An Evolution of Design Developments (EDD)

Don't worry, E.D.D. is just something I made up.
Today I shall ramble about my design method development for  a bit; mainly because it helps me keep track a little easier.

Okay, Let's go from the beginning;

What is this? well, this is a picture of the sun, surrounded by lots of little copied-and-pasted planets - you can just about see that... right?

So, anyway; the idea was to have the sun in the middle with all your 'play', 'High', 'low', 'odd' and 'even' within it, and have the planets with the betting numbers orbiting the outside; it sounded like a good idea at the time but the planets are way too close together to look decent.

This is the second iteration; it looks a little better because the planets are more spaced out, the problem is that is you wish to have these planets spinning around the sun, and then be selected with a pointer, the pointer will often be pointing to more than one planet - problem.

So, I tried not to dwell and tried to think of another idea - I had another idea to do with orbits (obviously something that interests me) and that was an Atom. I studied chemistry at A-level, so it made sense doing it about something I knew a little about.

So, I stole a picture of a nucleolus from Google and designed some electrons for it - of course the electron-orbits are not accurate but it was the basic idea that counted. I quite liked the look of it, but I still had the problem of the multi-select. (if you're wondering, if you judge in terms of electrons - It's Gallium.)

I proceeded to try and find another idea in hope of  setting rest to my current problems. After studying my current ideas for inspiration, and their similarities, it occurred to me that I had taken designs from one of the smallest things known to man, and some of the biggest things; so I thought I would see what I could find between the two.

This process reminded me of a game - Spore

The idea with Spore is to evolve from a cell, right up to animals and humans and then start taking over planets and solar-systems. So I thought I'd do some research:

So, what was next?
I thought I'd draw up some little icons showing the different themes there could be since I hadn't done much original artwork:

The question mark is just a place filler/holder as there seemed quite a big gap between the two.
So now I had... 7 ideas (or themes) all which were similar, but different.
of course, all these ideas have their own concepts - you could have ants circling around an anthill, cars circulating buildings and so-on.

I decided after all my hard work I would rack my brains out a little more to try and solve the multi-selection problem, as it would be apparent that it would be a recurring problem for all of my new ideas.
 After searching for various ways of arranging things, I came up with the concept of spirals - the below examples really caught my eye.

Not only does it look visually appealing, it spaces the circles out a bit more and seems to remove the problem of multi selection (well, the top one seems to at least)


Anyway, I thought all the ideas i had come up with had their good points, so I tried to be jammy and combine a selection of them into one. How did I plan to do this? Well, I quite liked the idea of spore because you could zoom from outer space, right down to something really small in a big swoop; It was like a huge version of Google earth - and from that came my inspiration.

I made a quick Mock up of a rounded google-earth-zoomer, and decided I could use it to effectively 'zoom' from one theme to another like a giant microscope; having multiple themes to choose from.

Yeah, I might have bitten off more than I can chew (as-per-usual), but I can soon simplify.

After all that, you may ask, 'What are you making again?'.

The answer is: 'A Spore-inspired-spiral-multi-theme-rotating-gambling-wheel-and-stuff'

Got it? Good.

Racing Away

So, what do you do On a Friday when you have lots of Uni work to do and A whole day to do it in?
Well, you don't do much work, that's for sure.

To be fair, it wasn't a intentional outcome; I had organised to go around Ross Frazer's house in order to sort out some stuff to do with the course and get ahead of ourselves in terms of the group project, and we actually did manage to do that for a little while - but then of course, we got distracted.

I mean, it wasn't at least slightly distracting to walk into somebody's house and be overcome with several cardboard boxes that they had accumulated from work which, if you wanted, you could probably use as half-decent accommodation for a while.

Anyway, it turns out that Ross didn't just like accumulating large numbers of boxes for the fun of it - He had recently had an idea of creating a side-show money-raiser for a firework and fair event that was being held at Hallowtree by the scouts (of which Ross is one of them; it wasn't that random). His idea was to create a racetrack for a small Remote-controlled car he had and get people to pay a small fee to get the fastest lap - Simple enough.

