Welcome back!
We kicked off 2023 with our collaborative project with #SportsVizSunday exploring the crossover between games and sports:
For our next theme, you find yourself in an oddly over-stocked room...
Surely there's nothing waiting for us in the next room...
Oh, wait there is, it's the Final Boss!
Yes, it's time to face the final boss putting all your newfound skills and abilities to the test!
There are three challenges to choose from.
Challenge 1: Which path will you take today?
Chart a path to victory! with datasets to explorer different bosses and enemies.
Pick one of the data sets below, or a data set you've found, and visualise it.
Casual Difficulty - For those new to data visualisation or with limited time available)
- Minecraft Mobs and Bosses (Source: sportskeeda.com & minecraft.fandom)
- Final Fantasy 1 Bosses (Source: strategywiki.org)
- Doom Eternal Demon's HP (Source: Reddit r/Doometernal)
Normal Difficulty - A fair size data set that could create multiple data visualisations
- The 100 Hardest Video-Game Bosses (Source: vulture.com & rawg db)
- Elden Ring Bosses (Source: eldenring.fanapis via kaggle)
- Every Enemy in Resident Evil 4 (Source: Reddit r/residentevil4)
Heroic Difficulty - A large data set for those with more time available
Legendary difficulty - Bring your own data or expand on the data provided by bringing new data to the project
For those considering the Legendary difficulty (bring your own data), here are a few ideas to get you started:
- Are there games that you’ve played that were challenging to start with?
- What games competitions have you seen? Were there any strategies you tried in your next playthrough?
- Are there any gamers you admire for their skill or creativity in a game you enjoy?
Looking for data sets? Check out Sarah Bartlett's Twitter thread for data sources or check out
Challenge 2: Boss the Gestalt Principles
Reducing Cognitive Load - hacking the human mind with these principles
The goal of this challenge is to create a data visualisation that effectively communicates insights using the Gestalt principles of perception.
Create a data visualisation using at least 3 of the Gestalt principles.
Gestalt principles are a set of visual guidelines that help to create visual representations that are easily understood by the human mind. The principles include:
- Proximity
- Similarity
- Continuation
- Closure
- Connection
- Enclosure
- Symmetry
Here are a few blog post were you can learn more about the principles and see them in action
- Utilizing Gestalt Principles to Improve Your Data Visualization Design by Lindsay Betzendahl
- Gestalt in visualizations by Arushi Singh
- Gestalt Laws Applied to Data Visualization by Vidya
- Understanding Gestalt Principles by Lindsay Betzendahl
Here are some great vizzes from the Tableau community to give you an idea what can be done with Gestalt Principles.
Challenge 3: This is not always the way
Learn a new way - Tackle a new language or tool for data preparation
This challenge is all about starting the year by tackling a new language or tool for data preparation. It can be very limiting in our careers when we have to pick up a colleague's work, only to hand it back because: "I don't know python", "I haven't used Tableau Prep before", "I had training on dbt a while ago, then didn't use it again..." - any of these sound familiar?
To keep our skills in tip-top condition we'll be completing any of the first 4 weeks of Preppin' Data challenges from 2023 - the beginner series - with a new tool/language.
To assist you in this task I've browsed the #preppindata community on Twitter to find contributors across different tools and languages. Please note this is not an exhaustive list of all contributors, do check for other contributors on for your tool/language.
Task
Complete one of the following tasks using a new, or rarely used, tool/language.
Week 01, Week 02, Week 03 & Week 04
Solutions
- Alteryx - Pallav Shah Solution
- dbt - Jeremy Harris Solution
- Enso (formerly Luna) - James Dunkerley Solution
- Excel & Power Query - Chris Aragao Solution
- Python - Will Sutton Solution
- R - Darragh Murray Solution
- SQL - Shahzad Zia Solution
- Tableau Prep - Rosario Gauna Solution
How to Submit
- Deadline is midnight PST 30th Apr 2023, level 6 will be released shortly afterwards
- Post your submissions on Twitter with the hashtag #GamesNightViz, and tag the team @WJSutton12, @Visual_Endgame, @ninjavizlouis so we don't miss your great work!
- Submit your work the project tracker here: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScqFaHnRcX2uBX7h5PkbigXim1kfQMsnC7ZloF8UvxzfRog4w/viewform?usp=sf_link
