Learning Games

LeapFrog Announces Web Connected Learning Handhelds

2008-02-06T13:14:00.000-07:00

Wow! They are aimed at 4-8 year olds.

Excerpt from Gamasutra:

Technology-based learning company LeapFrog has announced two new web-connected video game systems for kids' educational needs: The Leapster2 Learning Game System and the Didj Custom Gaming System.

The Leapster2 Learning Game System allows online gameplay with learning-based activities and rewards aimed to allow parents to see what their child is learning. The Didj Custom Gaming System connects gameplay with schoolwork online, allowing grade-schoolers to customize the game with spelling lists, math problems and more.

Link to full article

Retirees find Wii not just for the grandkids

2007-03-23T12:29:00.000-06:00

LOS ANGELES, California (Reuters) -- Until two weeks ago, Ruth Ebert never had the slightest interest in the video games favored by her one and only granddaughter.

"I'm 82 years old, so I missed that part of our culture. Soap operas, yes. Video games, no," chirped Ebert, who recently started playing a tennis game on Nintendo Co. Ltd.'s new Wii video game console at the Virginia retirement community she calls home.

CNN report

Interesting article on videogame accessibility

2007-03-12T17:46:00.000-06:00

KQED QUEST has an interesting article on videogame accessibility, including game accessibility advancements shown at GDC.

Fitness Experts Endorse Wii For Health Benefits

2007-02-13T13:30:00.000-07:00

The International Sports Sciences Association (ISSA) has released results of a new survey into exercise and video games, finding that technologies such as Nintendo's Wii "may prove to be just what fitness experts are looking for to help their clients get more active".

More on this article

Native Dancer - Virtual Powwows for Health

2006-08-28T10:51:00.000-06:00

Excerpt from Water Cooler games

Water Cooler
NDSU

Like many disadvantaged populations, Native Americans are particularly at risk for Type 2 adult-onset diabetes. The game addresses exercise through multi-user virtual pow-wows. The game is (smartly, I think) set up a regular event at scheduled times. Players learn about and participate in native dancing, outfits and regalia. Performances are judged based on how closely they conform to motion-tracked professionals.

40 ways to be a better (game) designer

2006-06-27T08:40:00.000-06:00

Raph Koster (author of A Theory of Fun) made a blog entry that describes 40 ways to be a better (game) designer. It's a good read.

Retro Remakes Game Compo

2006-06-07T08:40:00.000-06:00

The Retro Remakes is a competition to bring classic games to the new generation by reintroducing classic gameplay, with specific emphasis on accessibility. The gist of the compo is:

Good remakes of good games that anyone can play, regardless of their ability.

One cool thing about this competition is that they have secured an accessibility advisor to assist all entrants in making their games accessible, which I think is a brilliant move.

The compo covers two months, and there are quite a boatload of prizes.

Study: Video games can help cut surgical errors

2006-05-24T14:13:00.000-06:00

LOS ANGELES, California (Reuters) -- A new study suggests that people preparing for surgery ask their doctor: "Have you played your video games today?"

Surgeons who warmed up by playing video games like "Super Monkey Ball" for 20 minutes immediately prior to performing surgical drills were faster and made fewer errors than those who did not, said Dr. James "Butch" Rosser, lead investigator on the study slated for release Wednesday.

Read full CNN Article

YOUNG AND WIRED

2006-05-18T16:08:00.000-06:00

Computers, cell phones, video games, blogs, text messages -- how will the sheer amount of time spent plugged in affect our kids?

Article

Healthy Eating & Exercise Game Gets Award, Upgrade

2006-05-15T11:16:00.000-06:00

[05.12.06]

Article

NoteNiks.net, creators of the Healthy Eating & Exercise CD-ROM, have announced that the software has been selected as a recipient of the Institute for Childhood Resources Dr. Toy Smart Play/Smart Toy Product of Excellence Award for 2006.

The CD-ROM, which debuted earlier this year in partnership with
software design veterans NoteNiks.Net, is the first piece of
educational software that teaches children ages 3 – 8 the importance of selecting healthy foods and keeping active.