(Car In A Can)

The idea was that I was there to help (If I wanted of course), because "I was good at that kind of stuff".
Of course I firstly decided to take that as a compliment... and then said yes - After all, It reminded me too much of when I was small and did exactly the same kind of thing on a regular basis.

His idea was simple; tape two corners and two straight pieces to a large flat bed of cardboard to create a oval racetrack. Simple? Too simple!

My original idea was to have some form of huge sky racetrack suspended in mid air - we eventually came to a compromise of  building something between the two. I originally only planned to stay for a few hours, but I think I actually ended up staying from about 10 till 5.

We have worked together before, and also both done design & technology; and although he probably wouldn't admit it, Ross also enjoys doing things like this too. What actually surprised me was our ability to be so organised and systematic about everything we did - We had multiple-assembly-line-type-things going on; We got some ideas, Improvised, Ross cut the tape into pieces and arranged it about the furniture for later use (after me showing him that slashing it with a sharp knife was much less time consuming than with a blunt one or malfunctioning scissors) we then arranged the pieces we both cut out of cardboard and I taped them down like mad.

This went on for a few hours, along with fixing the problems we inevitably came across, and of course testing what we had (couldn't help but get a little tied up in doing that part). After lunch (which was postponed which is always a good sign of getting stuck into something) we decided to push the boat out and create a covered area under the elevated piece we made by cutting into the supports.

Below are some pictures of the end result.

         

        

(Click Images To See Larger)

Unfortunately the track never got used for it's original purpose due to lack of space at the event and other such reasons, but I'm sure it will come in very useful at some point in the future (Like... when Ross gets bored).

What I'm proud of is the stability of the final product, you can literally pick it up and move it around with ease without the sound of tape ripping off or cardboard ripping or sagging. (poor Mr. Frazer probbaly hasn't got much tape left). Also another remarkable thing is the amount of cardboard we didn't use - we used about 1 and a half of the 3 or so boxes there were due to recycling cut-off's and planning.

And last of all, the look - I think it was better than we all imagined despite tape being plastered all over it!

Empowering Tools

Today I shall  talk (though probably rant) to you about Formal Abstract Design Tools (FADT's), courtesy of Doug Church.

'What are computer games made of?' well; Frogs and snails and puppy-dogs' tails - That's what computer games are made of. No?

Doug, believes games are comprised of a technical base, fused with vision for player experience - Which sounds quite like a Marks & Spencer's advert, doesn't it? I believe what Doug means by all of this is simply that  computer games are simply a collection of rules, coding and god knows what else the player can't see... with a pretty game covering comprising of graphics, animation levels and audio to create the experience that the complete game gives. Basically, all of the components of the game work together to create what you end up with. If you think about it - If you had one without the other, you would either get a film or picture type thing going on, or you would get a lot of meaningless code or rules flying by the screen as if you were trying to hack into the matrix (without the cool bits)

Doug believes our vocabulary for games is not good enough - It ranges from 'fun' to 'not-fun' - We need to be able to pick and choose aspects of a game and their effects.


I agree with Doug here - It would be handy to be able to get a game, play it for a few seconds and then stream out what is good and bad about it, why, and how to fix it. I however disagree with the vocabulary aspect - I for one have used at least 'awesome' or 'drooled a little' to describe a good game...
It is becoming increasingly popular to build and design games using players - The ordinary people in the street who pick the game up, buy it with their hard-earned spare cash, take it home and play it and then tell the internet all about it. The truth is, very few of those people will have been lucky enough to have studied game design in any detail; they will be able to tell you what they personally like ('The new items are spectacular and the addition of the super-duper-combo-move and the introduction of achievements was great') and perhaps what they don't like ('The story was boring and several of the missions were pointless'), but the reasons why those things had those effects is going to be unknown to them. I can't see any big company making games spending time (and subsequently money) analysing these comments - the game is plastic; there are hundreds of elements to go through. All they will need to do is have a meeting something like this; 'So, researchers - What good points about the game were praised by lots and lots of people? Okay, Let's add and develop that... and what about he bad bits? Okay, we'll have to remove them then.'
Oh, Then of course you will get; 'Why hasn't our sequel been popular - We did everything they said! - Okay, we're pulling the plug on this.' Still not realising they accidentally took out all of the necessary original gaming elements from the game. My point is, I guess - You can't change how things are done worldwide... At least not that drastically. Games are developed more and more and more around the consumer pull rather than technology push; this would be fine with any other industry but games are incredibly versatile and simply going at the pace of the consumers can be extremely detrimental.

