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Emotional Affordance

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1. Emotional Affordance One of the main features of Monument Valley is its ability to evoke strong emotions through its minimalistic yet enchanting visual design. Emotional affordance is about the feelings and atmosphere that an environment evokes and that lets the user take action and in Monument Valley the game world achieves this through surreal landscapes and subtle, meditative music. For instance, the levels are build in a way that suggest that the way of the princess is not complete. The user must find a way to rotate or interact with elements in the game to free up the way. Even though the interactions are pretty simple, the resulting visual effects and optical illusions can be very surprising and motivate the user to keep finding smart ways to rotate and move elements so that the princess can advance. There is no text or explanations whatsoever. The only thing driving the user to play is the environment and the visual goal of moving forward the pri...
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Mental Models

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  Mental Models New Game Unfortunately, I had to switch to a new game this week because I had trouble getting access to the previous game. Since I'm using the shared library of my brother on Steam, every time he wants to play, I get kicked out. It was frustrating so I decided to go look for something else and I found Monument Valley.  Monument Valley is a mobile game where you guide a silent princess, Ida, through a series of surreal, architectural landscapes. It has optical illusions and impossible geometries. Players manipulate the environment to solve puzzles and help Ida navigate through the world.   1. The Gap of Mental Models In Monument Valley , a mental model gap between developers and players could be understanding which elements can be moved or interacted with. Developers design levels with hidden mechanics (platforms, paths, and levers) that they know are interactive, but players often struggle to identify them without clear visual cues, especial...
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3 Days in This War of Mine

Three Days in This War of Mine  https://www.flickr.com/photos/201423201@N02/ Character: In this round I played the characters Roman and Emilia.  Roman is a former military man with a tough, aggressive personality. He is skilled in combat, making him useful in dangerous situations, but his temper and moral ambiguity can create tension within the group. Emilia, on the other hand, is a lawyer who is more refined and less resilient. Now they both live together in an abandoned home and try to survive the war. Game Story and Context: The game is set in the fictional city of Pogoren during a devastating civil war. While the setting is fictional, it is heavily inspired by the siege of Sarajevo during the Bosnian War. The game focuses on the civilian experience of war rather than combat. Players manage one or more people hiding in a damaged house and have to try to keep them alive by gathering resources, crafting tools and making difficult moral decisions like steeling or killing for ...
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Introduction - Pictures

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  My university in Munich - the LMU.  A place that has been very important for me for the last 3 years My very dear university friends and I dressing up as cooks for our UX1 exam.  Just a silly picture that shows how much fun we had together :) Siena - the Italian city where most of my relatives are from. It has been a second home for me and one of the most beautiful cities I know.
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Introduction

    Hello! My name is Annalisa, and I live in the beautiful city of Munich, Germany. While I was born and raised in Munich, I have Italian roots, as both my parents are Italian, making me proudly half Italian and bilingual.    Study and Career: After graduating school in a nearby town, I finally had the freedom to choose to learn something that truly interested me. Since I am both techincally and artisticly inclined, I wanted to do something that incorporated both aspects. Sooner or later I found out about web development and I chose to pursue this as my study and future career. Fortunately for me, the Ludwig-Maximilians university in Munich had just the right major: media computer science with a specilization in human-computer interaction. During my studies, I quickly learned how to code and started learning about UX, psychology and other media fields such as filmmaking, game development and web technologies. With little experience I was lucky to get a job at a...
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