Critical Reflection

Link to Prezi

Magazine

Diction

A very important element of this magazine is the diction and lingo used. Like in every other topic there is specific jargon that the target audience can relate and connect to. I plan on making specific word choices in my spread and maybe even on the other parts of the magazine that will digress from making the product "amateur". Word choice is one of the most important considerations that I think I've had to make. 

The Interviews

   Along with other research on statistics, charts, and information about the video game. I was able to contact gamer friends of Jessica's that stream this game on the online site "Twitch" (Jessica's topic). 
Jack Sampson and John Huber were able to answer a lot of my questions about  the game via Jessica's Skype chat (purpleghostkasper) 
Down below are the interviews... I think that I can even use some of the interview as quotes for my two page spread. This information is valid and coming from passionate, educated lovers of this game. It would be a great inclusion in the spread in my opinion to have them be portrayed as well. 

Jessica  (Purpleghostkasper) : -what is the biggest difference, in your opinion, between Super Smash Bros 4 Wii U and 3DS?

-which one is your favorite of the two and why?

-How would you compare it to the other smash brothers games of the past?

-What is your opinion of the amiibo feature?

 Those are the questions, I'm most likely going to have follow up questions though

John Huber: -The biggest transition between 3DS and Wii U is the frame rate. The 3DS runs Smash Bros at 30 frames per second while the Wii U runs it at 60 frames per second. The time you have to react for an input is double on the 3DS.

John Huber: -My personal favorite is 3DS because of Smash Run and being able to play anywhere is a bonus for the 3DS. What makes me want to pick the Wii U is the faster frame rate because I just like to press buttons fast.

John Huber: -I would say that Smash 4 is a great casual party game, but the way I look at Smash Bros is as a competitive game. The mechanics of Smash 4 make for a slow neutral game and a lack of a combo game. Melee, one of the best Smash Bros. of all time has been able to hold up for 13 years and able to pull the most attendence and viewership of all Smash games due to its natural fast pace and hype sets. The amount of technical skill in Smash 4 is next to none which in my opinion is one of the things that makes the game different. The removal of tripping has made it better than Brawl because they are both slow paced matches and the rng mechanic made competitive Brawl unappealing. Last on the Nintendo offical releases is Smash 64. Smash 64 is more interesting than Smash 4 due to 64 actually having combo strings and even though the speed of the game is slow the amount of tech skill in 64 still outpasses Smash 4.

John Huber: -The only thing I could say about amiibos is  if you are looking to get better at the game with a trained cpu, you most likely will. 

Jessica  (Purpleghostkasper) -what is the biggest difference, in your opinion, between Super Smash Bros 4 Wii U and 3DS?

-which one is your favorite of the two and why?

-How would you compare it to the other smash brothers games of the past?

-What is your opinion of the amiibo feature?

Thrice Nightly (Jack Sampson): -Smash bros for wii u and smash bros for 3ds are generally the same as they both possess all the same characters. While they have some differences between game modes the biggest difference is the stages. The stages are almost completely seperate between the two versions besides a few that carry over. When you play smash with your friends, you generally don't do any of the extra game modes but the stages are a very integral part of the gameplay.

Thrice Nightly (Jack Sampson): Thats question 1

Thrice Nightly (Jack Sampson): -My favorite of the two would for sure be the wii u version because it allows for up to 8 player multiplayer with only 1 console and copy of the game. The best part about smash bros is playing with your friends for hours at a time, its not nearly as fun when played alone.

Thrice Nightly (Jack Sampson): -Smash bros for wii u is the fourth game in the series and is quite different from the others. Smash 64 was very simple, smash melee was very fast and complex, smash brawl went back to its slower routes and simplified the movement while keeping the complex movesets. This game perfected what brawl was trying to achieve with its slower gameplay. It is still very technical when played well, but not as complicated as melee.

Thrice Nightly (Jack Sampson): -The amiibo feature is a cool addition to the game as it lets you train the computer player yourself. Normally all you could do to change the computer players was adjust their skill level but the amiibo are actually able to learn from how you play. I only wish you could do more with those players once you got them to the level you desired.

Practice Makes Perfect

Photography and Cropping has been an exciting challenge for this project. Jessica and I have a lot of controllers and devises that we have used in our favor to incorporate to our spreads and designs. Along with art work by hand and even from programs like Windows and Apple "Paint", these photographs have been a huge part of every section of the magazine. The difficult thing about these pictures is how we fit them in. Cropping and editing authentic images taken by ourselves have been a first time task for us that we have tried to excel at. 
We have watched tutorials online and studied the techniques to remove the background of pictures. 

I can simply say that with practice, editing has been something that my partner and I have been able to accomplish. 

Changes and Tweeking

This week my main goal has been to keep putting all the pieces of the magazine together. Now that we have the draft of each section complete, and the content of course, we must start the final assembling. For every project there are always finishing touches and changes. Some of the designs that we have created do need to get polished. 

Designing a print directed to a video-game/cyber fanatics requires a balance of cartoon and realism. Above, is the design of our table of contents without anything on it. The design exemplifies a simplistic essence of retro video gaming  with contrasting neutral and bright colors (in this case purple and grey), and geometric "boxy"-type backgrounds. I was inspired by the design and manufacturing of the gaming console the Game Cube. 