 

Where was I?

Ahh, yes: FADT - Faddy Adolescents Driving in Treacle... wait... no.. That's not it.
Anyway, games don't need all of these tools, just simply to use some of them.

The first is Intention.
Intention is a bit like plans - You basically (and somewhat unconsciously) plan your actions throughout a game due to the situations and obstacles you meet and overcome along the way. after a while you will plan ahead with your actions because you will have a greater idea of what to expect due to the knowledge you have already collected.

This leads on nicely to the next FADT; Perceivable consequence.
Perceivable consequence is basically feedback from a game. a simple example is if you die, you get a game over message or something like that. If you press the up button, the character jumps and so on.

Story
Story is another FADT - The story is the 'narrative thread' which is a posh way of saying 'It moves things along'. The story in games, unlike other forms of media, can be driven by the design or by the players themselves - For instance, often if the player wants to roam a bit before they move on, some games will let them.

Of course these are not the only tools but merely a few Doug has decided to share. These tools, though he has used specific games as examples, can be used in all games if they work.

I'll be perfectly honest, I didn't enjoy this read so much... I spent most of the time reading his lengthy descriptions on Mario and other such games xD

I tried to keep this one short - Long ones take aaages!

Definining Video Games

What is the difference between 'game' and 'play'?
Apparently, according to Salen and Zimmerman;

Out of everything which can be listed as 'Play', only some are games.
Out of everything which can be listed as a 'Game', only some are play.

Basically, some form of play can be in the form of games, and some aspects of games can be  put into the category 'play' (rather than aesthetics or design and so on)

I'm trying to think of a quote that goes something along the lines of "all [A's] are [B's], but not all [B's] are [A's]... However... Sometimes..." Which is equally confusing.

Anyway, Salen and Zimmerman also decided to pool together the current definitions of existing academics and games designers to try an create some form of mutant definition. The most common concept was the presence of rules, the next most common after that was Goals and/or Outcomes.

Somewhere from those two things they came up with this:
"A game is a system in which players engage in artificial conflict, defined by rules, that results in a quantifiable outcome."

Somehow, that makes 'puzzles'' a game, but perhaps not RPG's...
RPG's - Fine, I'd say it was more of a sociable activity... 'play' rather than 'game' But puzzles?

"Yeah, Steve - That crossword was a great game!"...
or perhaps:
"Yeah, Frank - That crossword was a great Puzzle - It really made me think."...

Anyway, it would seem that the range of different types of games can cause extreme confusion when trying to pin it down - I imagine it's like having a computer that doesn't work and trying to find the component that's decided to die - Just for my benefit so I can relate to it.
and what about Tamagotchis and Furbys?

Well, let me clear that up for you - Tamagotchis; firstly; what are they?
Well, basically it's a digital pet.
Is looking after your cat/dog a game? It's the same thing after all!
I say no - You can play with your pet, But it's not a game.
Again, like the crossword, I would say it is 'Play' rather than 'Game'.

'Furbies' I hear you say. *shivers*
Again, It is a toy - It's 'Play'; unless you make a game using a Furby toy such as "Who can hit the Furby the furthest with this massive baseball bat?" It's not going to be a game.
Another example of 'playing' with a Furby: HERE

One way that Newman decides we could define video games is by genre 7 genres to be exact;

• Action & Adventure
• Driving & Racing
• First-Person Shooter
• Platform & Puzzle
• Role-Playing
• Strategy & Simulation
• Sports & beat-'em-ups

Why are platform games with puzzle games?!

