. Another component touted by Google is the Pixel’s battery and charge time. As indicated by the organization, 15 minutes of charge will yield 7 hours of utilization. Pixel is likewise the first telephone with the organization’s virtual “keen” administration, known as Google Assistant, worked in, permitting clients to have “a characteristic discussion with Google” to seek or finish undertakings.

However, Verizon is the real transporter accomplice for Google’s Pixel and Pixel XL. Moreover, Verizon’s gadget has a bolted bootloader and accompanies three pre-introduced applications you don’t necessarily require. These apps are My Verizon, Go90 (a portable TV use), and Verizon Messaging. The split between security upgrades and framework redesigns implies that while Google will ensure you get your safety overhauls, you won’t get more up to date forms of Android. With the exception of Verizon’s course of events — which essentially implies you won’t get new forms of Android until some other time, if at any time.

Link/Sources:

No one should buy a Pixel smartphone from Verizon

http://www.livescience.com/56401-google-new-pixel-smartphone.html

 

Until Dawn and its User Learnability

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When I was in elementary school, the kids in my class were always after the same books to check out from the library each week. These weren’t just ordinary books to us. We were able to control what happened next in the story. These “Choose Your Own Adventure Books,” published by Bantam Books, was a great way to get kids excited to read, knowing that we were the ones choosing what happened next.

Recently, a group of friends and I discovered how we could choose our own adventure in a more thrilling and interactive way. Until Dawn, a PlayStation 4 video game released on August 25th, 2015, is described as an interactive movie/survival horror videogame. Each decision you make in the game has a butterfly effect and determines what situations the different characters get into and which characters survive until dawn. The game is actually designed as a single player game, but my friends and I all chose different characters within the game that we would control, and handed the controller around when each new character was on the screen.

 

A couple weeks after staying up all night to finish the game, we talked about user learnability in class and how it is important for game designers to think of ways to make new games easy for users to accomplish basic tasks the first time that they encounter the game design. This instantly made me think back to Until Dawn. In the beginning of the game, the game would tell the users how to go about performing tasks. This includes things like giving specific directions on whether they should be pressing X or Y on the controller in order to climb a fence, or instructing the users to not move the controller at all in order to keep their character from drawing attention when they’re supposed to be hiding from someone—it is like the tutorial is built into the first few minutes of the game.

In addition, in the beginning of the game, users are given more time to make their decisions. As the game goes on, the helpful directions are taken away and the time given to make decisions on what the user wants their character to do or say decreases, since by then the user understands how the game works.

 

If you are interested in “choose your own adventure” types of books and games, I definitely recommend checking this game out. I think it is a great game to help us see how game designers attempt to enhance user learnability. I included the trailer link below:

And for those of you who may have also already played it, I’d love to hear what your thoughts on this type of gaming are!

References:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Choose_Your_Own_Adventurehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Until_Dawn

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Choose_Your_Own_Adventurehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Until_Dawn