Mary's Blog

 For this weeks reading tasks we are tasked with beginning to code our resources and also we have to follow a certain process to choose five themes. We are given text and a video to watch on the topic. I decided to briefly read through the text, but as I didn't really understand this I followed up by watching the video.  video: link After watching the video it definitely cleared up some questions but honestly it was still very confusing to understand. Im not sure if this process is well suited in the way I like to learn and organise but I decided to give it a go anyways. It did seem to get easier as I went on.  I have researched an annotated plenty of resources that I will be using now. Which I am happy with. Im not sure if I will use this method again but everything is a learning trial at the end of the day.  I've been using google scholar each week to further research my topic and create a list of useful articles that I can use for my chosen topic. 

  For this week we had to do more readings on our chosen topic. I decided to use google scholar to further research my topic of "the over sexualisation of women in video games". I found Google Scholar to be super useful in finding a variety of different articles for my topic that can be referenced easily for the project.  " Sexist Games=Sexist Gamers? A Longitudinal Study on the Relationship Between Video Game Use and Sexist Attitudes " Is the first article that I read through, which talked about the overuse of the "damsel in distress" in video games, such as Super Mario Bros. The under and misrepresentation of women in video games. The article discusses how women are being represented in video games leads to how they will be viewed in media and furthermore impact ones beliefs and attitudes in day to day life.  Following up on this I was interested as to how popular gaming was amongst women and how the over sexualisation of woman would affect women that en...

 For this weeks reading I decided to read up on some of the articles that I linked in my reading from last week.  Firstly I read the article named "The One-Sided Problem of Over-sexualisation in Video Games."  - which asks the question as to why there are so few female game developers in the industry. Then goes on to state that many female developers responded with the answer of hostile work conditions in the industry for them and all of the other problems they face in said workspace. Women are mistreated in the industry as both developers and players. To go on further women feel uncomfortable in the industry by the amount of over-sexualisation of female characters in games.  I also read the article: "Video Games Still Overly Sexualise Female Characters, Study Finds." - This article goes on to discuss how female characters are still being overly sexualised. Although the sexualisation of female characters in video games has declined since 1995, women are still being ...

For this tech task I learnt how to embed a map onto one of my blog posts, and I choose one of my favourite cities that I have travelled to, Florence!

 I decided to try one of the coding tasks as an extra credit task as I find code quite difficult to understand and wrap my head around. I started with the first tutorial:  Scripts as behaviour components. This tutorial was very quick and easy to follow. We learnt about changing the colour of an object through code by pressing a key on your keyboard. I'm glad that  I  decided to follow this tutorial as I feel that I have learnt something new that  I  can implement in my future games! link: 

 For the book, I would be interested in the chapter "Harmful effects of gaming" and I would like to discuss the over sexualisation of women in games. I feel this would be an interesting sub-topic as this can have multiple harmful effects on people especially women.  Some useful articles that I have found on the topic: The One-Sided Problem of Oversexualization in Video Games:  https://www.forbes.com/sites/insertcoin/2012/11/28/the-one-sided-problem-of-oversexualization-in-video-games/?sh=b3fa68355ff0 Let’s talk about sexualisation in video games: https://www.mcvuk.com/development-news/lets-talk-about-sexualisation-in-video-games/ Video Games Still Overly Sexualise Female Characters, Study Finds:  https://www.thewrap.com/video-games-still-overly-sexualize-female-characters-study-finds/ There are plenty of resources online that I feel would be really useful for this sub topic and I'm excited to research more into it! I found the library tour that Lindsey gave...

For this semester we were given the option of doing 2D tutorials, introduction to XR or an E-Learning project. I opted for the 2D tutorials as I felt it suited me the most. For the first week of semester two we were tasked with the tutorial: Ruby's Adventure: 2D beginner. Getting back into the swing of Unity after the break was definitely challenging but before I knew it, it was all starting to come back to me! In this tutorial we brushed up on the basics which was a nice refresher. We then had to add a character to the game and make it a Sprite which was new to me. We then done some coding and made the character move left to right and up and down using the arrow keys. For the last bit of the tutorial we were introduced to tile maps. Unfortunately my Unity software didn't have the option of creating 2D objects so I really struggled with this part.  Overall I found the tutorials to be very useful in brushing up in Unity after the break and learning new skills with 2D games. I am...