This week, I began preparing for the second year review presentations and caught up on some projects that have fallen by the way side. Introduction With last week’s chaos now coming to a close, I’ve continued focusing this week on preparations for the upcoming second year review for my graduate cohort. In total, I’ll need to prepare a thesis proposal paper (which I wrote last week and reviewed with my advisor this week), a thesis project prototype (which is Role Call ), an ab

This week, I will finish preparations for the open house and then provide some analysis of the results as well as the first draft of my second-year review’s thesis proposal. Introduction So with this week being the week of open house, Rae and I dedicated all our energy to polishing up Role Call  formally titled Project: Theatre  so that it would be ready to present to the public. In the end, we successfully managed to implement almost all our desired features after having to

This week I started gearing up for the open house around the corner and revaluated some of the work I’ve done so far. Introduction So since coming back from GDC, I’ve been working a lot on both my research and the game accompanying said research. Through meeting so many amazing industry experts this year and talking about my work, I’ve come to several realizations that caused me to take a step back and evaluate the direction each of my projects were heading. In the end, after

In the following post, I recount my notes from my time at GDC 2026. I break down each of the talks I attended and elements that I feel will be useful in my future endeavors. Introduction So, as I’ve done for the past few years, I once again hopped on a plane and traveled to San Francisco for GDC. I would say the starkest difference of this GDC compared to past years was the bonds I’ve begun to form with others. In the past, I’ve been pretty much a fish out of water, going fro

In the following post, I discuss my four week progress review of Project: Theatre, the start of Project: R&J, and the updates to the thesis. Introduction This week has been eventful regarding my thesis. Specifically, as I mentioned last time, after experimenting with a simple prototype of the game using my system, I noticed several design flaws that would need addressing. After discussions with both my thesis partner and advisor, I’ve since decided that going in a new directi

In the following post, I discuss my first week back to making and the side projects that came with it. Introduction This week has been quite the adventure. I ended up having a number of side assignments that needed to be addressed which resulted in less time then I would have liked to do making but that’s sometimes how grad school goes. Luckily though, that isn’t to say no progress was made since I was indeed able to start taking steps in each of the thesis directions after t

In the following post, I discuss this week's steps towards reaching my thesis. Most were simply finishing setting up for what will hopefully be the dawn before the next large research push.  Introduction Phew another week goes by, and quite a stressful one at that. Sometimes life goes your way and sometimes it doesn’t. But regardless of the situation one finds themself in, we continue to take steps forwards to what is yet to come. So let's see where those steps led this week.

In the following post, I discuss what changes have occurred since my last update in December, the progress I’ve made on the different aspects of my thesis, and a reflection of some of the readings I’ve been doing as of late.   Introduction It has finally come time to dust off the old journal and begin putting pen to paper once again to document my journey (well, digitally speaking of course). So then what has been happening since I left for winter break last December you migh

Research Through Design - Post Documentation Overall this has been quite the journey in learning how to approach Research through Design. In my last post I mainly focused on discussing how the process went and where I’ll be heading next. Since then I’ve gone through the journey of making a poster to communicate my design and really solidifying in a simple way the overall path that has led to the completion of Project Conversation: Robocat. Below you can see an image of this p

This week, I begin wrapping up Project Conversation and reflect upon what was learned from its development. Additionally, I discuss my believability metric and progress on conference talk review. Research Through Design Reflections With the end of the semester coming near, I figured it's time to finally put a bow on Project Conversation. First however, I wish to reflect upon how far it has come and what insights can be gained. Then next week I will begin to clean it up for di

This week, I reflect on what I’ve done so far and describe some conclusions I’ve made regarding story generation systems from a content standpoint. Second-Year Review With the end of my Autumn Semester of my second year of graduate school, I’ve decided to take a step back and reflect on my journey thus far. As such, I’ve gone through the process of redefining what my core research focus is and what the steps will be to achieve it. Below is a more detailed breakdown of my conc

This week, I spent some time thinking upon the results of some playtesting and altered my game in response. Additionally, I began preparing to submit to an abstract competition and continued my lit review. Research Through Design Hayes Form Submission Since my last update, I’ve begun preparing Project Conversation: RoboCat for submission into my first public showcase related to my thesis. More specifically, The Ohio State University’s Hayes Form where graduate and doctoral st

After a one week break from writing, I return to describe my progress in Project Conversation and some updates from literature / talks I’ve been analyzing. Research Through Design Gossip System V1.2 So in the last development update, the gossip system was encountering several issues and a new gossip data approach was proposed. The goals of the new system were as follows: Simplifying the tag system Simplifying the Action / Target System into an event system Allowing for texts

This week, Rae and I explore our Gossip 1.1 Method and determine its strengths / weaknesses. Additionally, I continue my reviewing of the literature for gossip systems. Research Through Design So for this week, Rae and I began exploring using the technique of Subject, Action, Target based on the RDF triple techniques described by Mooney and Allbeck (2014) as well as the category based system described in Brown et al (2021). Below, the details of our system are described. Then

Back to the Drawing Board This week, Rae and I encountered a few setbacks and decided to start fresh with the knowledge we gathered in our project. I also completed a few more readings for my thesis. Research Through Design For this week, Rae and I performed the first round of testing for project conversation. In the end, we had four different users go through the experience and received mixed feedback based on post gameplay discussions and our google survey described in last

This week, I went through and did some research into how game researchers have investigated the concept of reputation systems. I then...

This week, Rae and I revisit our previous ideas about combining our prototypes and determine a new approach. Additionally, I describe my...

This week, in my meta analysis class I continue to research Narrative Transport and find a large amount of evidence suggesting that...

In the following blog post, I discuss my updates with my new direction for my meta analysis, Rae’s and I’s progress on beginning our...

In the following blog post I discuss my decision to begin pursuing a joint thesis with Rae Watters and the changes to the way I am...