Following a similar award from iParenting Media, the NoteNiks.Net team has just released upgraded (v.1.1) release of the Healthy Eating CD that offers an all new class curriculum which helps educators and parents alike share healthy eating lessons with their children both on the computer and off.

"The Healthy Eating CD is more than just a product for our company. It is a cause. Every one of the developers on the team has kids in the age range of these games and we take this product offering very seriously," says Yon Hardisty, partner in NoteNiks.Net, "We have seen the power of pairing simple game mechanics with healthy messages. It is a strong partnership and the kids love it. The team is constantly taking in feedback from parents, educators, and kids in order to allow this product to evolve. Look for even more in the future as we add new games, curriculums, and services."

By Simon Carless
May 12, 2006 05:00:00 PM PT

Computer Game Accessibility

2006-05-01T08:33:00.000-06:00

As the casual games market starts building steam, accessibility is becoming more and more of an issue as the target audience for the AAA developers grows out of a niche market. Recently, Gamasutra published an article on game law that deals with accessibility in games entitled Game Law: Everybody Conga.

In particular, it notes two laws that come into play for game developers. The first is about when game developers must pay attention to accessibility concerns:

So, if there is any potential government sale of your game or technology in your business model, you had better pay attention to making it universally accessible. Section 508 of the Workforce Investment Act of 1998 requires accessibility on all electronic media sold to the government.

The second is about when game developers can benefit from voluntarily adding accessibility controls to their games. Apparently, there's a tax credit of up to $5K to add, say, closed captioning, to your casual games.

For more information, there is also a game accessibility web site.

Educators See DDR Exergaming Benefits At Exercise Convention

2006-04-27T15:57:00.000-06:00

Excerpt:
View Article

Konami has announced that it will participate in this year's American Alliance for Health, Physical Education, Recreation and Dance (AAHPERD) convention as a way to showcase the health benefits associated with playing video games such as those in the Dance Dance Revolution (DDR) series. This year's convention, which represents one of the nation's largest gatherings of health and physical educators, is scheduled to be held from April 26 though April 28 at the Salt Palace Convention Center in Salt Lake City, Utah.

Teenagers Losing Interest in Video Games, Says Survey

2006-04-10T10:47:00.000-06:00

Article Link

Piper Jaffray has announced the results of its 11th bi-annual proprietary research survey on teen spending habits and retail brand perceptions, titled "Taking Stock With Teens", which dealt with fashion and technology but also video game-related questions for North American teenagers.

Senior Retail Analyst Jeff Klinefelter, along with a team of senior research analysts conducted mall research field trips with approximately 700 teens from 12 high schools in nine states across the country and Canada. Additionally, the team surveyed another 1,235 students across the country through a partnership with the national DECA organization in an online survey.

With particular reference to video games, results of the survey point out that 81 percent of surveyed student households have at least one video game platform, and 59 percent of students state that they are occasional game players (playing at least monthly).

Interestingly, almost 80 percent of teens indicated that they intend to spend less time playing video games in 2006 and nearly 70 percent indicated that their interest in playing video games is decreasing.

POSTED: 3.10pm PST, 04/07/06 - Jason Dobson

School Based Fitness

2006-03-25T21:06:00.000-07:00

What would our fitness-related game development be like if we had an entire school to develop for? Imagine a series of public hallways or corners of a cafeteria where we could implement full-body games and activities for recess and lunch... such as interactive "walls" that played music, or step pads that tracked your steps to music? What about a school full of classrooms where every teacher had some kind of easily implemented physical activity (could be used individually or in large groups) to use whenever attention was waning in the classroom? This could include DDR or other games developed with full body peripherals? How about a revised cafeteria program through which kids use technology to log their food requests among healthy choices, having the ability to "vote" or recommend specific changes. Could we take advantage of parent groups and after school programs to extend healthy behavior after school times? As a parent, I can think of a series of wonderful things we could do in a testbed, "healthy elementary". As a game developer, I embrace an accessible environment to try everything and identify what works. As a researcher, I think such a school would see signficant changes in test scores, absenteeism, and family health. Hmmmm, what would you do?