Anyway, he decided although everyone defines games by this type of method, it wasn't a good idea; it is used with books which have a fixed linear and unmoveable form - sometimes games are malleable and genres can change rapidly, or it may mix genres. To be fair, he has got a point - There is probably a game out there which hits every point in that above list - and more!


Newman also looks at auteurism as a defining method - This is also quite a good idea, however, you can imagine people using this method for publicity rather than defining games and subsequently plastering their names everywhere (or more than usual anyway). what happens if the authors of the game really thinks outside the box and their games have nothing in common with each other? Perhaps people would restrict their games further to compensate for this?

Newman then looks at aspects of Gameplay - He decides to use foreign words to do this (as you do);

• Agon - Competition
• Alea - Chance/Randomness
• Ilinx - Movement
• Mimicry - simulation, make-believe, role-play

Then, of course you have the problem that games often combine multiple aspects of game-play too! apart from nobody will understand you: "You know, that game was very Agon based!"

Simply put; I don't think there is a simple foolproof way of  defining video games, after all "The game is plastic"! There is always going to be a way to flow through the cracks in a defining structure within game design because anything is possible! They should put in a ridiculously strict defining method in place for people like me who will work their very best to find loopholes (hopefully creating wonderfully original games)
Meanwhile, I'm pretty sure most people define by genre.

Spider-man: Birth of Awesomeness

Now I'm not being funny or anything, but I'm not going to go about simply creating several, reasonably short , arguably meaningless posts about how my weekly readings are so applicable to everything and basically put what they say into my own words - I might do some of the time - but I've decided I'd rather describe a game I like using their applicable concepts. Savvy?

Now, if you haven't guessed already, the first will be about spider-man games of many varieties. Why? well, I've had three people today remark about how s*** they all are - So I'm basically out to explain why in many ways they can be wrong.
I'm having second thoughts of doing this whole game review stuff - I'm going to be running out of ideas by the time I need to be properly marked on them!

Anyway, first things first - I'll start with the creator - Marvel

Before I go into why I think certain games are great, I thought I'd better go into why I think the general concept without the game is great first.

Now, there are many different comic companies out there; I'm not going to pretend for a second I am a comic book nerd and know many more than Marvel and DC - I just know what I like.

Look at the picture above - I think it's safe to say there is a lot of characters there, and that is probably only a selection of few of them. One of the many things I love with marvel, is the fact it is all linked. When I say 'linked', I don't mean it's all the same, tied up, or some kind of bondage or anything like that. The fact is each main character (or set of characters) has it's own comic; Spider-man, The Hulk, X-men and the Fantastic Four - And they all have their separate story-lines and themes - But the comics intertwine with each-other; you might get Iron-man going after The Hulk, or Spider-man might hear about some havoc that Wolverine has coursed. This intertwining creates and strengthens the concept of a whole alternate world - The fact everything links together and subsequently makes sense increases the readers ability to believe in what's happening in these different places within that world and draws them within it.

Just imagine you go into a motion simulator ride: It wouldn't work too well if it was completely different to what you normally experience - You would think it was broken if you were supposedly in a spaceship and you suddenly tilt sideways when going forwards, or if you pull negative G-forces on a roller-coaster going into a dip. The manufacturers could do this, and then claim that the ride is fiction - Made up - and therefore not in the bounds of the norm - But yet the ride would not be popular. The fact is that most fiction isn't built on randomness or inconceivable happenings, but rather as a twist or change of the norm or what we would usually expect. A simple "Wouldn't it be cool if this was possible" is sufficient in any media to make a reader interested or to get them to enjoy it - You don't have to re-write the laws of physics.

If you push a superhero off a building, the chances are they are going to plummet toward the ground at the same speed as anything else in the real world - This is a base line of what I think makes Marvel so popular. To my knowledge, most of the Marvel comics are set in and around the real world - Spider-man swings around New York for instance. (it's a lot more complicated than that, of course, you can read about it HERE if you wish) This means that even the most challenged of imaginations can portray such things happening (well, hopefully) as they have something they already know to mentally build from.