 The important thing now is to make sure that it gets that realistic aspect to it. Our audiences are obviously in the present. Now video games have better graphics and more complex eye catching designs. Thankfully, Adobe will help us get there and find that balance in color schemes and designs. 

Adobe Photoshop

To create a magazine, Jessica and I have used the Adobe Photoshop to polish our editions. This same program has been effective in allowing us to keep a cohesive style in the execution and decoration of our prints. For our title, we used a font generator that created the exact letter style that we wanted for the magazine. With Photoshop we are currently in the process of putting all the pieces together. This pertains to the pictures, texts, and other aspects of the design. 

The cover is probably the most important part of these magazines in my opinion. This is the "eye-catcher" of the whole print so we are working on making it display exactly what we want the magazine's message to say. 

Since we already have the sketches done of the other parts, now it will be easy to put the information down on the program. 

Reflecting and Ideas

   As of now, I think I have been doing a pretty good job constructing the bases of my project. The layout is almost finished and the information I've collected is great for the theme. I think that now I need to focus on the things I need to create myself. It is important for me to plan out and sketch all the drawings for the decorations. Like I previously explained, I will be drawing and scanning a lot of the images that will be printed for the magazine. This includes the game controllers that will serve to decorate the sections of the magazine. I think that by creating a lot of our own stuff, we will be able to grasp all the things that Jessica and I want to include in our magazine. Combining all the consoles that Jessica and I own, we have a numerous amount of different controllers and designs we can use for inspiration. This does not mean we will be ignoring photography. The mix of our art and photos will be the perfect balance for our gaming theme. I think the drawings go well because this is not a formal, executive print. It is supposed to be creative and original with a lot of pop outs that make the articles entertaining and eye catching. 

   

Sketching Continued...

Here is a quick sketch of the table of contents. Jessica and I want to make the magazine very "tech themed" like everything else that I have talked about in the past blogs. Our plan is to obviously keep this theme throughout the whole print. Incorporating controllers of different game consoles and black and grey borders. The color pallet will generally be purple, red or, green. As you can see in the background of this blog, this is the exact same kind of theme we want to approach.

   For a lot of the things in the magazine, we will draw them out. As you can see in the sketch, the table of contents is decorated with the controllers. We will create each and every controller with our own hands. 

   This magazine will be a mix of actual photographs taken by us but also the inclusion of our own art. 

A Little Bit of Research

As part of the magazine I think it would be cool to incorporate the world-wide gaming community of Super Smash Bros. Below I have included some charts that display the daily activity of the characters picked from the game. This is interesting, because it shows the players what are the current most popular characters .

For one of the cover lines of this edition, I plan to include world-wide rankings of this game. I think that for this type of edition it is important to look at the ways that the players of the game can see not only how the game works but how people can interact through it.

As well as rankings i think that it would be wise to also talk about how you can connect with others through the game. I want to make this magazine more about the players than about the actual consoles and games. 

Sketching

   Down below is my first sketch of my edition of Gamer Connect. This is the layout of what I want the magazine cover to look like. My partner Jessica and I came to the conclusion that we want the Masthead to be relatively bigger than the rest of the font size of the magazine cover. We have yet to finalize the design of the title of "Gamer Connect". So far we have reached out to Jessica's online connections (online friends that have graphic design experience) which are helping us develop a "video game related font" for the title. 

   As for the coverlines, I envision this "technologic" theme that will be cohesive with the table of contents. The coverlines will indicate the page number and description of article along with some sort of "gamer-themed decorations".

   Since this specific edition of the magazine focuses on the Super Smash Bros. video game series, the cover image will most likely be (as of now) a photograph of the game cover. This may or may not change in the development of the print. 

   The whole goal of the sketch is to now start to think of how to decorate and illustrate the "gamer feel". 

   Here are some video game magazine covers that I may use for inspiration. The fonts and the color pallets of them are the main reason why they are useful to my project. 

Concept

   I found the perfect topic to discuss and make it the issue of the magazine. 

   

   Most people are very familiar with the Super Smash Bros game series. is a series of crossover fighting games published by Nintendo , that primarily featuring characters from franchises established on its systems. This, in my opinion, is one of the most relatable video games that has been around for some time now and has been remade. There is so much that can be discussed about the game... actually I own all the versions of the game as well as my partner, Jessica. This is a topic that I am passionate about and it is also very fun to play. 
   In the upcoming posts, I plan to upload a video of me playing the game to start demonstrating the video game; as well as a demonstration I will be talking about the game and also showing the features that make this video game a new innovative way for people to converge and have fun together virtually. Again, there is so much to discuss for this one topic. 
   The cover of the magazine will depict the new edition of the Super Smash Bros series. This edition will cover a lot of aspects about. Some that you may not even plan to take into consideration.
   I cannot wait to start gaming!

Journey

   As I embark on the journey of creating my very first print, there are a lot of considerations and thinking I have to make. In this blog, I will document the creation of an original video games magazine. 

   My partner Jessica and I chose this topic because of the variety of things we can do with it. Video Games can be, in my opinion, underrated in the grand scheme of entertainment, and as the creator of this new magazine, I want to expose the medium in a new light.

   The magazine will be called Gamer Connect, touching on a variety of topics that converge with other media and displaying video games in a good light... not the average critique articles of the latest video games; it is much more than that. 
   The plan is to find the perfect topic that I can research on. 
Stay tuned ! For more updates on my creation and more elaborate discussions on all the topics of Gamer Connect.