Day 1 - GDC Serious Games Summit

2006-03-20T23:59:00.000-07:00

I've heard some great things today and have a bunch of fun ideas rolling around in my head. Here is a brief overview of some things I'd like to look into further:

Teaching People How to Program: Three interesting programs were demonstrated in a session.
1. Alice is a 3D programming environment that helps kids (especially girls) tell stories by animating characters using program prompts. Alice has been around for a while, but the story-telling mode is new.
2. MIT's Scratch presents a programming environment for developing simple games and other fun interactives.
3. Rapunsel presents a coding enviornment in which kids can create their own dance moves for characters. In a creative twist, dancing is controlled by programmable "clothes", such as the rumba pants.
All this great work makes me wonder what can be done with a programming tool on the iPod... can we have kids create mini movies similar to Alice Storytelling and then make podcasts? How can we use some of that sitting on the bus time to increase understanding of problem solving? Hmmmm....
Peripheral Devices: Again, 4 great examples of creative peripherals.
1. Nokia's Juha Arrosavuori gave some ideas of using mobile phones in health, such as a GPS game where kids have to walk to different zones to pick up "cards" to play with in their game. He also mentioned MUPE as an open-source program for phone app dev.
2. Dominic Greco shared the very exciting Smart Brain Games wherein ADD kids can don a helmut and play regular games on the PS or XBox, and when they aren't paying attention, the game gets harder. Thus, the kid learns how to focus their attention and when to recognize their attention is waning.
3. The presentation that really got my brain going was Sonic Studio's (of the Interactive Institute) Interactive Climbing Wall. They used touch sensors and LEDs in the grips on the wall, then programmed a fun array of activities, like "playing" music or hearing poetry, playing pong between bodies on a wall, and "chase the light". It made me wonder what we could do with interactive buttons on a big wall in the hallway of a school... could we do some of the same ideas to get kids moving, but on a less-grand (cheap) scale?
4. UC Irvine shared their EcoRaft tool for teaching about ecology... kids can destroy an ecosystem on one of 3 screens by pressing a button, but can restore it by taking a tablet pc over and planting a seed, or releasing a bird, etc.

I'll post again tomorrow with some of what I hear... so much fun stuff, it seems unfair to cram it into one post!

Dance Video Games Hit the Floor in Schools

2006-03-02T19:03:00.000-07:00

Education Week
Published: February 8, 2006

By Rhea R. Borja

Listen to the beat. Watch the television screen. Now, boogie to the left and boogie to the right. Repeat a few thousand times.

More students are shaking their booties—and getting fit—in school with the help of the video game series Dance Dance Revolution and similar games.

Instead of punching buttons with their thumbs or maneuvering a joystick, students are jumping, stepping, spinning, and rocking on a sensor-lined vinyl dance pad connected to a video game console and TV blasting Top 40 or hip-hop.

Dance Video Games Hit the Floor in Schools (article)

McDonald's Videogame

2006-03-01T13:57:00.000-07:00

Making money in a corporation like McDonald's is not simple at all! Behind every sandwich there is a complex process you must learn to manage: from the creation of pastures to the slaughter, from the restaurant management to the branding. You'll discover all the dirty secrets that made us one of the biggest company of the world.

http://www.mcvideogame.com/

Just thought I'd pass this along.

Games can be part of the obesity - prevention solution

2006-02-27T09:40:00.000-07:00

Water Cooler Games has a nice bit about the CDC's new ad campaign against video games.

Here is what people are missing when they talk about games and obesity. The *games* aren't the problem, the sedentary activity is. If we can capture what is great about games, and port that into activity, we will have found a great new way to reach people who don't enjoy moving other ways.

Why do kids play baseball videogames instead of real baseball? Their reasons probably vary from gamer to gamer... but let's capitalize on those reasons and increase activity through gameplay!