Anyway - Another method Marvel seem to use build their attraction from is mixing fiction, with fact, or factual objects or occurrences. That doesn't make sense either you say? I know- I'm currently having an explain-anything-properly-malfunction. Basically, Marvel mix fiction with non-fiction very well; any reader will usually voluntary buy into any fictional possibility just the same as they would in video games, however - Marvel regularly seem to decrease the need to put in any amount of effort to do this. For instance - Everyone knows there are serums in the world which enhance physical abilities and or intellect and know to some extent there could be the possibility of such a serum causing mental instability or insanity - It's not that hard to imagine because that specific concept is based around truth - That concept however is the basis of the story of Green Goblin. If you exaggerate that concept a little and add a few high-tech gadgets which could, but do not yet exist, and of course a suit, you have the complete character concept of the Green Goblin! And you hardly had to strain a single braincell or put yourself out of place to imagine it.

 Where was I?

Oh Yes; The final concept I find interesting (rather than compelling) about Marvel comics is the seemingly regular concept of morals. Now, I know this is the whole idea of the superhero/villain theme, but there seems to be something more to it in Marvel.

Although my knowledge is mainly based around the films, Marvel seem to add a lot of choice and moral questions into their work - So i don't ramble any more, a few Spider-man Movie quotes should get my point across:

• "With great power comes great responsibility."
•  "Commencement: the end of one thing, the start of something new."
• "I don't think it's for us to say whether a person deserves to live or die."
• "Well, you start by doing the hardest thing: You forgive yourself."

And so on...

I shall let the Die-hard comic book fans turn in their grave after that and shall leave you to read this not-so-games-related post... (Although I did try fit some stuff in!)

BUT... Soon there will be some incredible games-related posts, and we can all rejoice!
......Right after I've done some other games design work...

Shape Lab

Today, we've been testing and evaluating Keystage 1 games, it wasn't my choice by the way, playing Keystage 1 games is not something I do on a regular basis; just to clear that up. Today was...

KS1 Bitesize Games - Shape Lab

Fist things first is the 'game interaction';
The interaction of the game is very basic, and although you would expect a low level of interactivity for games aimed at this target market, it is perhaps too low to make the game as effective as it should be. Below you can see why this is the case; the "game" consists of choosing the correct shape (out of a selection of three) which fits the description that 'Pablo' provides.

The problem within the interaction of the game, is the feedback that it gives (or doesn't give as the case may be). There is no skill to the game (although perhaps not needed); you either know the answer, or you don't, and if you don't know the answer, you run into more problems as it does not tell you why the answer you have chosen is wrong, or how to come across the right answer. The game aims for the users to learn by trial and error, and although this is often a great way of getting people to learn things, it is perhaps not the best method to use in this scenario. However they have used this method and to make it even worse they seem to have missed out the vital part of trial and error which makes it effective, which is feedback to learn from.

Oops Indeed! Are you sure? You Don't seem that certain!

 And subsequently, if you do get the answer wrong, there is no 'wrong' state, or representation of lives; it simply asks you to make the same choice again - So really you can't loose, even if it does take 3 tries; not quite learning. Perhaps 'political correctness went mad' and it is too detrimental to a key-stage 1 learner's self-esteem to get told they've done something wrong?

This also covers part of the game which is 'Struggle'
Yes, the game provides a struggle for the user if they do not know the answer to the question, but apart from that there is no challenge to the so-called 'game'; there is no consequence if they get the answer wrong - they just try again until they get it right.

'Goals'
The game has a long term goal, (creating the robot for 'Pablo') and short term objectives (find the right shape)

The Goal; To see Pablo's dodgy invention (On the left, What is it?)

