Player Type: Bard

 "Playing a Part in a Grand Story"

When I took the quantic gamer type quiz my results were Bard. They describe Bard as a team player, who wants to chat and interact with other players in game worlds that are rich in stories, discovery, and customization. For me, the game is a grand story that emerges from a community of players. 

This description fits me perfectly, I do not take a lot of time to play games but when I do, I focus on games that have a vivid story line or community play (such as Mario Kart, Super Mario, or The Sims). In my home I have two game enthusiasts, my sons Owen (8) and Emmett (5). We play both board games and video games, so when I do play with them, and I get to choose what game we play I choose Mario Kart (a racing game) or Super Mario. Mario Kart is a racing game with several racetrack options, you can customize your car, and choose which character to play. As you progress through the game it unlocks different racetrack options, characters, and customizations for your cars. What I like about the game is the competition between my boys and I, the graphics, being able to play different tracks, and customizations available for the player and cars.

Looking at my quantic gamer motivation survey results, I am not sure how I ended up with action components being one of my highest motivators. I do occasionally enjoy the action and fighting, but I more enjoy the graphics, story line, creative expression, and comradery. I do not much care for games that are all fighting and shooting. The remainder of my motivation results are accurate though. I love the competition and comradery involved with Mario Kart which aligns great with the social component being a big part of my motivation results. Along with that, I also agree with the results of creativity being high on my motivation list because I do enjoy putting a lot of details into my characters, and enjoyed games when I was younger such as The Sims where I could build houses and towns using all of my creative freedom. Thinking back to the days where I played endless hours of The Sims, makes me wish I had the time to play it again!

Zoombini Mentor Game Reflection: 

I have begun playing one mentor game, Zoombinis. At the start of the game, you create your own little Zoombini tribe, and you have the choice to customize each guy, or you can use the dice to randomize their appearance (see picture above). This matches up with my Player Type results of creativity. I love being able to customize my characters and make them how I want them; I even let my two younger sons customize one of their own (they got a kick out of that)! I have made it successfully through three levels, but I had to go back and customize my tribe three different times to get 16, which is the required number to move forward at the camp site level. Each level it said there are patterns to be able to move forward; to be honest I am not sure I caught on to the patterns for each level. I thought I knew the pattern required for the bridge crossing and then when I would try the same pattern again and it wouldn't work. I like the game, but I feel it would benefit from a tutorial at the beginning to explain what exactly you are doing, I just kept clicking on things until I figured out what I was supposed to be doing. 

Game Elements: 

At the start of the game, the introduction to the game was storytelling the background of the Zoombinis to grab your interest. Some of the game elements that are keeping my interest are the end goal (although I'm not quite sure what the end will bring), but my want to make it to the next level has me setting my own goal to make it to the end. To make it to each level, you have to face some sort of competition, and then just making it to the next level is a form of self-reward. When you click on the map you can choose different level difficulties (playing levels), which for someone like me who doesn't play a lot of games is super nice, so of course I chose the easiest setting I could. With the settings you can also replay a level, for this game in particular you have to go back to the start to get more Zoombinis to bring them through the map so if you didn't pass it is not ultimately the end. So, as you can see, this games interrelationship of all of the game elements makes it intriguing for the player to continue playing the game. Download it and play along with me and share your progress!