PEW: Internet & American Life Study Home Broadband Adoption

2006-02-26T17:49:00.000-07:00

Rural Americans are less likely to log on to the internet at home with high-speed internet connections than people living in other parts of the country. By the end of 2005, 24% of adult rural Americans went online at home with high-speed internet connections compared with 39% of adults in urban and suburban areas.

http://www.pewinternet.org/PPF/r/176/source/rss/report_display.asp

Student Game Development Club

2006-02-22T13:03:00.000-07:00

Gamasutra featured an article on the Texas Aggie Game Development Club, and their recent challenge to design a game in a week. The article features some of the games they did, and the club's web page gives more information.

Boing Boing: BBC report on UK gamers from 6-65

2006-01-26T12:25:00.000-07:00

Boing Boing: BBC report on UK gamers from 6-65
Very interesting article.

Another "Games to Move" idea

2006-01-09T09:06:00.000-07:00

Another idea I had over the weekend for games to get kids (adults?) moving would be to have a collectible card game which allows players to play cards that force each other to get up and perform an action. If this could be incorporated into the game mechanics, it would be even better.

For instance, suppose the game were similar in theme to Wizards of the Coast's popular CCG Magic: The Gathering, where players deploy creatures and spells to do battle. If, instead of using preset rules to determine the outcome of such battles, the game used a "rock-paper-scissors" sort of mechanism, but which required full-body motion rather than just a couple of fingers, then there'd be some stand-up-and-jump action for each contest. The game could be made more interesting by adding more options than just rock, paper, and scissors. (Note that with a webcam, this sort of gameplay could even be extended to video games.)

We tinkered with the idea of a CCG for the Digital Desert Library project, but it never really got off the ground. One way in which this CCG idea be used would be to allow kids to "find" new cards as they move through our various health and nutrition websites and complete tasks. The NeoPets casual gaming site uses this mechanism to reward kids for trying new things and exploring the site. Other things could be triggered to unlock cards, such as completing online activities, participating in the step tracker, or even finding them in various monster lairs in the dance mat RPG. In addition, we could give unlock codes to teachers to reward in-class participation.

Health Aspects of Game Research

2006-01-08T22:10:00.000-07:00

As we begin our "moving through gameplay" project (hey... could that be a good name?), it is clear to me that we must include some exercise physiologists. I have some concerns about the health of our subjects... for example, we make our game consultant kids take their shoes off before using the mats... are we putting them at risk for shin splints? Should we require cool down and warm up before using? When we were just looking at it as game play, my biggest concern was using a big fan to lesson the smell of sweaty pre-teens... now that we're looking at it as exercise, I think we have bigger responsibilities.

I'm also interested in the health of any "older" participants. I really want to do a research study with placing DDRs in offices and see if we have an increase in health in our workers at the U. Is this kind of exercise the best for them? I guess we'd better get some experts ;-)

Phil Steinmeyer

2006-01-07T01:09:00.000-07:00

Through SlashDot, I found a nice little article by Phil Steinmeyer about taking a casual game's art concept through to completion. It's for a casual word game he recently released called Bonnie's Bookstore. The article is a good read, and includes screenshots of discarded designs, which I think is a nice window into the development process.

However, the real gold wasn't in this particular article. His blog tracks things of interest to educational / casual game developers, including recent articles on board games, site traffic to casual game portals, the size of the casual games industry, and the death of children's software. I'll be subscribing to this one.

Gaming off the Hershey's Kiss

2006-01-05T22:05:00.000-07:00

Today, a few activities converged into another game scoring idea:

In talking with a nutrition researcher at Purdue (we're partnering on the www.eatmovelearn.com project) about seeking grants to prevent obesity through game play, she encouraged us to make nutrition education an objective of game play as well. Imagine a game where you not only physically move to control game play, but control what your character eats in the process, thus learning the energy in - energy out balance.
I burned 375 calories dancing to "In the Groove" DDR game tonight. In fitness mode, it tells you how you are doing at hitting the right steps (I'm not very good, incidentally), but it also shows with every step (even the wrong ones) the calories you are burning. I noticed immediately that the jumps burned more calories than the single steps, and when a complex set of steps came up that I fumbled, I made sure I jumped the wrong steps two at a time, rather than simply step them wrong one at a time. It was inspirational to see my calories burned climbing, even though I was only a "decent" dancer.
We reviewed the interface on our In and Out O Meter interactive tool as part of the www.eatmovelearn.com project today. The concept is that the user can pick a food (say, cheeseburger") and then pick the activity (like "washing the car") and see how many minutes she would have to wash the car to burn off the food.