Unfortunately the main goal isn't 'properly' described - It doesn't say "your goal is this, succeed and you will get this". In fact, you are left to assume that because they've called it a 'game' and not a 'quiz', that there is somehow some form of reward for succeeding at the end of the game. I assume that it is just this, the teacher staring at you, and your KS1 friends playing the same game that makes you 'want' to complete it. What could be changed though? In my oppinion you wouldn't have to do much to make the game a little more rewarding;

• Show your invention reward a little larger - So you can actually see your handiwork a little better.
• Make your award interactive - What's the point in inventing something if you can't use or play with it afterwards?
• Design the game so that the shapes you choose for Pablo actually resemble some parts of the invention- "I did that!"
• Time limit, health, lives, score and much more are all lacking in this game

'Structure'
To be honest, there doesn't seem to be much structure to the game; for me, it resembles a series of slide-show slides, with three buttons on each, and only one of the buttons works (does that make sense to anyone else but me?). I have no problem with the idea of picking one of three items, only if the other items have some form of effect on the game (I dunno; wrong pieces gives you a mutant-robot instead of a working one) simply put; it is very linear and one-dimensional. I suppose it can get marks for the difficulty selection though!

'Endogenous Meaning'
There is very little endogenous meaning to the game; this may be because the structure of the game is very basic too. It's not as if the game requires the user to engage into the world of Pablo and his friends and therefore this creates very little endogenous... anything - You're not 'in' this other world; you're just an outsider helping them - It's a bit like watching somebody through a glass window of a shop. The lack of scoring means that you can neither go and brag to your friends "I got 5 out of 5" either, because the outcome of the game is you either get 5 out of 5 (by either trying or cheating), or nothing at all - It doesn't really mean anything, whereas "I got 1,592 points" might give you something worthwhile to brag about.

Evaluation
Generally, the 'gameplay' of the game is very poor; yes, It's very pretty to look at (although, probably involves some quite disturbing characters for small children) but the game itself is very basic, if not non-existent. Yes, the game can't be too complicated for users of that age; But I think they may have taken it a little too far. To me, it seems that instead of thinking up a good games concept, the BBC used their budget to Jazz-up and prettify an on-line, multiple choice, interactive quiz...

But that's just me...

Other Interesting Toy Concepts

Over the years I have been on the receiving end of many toys, lots of which were construction toys - Below I have picked a few I received which I thought were more interesting than others and perhaps why.

Lego Technic

Unfortunately Lego Technic was expensive, so I didn't have much of it.

(Apart from the above digger and a few other models.)

There is probably much controversy over this statement, but I personally believe Lego Technic was far better and superior than the original Lego blocks - And not only because you could pull it apart without spending a few days getting corrective surgery of your fingers afterwards. Lego Technic was, I thought, an amazing development of original Lego; original Lego was fine of you wanted to build square-bottomed things like houses, but anything less cube-like and Lego was ready to buckle under it's own and instability and net weight. Lego Technic allowed you to build shapes in any direction without too many complications - The only problem I found was the added angles often made it very hard to join two pieces together at a point.

One of the many things I loved about Lego Technic was the introduction of pneumatic pumps and cylinders, and controls for them. Unfortunately I found that a lot of the pieces had air leaks and couldn't actually move much weight (but a couple together had enough power to snap a few other connected pieces). Lego must have noticed this and then proceeded to make "Lego Mindstorms" - Replacing pneumatics with motors and computers. It has always looked positively fabulous, but I've never actually had any.

Magnetix

Magnetix - Now, I'm no expert, but I'm pretty sure that whoever designed this did not have any electronic equipment in their house, because I'm pretty sure this toy's magnets would wreck havoc with them if they did.

Magnetix annihilates one problem that Lego Technic had - It's almost impossible for any of the pieces not to connect due to wrong angles, it uses ball bearings - So angles don't matter. Ball bearings give the product two disadvantages - Weight and Cost - Metal is heavy and expensive, heavy produces stability issues again. However, metal is also magnetic, so it would be a useless toy without it. (although I found they created a magnetic plastic which they could use - MY IDEA)

Here are some other modular, construction, toy, thing-a-me-jigs I found up.

Q-BA-Maze

 

(Some Amazing-Looking Videos) 

There are two things that are great about this - It's simple (It has three different pieces in a variety of colours),  and so it is cheap to make and easy to use. It is also very versatile and visually appealing; however abstract it may be.