Here's the idea: a DDR or other game that allows you to:

Enter what you ate today. It would total up the calories, fat, etc (also helping user read and use nutrition labels)
Provide activities to do with the dance mat (dancing or otherwise) and provide compelling game play and motivation
Show a running total of calories burning while you are moving
Check items off the list of what you ate as you move. Imagine seeing those Hershey's Kisses you ate on the drive home just get scratchd off your list while moving and grooving.

There are some great ways to create lifestyle changes through gameplay... increasing activity and conveying knowledge.

Dance mat RPG?

2006-01-05T11:43:00.000-07:00

As a follow-up to Barbara's post, I'd like to reiterate one of the ideas we had at the Guitar Hero party yesterday that tie directly into this topic.

For kids that can't perform well at the intense rhythm games, it seems to me that a game that still requires fairly constant motion on a dance mat could be programmed. Although it wouldn't get the "rhythmic cardio" benefits, I think we could offset that by making it a long-form game that takes a long time to play, and which has considerable replay and/or long-play value. Santa vs. the Snow Monsters wasn't a rhythm game, but people who played it said they were pretty tired when they were done, so I think we have some evidence that you can really burn calories even when it's not a rhythm game.

I've actually been thinking a lot about this, and I'm thinking we should do an experimental game that explores this. I'm thinking about a multiplayer networked game using the RedOctane dance mats, in the style of a typical immersive RPG. Players could use the dance mat to navigate around the environment, and when they get into a combat, they use the dance mat to do their attacks.

Players could choose character classes in the traditional sense (fighter, thief, wizard, whatever), which would translate into different modes for fighting. "Barbarians" might just hammer as fast as they can on a single direction button, for the young kids without a lot of coordination. "Swashbucklers" might be able to do left-right "feints" or back-forward "lunges". "Assassins" might have a golf-game like power/technique bar for making critical strikes. And "Wizards" could do DDR-like sequences of steps to cast spells, and the longer "perfect" run they make, the more powerful a spell they cast. Other motion mechanisms could be added as needed.

As the characters "level up," they get more moves they can employ, or they can do more attacks before the monster fights back, or they get more attempts at critical hits, etc., all of which would let them take on tougher monsters as a reward, but would also require even more motion out of the player to execute.

This sort of setup would allow kids to not only try different modes of play, but there would be a mode of play that could be played by kids with a wide variety of rhythm and coordination ability, and would scale the motion up the more immersed in the game they become.

By making it multiplayer, players of different skill abilities could play together (unlike Guitar Hero or DDR, where both players have to play at the same skill level), which increases the commitment to the game, adds a social aspect, and would allow for cooperative gameplay - you could have a "party" of adventurers going into the caverns who cooperate on a common goal, rather than having head-to-head competitive play, which is the case with virtually all rhythm games.

I think we could prototype a game like this in a week or two. I'd like to get one or two more RedOctane mats if we do this, so we could have a party of 3 or 4 working together.

How else can we get gamers moving?

2006-01-05T09:07:00.000-07:00

I've been paying special attention to creative ways to put input into games... something that goes beyond a simple joystick, controller or keyboard. We seem to be on the cusp of a lot of really great innovations. The DDR dance pad was the first great "step" (oooh... bad pun, I realize) in getting game players up and moving. However, we have yet to see any great commercial games using the controller for something *other* than gaming (which is why we're exploring that).

I'd really like to see a dance pad used for non-dance or rhythm-based games... something where the compelling game play is compelling game play, and the pad is just what you use to navigate and move within the game. (My hope is that would get the gamer who is self conscious about moving using the game... this type of gamer may never do DDR because of performance anxiety).

My new favorite game, Guitar Hero, does an outstanding job replicating the experience of playing a guitar, because the game comes with a guitar-shaped controller that you play. It has really started us thinking about other ways to get gamers "moving".

Currently, the input tools seem to be the DDR pad, the camera (eye cam for consoles, for example). I have big hopes for the new Nintendo controller as well.

Coming soon to the online gaming environment is picture-cam-based basketball. http://www.playdojam.com/. I look forward to testing this in the lab and seeing if it really gets gamers moving.

DDR research at WVU - video clip

2005-12-19T10:54:00.000-07:00

The DDR research going on right now with WVA and an insurance company is highlighted in this one minute clip.

http://wvuminute.wvu.edu/RealMedia/?type=large&id=60

Perpetuating A Clockwork Orange

2005-12-10T10:52:00.000-07:00

apophenia has something interesting to say about video games and teenagers:

How many parents allow their kids to go out and play? I live in San Francisco - do i ever see kids on the streets? No. Why? Because parents are afraid. They're only allowed to go out under supervision, only allowed to play in very specific ways, in formalized activities, in community centers. They can't hang out on their stoop, play on their streets, play in the park. They can't socialize because parents won't let them. Video games let them go into a world that is not controlled by adults, a fantasy world where creativity and exploration are allowed. It is quite common for youth to play with their friends, to have a fantasy world to share. Who wouldn't prefer the fantasy world to the surveillance world? What would happen if we allowed fantasy to come back to the physical interactions for youth? What if kids could go on adventures outdoors like we used to? Until we deal with our culture of fear, video games are going to be *much* more appealing than everyday space. Not because they are addictive, but because they are simply more fun.

While it's true that we need to reduce the culture of fear in this country, that's a long-haul job, so in the mean time, game developers can take this message to heart and try to provide meaningful, supportive, educational, and (most importantly) fun online spaces for kids. Why aren't there any Massively Multiplayer Educational Games? (MMEG's?) Let's make one!

(Via Wonderland.)

Not Just Child's Play

2005-11-28T09:16:00.000-07:00

False chronologies aside, some professors are using off-the-shelf historical video games to engage students.
http://insidehighered.com/news/2005/11/28/civ

The 11th Annual Interactive Fiction Competition

2005-11-18T08:23:00.000-07:00

The results for the 2005 Interactive Fiction Competition are in.

Raph Koster's Destiny of Online Games

2005-11-15T17:45:00.000-07:00

Raph Koster, author of the A Theory of Fun textbook we're using in this semester's game design class, just posted a series of presentation slides for a talk he gave at a game development conference called The Destinty of Online Games.

He uses the same "fluffy" approach he uses in his book, but, like the book, it's a good read anyway. You won't pick up any hard data or really usable game design tips, but it's a fun touchstone for thinking about where we're going in the game design discipline.

(Link via BoingBoing.)

Roll your own DDR

2005-11-14T15:06:00.000-07:00

There's a post on BoingBoing today about a free and open-source alternative to Dance Dance Revolution called StepMania that's brewing:

Two dance pads plus a USB controller are about $30 (shipping included) on eBay and they work great with Stepmania... even on my Mac.

Since we're interested in personal motion games, this might be a great thing to look into. More importantly, since it's open source, we could learn from the code for reading the dance mat input in order to create our own personal motion games.

MOVE - andrew hieronymi

2005-11-14T12:12:00.000-07:00

MOVE - andrew hieronymi: "MOVE is an interactive installation divided into six distinct modules, JUMP, AVOID, CHASE, THROW, HIDE and COLLECT.

Each module offers a single-user interaction, based on a verb corresponding to the action the participant is invited to perform.

Each verb corresponds to a common procedure acted out by avatars during videogame play.

Each module offers an interaction with abstracted shapes (circles, rectangles) behaving according to simplified rules of physics (collision, friction).
Each module is color-coded with consistency, where the color red is used for the graphical element that poses the core challenge.

Each module increases difficulty in a similar linear manner."

Video Reviews Objectives - Lab Activity 11/11

2005-11-12T10:02:00.000-07:00

During Friday's game lab, we prepared an activity in which the participants would begin work on creating a video game review. One of our objectives with this project was to have the kids provide more in-depth discussion of individual games. Although previous video reviews had been relatively informative, we wanted to push them to give more detail and explanation about what they did or did not like and why. The two participant format seemed to support this effort to a greater degree than previous methods because each individual could elaborate and add in details about the views expressed by the other.