Uberstix

I'm not sure what this is, or how it works, but it looks incredibly versatile!

Coasterdynamix

 (See Video)

I'm not 100% sure this is in the "toy" section, but it is modular and it's construction... and I like it.

I don't know too much about this; I can't decide if it is a one-time build, or whether you can re-design it and whatever else - Either way, it is very cool and I want one.

Perhaps I should think more along the lines of games, rather than evaluating toys...

Fatal Flaw #4; Modularity. I like modular items way too much.

Birth of the strange one

I'm not going to go right back to the start; of when I fell to earth in a meteor and grew from alien goo. However, I thought it would be a good idea to give everyone (whoever that may be) a better idea of the makings and behind-the-scenes-workings which have paved this path so far. So, for the next few days, or weeks, or however long it may take, I shall give an insight into what I think may have been the key steps which have me led here... or somewhere near here.

The "beginning" is really quite embarrassing on my part as it involves childhood toys.
Now, if you could just imagine for a minute: a typical childhood with quite regular toys - It shouldn't be too hard.
Good; now you know exactly what I was not like.

Even as a child I was strange.. I mean... Creative: I was never found playing a board or video game, or playing with action-man dolls or reading... or whatever else you might expect a young boy to do. I was found grabbing any old rubbish left lying around the house and making a mess whatever tickled my fancy - whether it was a rocket or a robot or god knows what else. Basically - Blue Peter was my best friend. What you may not have known was I was actually the uncredited founder of recycling. I would apparently get a large Christmas or Birthday present... And end up spending the following weeks playing in the box it came in. God himself couldn't stop me when I found a small marble lying around the house and then proceeded to make a "run" for it around the entire circumference of my room out any household items I could find which weren't nailed down.

After a while I'm pretty sure my parents got a little annoyed of "Sean, where's my ____, I'm sure I left it just here..." So I got an upgrade - I moved from cardboard egg boxes to plastic.

By plastic I mean construction toys - Namely K'nex. (Not Lego - I guess it was too basic at the time.)
Just as a little history lesson - K'nex was originally a small selection of "rods" and "connectors" which you join together to create... Well.. Whatever you like really. Originally, of course, you get a selection of pieces and a instruction book. After quickly finishing them (after the first day or so) I started making my own designs, they got bigger and more complicated every day; and so did my collection of pieces to keep up with the demand. looking back at it, it was very interesting how the company developed the toy (not like I cared at the time)
Eventually I was taking up the whole front room again with motorised roller coasters or machines using every piece I could lay my hands on - I have mentioned this extensive collection to many people over the years and I don't think many people have quite understood the size of it.. So - Here it is of today.

 

The 'collection' consists of half-a dozen motors, specialised pieces and at last count several million pieces (roughly weighed and counted on a very rainy day). All this is probably not something to be proud of, but I would like to think I've done my bit in helping the world with the containment and disposal of plastics - but now I'm just showing off.

Anyway, I digress - The idea is that I spent days at a time creating anything I could think of, or duplicating many of the things that grabbed my interest. I would show some pictures... But... A. most are really quite embarrassing, B. I don't think I've got a working scanner, C. I don't think I took many pictures of the good ones and D.Nobody is likely to care anyway.

Does anyone remember the Tv show  "Robot Wars"? You should - It was amazing. Anyway, One of the house robots was named "Matilda" (Which was also a great movie) and I once designed a full size replica in K'nex from a  single 5cm-square picture in the argos catalogue; I cannot explain how amazed and proud I was at how accurate it looked, complete with motors 'n' all. But again - I don't think I have a picture, but I know it's going here if I find one.

Little fact: Did anyone remember the giant motorised helicopter display, made of K'nex, found in Toys R Us? And how it mysteriously disappeared one day? That was because it ended up in my bedroom as a birthday present - Really! Unfortunately it was too big to keep in tact and it had no instructions to rebuild it - I now just have the pieces.