To prepare them for this work, we did the following:
* had them watch a segment from XPlay on G4TV about the new game Nintendogs.
* had them watch short video reviews they had done previously
* had them discuss what was good about and what might be added to both kinds of reviews (things like more overview of the game, screenshots or video of the game being played, and clearer recommendations)
* talked with them about creating storyboards to plan their on-air review (to be completed during the next game lab session). These storyboards will include both a written review scripts and specific images from the game to illustrate and support what they thought of it.
* Barb reminded them that reviews should be both critical (in both the negative and positive sense) and backed up with evidence.

The participants were then paired up and asked to play a new (to them) game for about 45 minutes. As they did this, Tanya and I would periodically watch and listen, encouraging them to think about including some of their comments in their reviews.

After game play, the kids did some brainstorming and then began to outline the things they wanted to discuss in their reviews. Tanya and I again visited with each group to push them for visual specifics from the games which would support their views and comments (e.g. in Lego Star Wars, the group commented that collecting coins didn't seem to be that worthwhile because there were very few things you could buy with them- in taping, I suggested they visit the place where they could spend money to illustrate the lack of items available).

We will return to these storyboards in the next game lab session and begin taping and editing.

Therapeutic value of MMORPG's?

2005-11-09T13:09:00.000-07:00

I happened to meet up with one of my friends from College yesterday. He's a police officer now, which suits him well because I've always admired both his facility with people and his cool head in an emergency. He's smart, empathetic, and level-headed, all things that you want in a dedicated public defender.

Anyway, he was telling me that his brother, who is also a policeman, was an early responder to a pretty grisly scene in which some of his friends had been ambushed and killed.

My friend said that he couldn't get away to visit his brother, who was understandably troubled and shaken by the experience, but that he did manage to spend some time with him virtually using World of Warcraft as an intermediary. No phone bills, instant contact, and best of all, a removal of the context of the visitation - they could focus on something else when it became too much to talk about. Stepping out of the real world, assuming a totally different persona, and laying the smack down on a couple of ogres apparently provided a much-needed escape from the immediacy and mundane morbidity of what they were talking about.

My stomach sinks thinking about what his brother must have gone through, and I'm glad to see confirmed something that I've always suspected about RPG's, especially MMORPG's - having access to an alternate world can be therapeutic as well as entertaining, because the real world can have crushing levels of boredom, drudgery, loneliness, and pain, and having a temporary but engrossing escape from that can help people deal with those realities by giving them some relief from thinking about whatever is troubling them. Yes, some people can take it too far and assume the virtual world as their real world, but that is a miniscule minority compared to the people that gain real personal value from it. Brother connecting with brother to comfort and heal is a testament to that.

Full body interaction for games

2005-11-07T19:28:00.000-07:00

Particularly as we do work with games for obesity prevention, many of us have yearned to really take advantage of full body interface design... game play that makes the player Move to MOVE. DDR comes close... but has just not really been taken advantage of in game design. (There are 8 ways to move in a DDR pad, with combo steps as well... why are they only used to dance? They can be used to hop, skip and jump and would be great for an adventure game... I dunno...).

But, we are getting closer. Thanks to the Ludology Blog for highlighting Andrew Hieronymi's "Move". It's an interesting physical environment demanding physical activity of the user. Not only would this kind of movement be a step forward (ha ha ha) in obesity prevention, the kinesthetic nature would make any game play more absorbing.

I can't wait to see this kind of interaction in game design.

Tom Higgins on the Austin Casual Games Conference.

2005-11-02T14:50:00.000-07:00

Tom Higgins recently posted a blog entry about his thoughts on the Austin Games Conference. In particular, he talks about the growing interest in the casual games market.

Everyone agreed that the casual games business is a looming opportunity that will only grow in the coming years. Just a few years ago the notion of casual games being an industry itself would likely have been laughed at, especially if one tried to claim that revenue numbers from casual games would soon be approaching levels similar to traditional games (high-end PC or console titles).

Measuring Learning in Games

2005-10-19T21:40:00.000-06:00

Sande Chen and David Michael do a nice job of highlighting the issues related to assessment in the Gamasutra feature, Proof of Learning. They discuss challenges inherent in learning assessment. Calling on Jim Brazells, thoughts,

"That isn't to say that game designers already know everything there is to know about testing and other pedagogical methods. Nor are we saying that traditional testing methods have no place in a game environment. Instead, both game designers and educational professionals need to work together in developing serious games as a new teaching tool"

While I applaud game developers and academics working together in evaluation, I also encourage academics working as game developers. This is why we've placed so much emphasis on assessment in our own Learning Games Initiative, developing the Learning Games Lab as a place specifically for the types of assessment that can lead to effective educational game development and assessment.
It is exciting to see assessment, something many of us feel is the greatest challenge in learning games, come to the forefront of discussion. It is such a large field, we all stand to benefit from open discussion and sharing of findings and strategies. Kudos to Gamasutra and the authors for addressing it and calling for additional information.

Experimental Gameplay Project - Entertainment Technology Center, CMU

2005-10-17T23:59:00.000-06:00

The Entertainment Technology Center at Carnegie Mellon is running an Experimental Gameplay Project wherein four grad students try to put out one game a week each during the course of a semester. Each week, a theme is announced, and the four students try to come up with a simple, fun game around that theme. Their games have to be made in less than seven days, and all art, sound, and programming is done by that student alone. All the games are archived for inspection, so if you're stumped for innovative gameplay elements, this might be a good place to look.

Petals Around the Rose

2005-10-16T01:53:00.000-06:00

Here's an interesting game of pattern-seeking that was presented on Slashdot earlier. It's called Petals Around the Rose, which prompts you to roll five dice and predict how many "Petals around the Rose" there are.

Anecdotal history apparently credits Bill Gates as having solved the riddle of the game back in the very early days of his career. After all his buddies had all figured it out, he was the sole person left baffled by the game. Rather than discerning the pattern, he only solved it by memorizing many sequences of dice, a brute-force, hamfisted method of cheating against the spirit of the game (something that would come to characterize his business practices in the future).

Maybe you can do better than Bill Gates - can you discern the pattern without resorting to memorization?

(Via BoingBoing.)

Refereences Used for Gender & Games Presentation

2005-10-14T17:05:00.000-06:00

Linda Schultz
AXED 590
Presentation 9/21/05

References

Prensky, M. (2001). Digital Game-Based Learning. Mc-Graw Hill: New York.

Miller, L. M., Schweingruber, H., & Brandenburg, C. L. (2001). Middle school students’ technology practices and preferences: Re-examining gender differences, Rice University, Houston, TX.

Scharrer, E. (2004). Virtual violence: Gender and aggression in video game advertisements, Department of Communications, University of Massachusetts Amherst.

Heeter, C., Chu, K. C., Egidio, R., Mishra, P. & Graves-Wolf, L. (2004) Do girls prefer games designed by girls? Michigan State University

Why we do what we do

2005-10-12T18:32:00.000-06:00

If you ever needed convincing that we need to be developing educational games here at NMSU, especially regionally and culturally sensitive ones, all you need to do is look at the recent Morgan Quitno education ratings that ranks New Mexico as the nation's dumbest state. Nevada and Arizona were numbers 49 and 48, so the traditional audience for our southwest regional educational games appears to be the one most in need of free quality educational software.

Say "Adios" to The Games Journal

2005-10-11T23:18:00.000-06:00

All good things must come to an end. I'm sad to report the untimely demise of The Games Journal. I only stumbled upon it at the tail end of it's five-year run, but I enjoyed what I had read, and was considering submitting content myself. I hate to see something that was so obviously a labor of love go belly-up, but it just reinforces the need for good game critique and commentary through our Games Lab project.

Kids play less games?

2005-10-06T21:08:00.000-06:00

Gamasutra is reporting on the Piper Jaffray report that more teens use PlayStation2 than any other platform (though they expect the X box to dominate the market in the coming years, and that teens think they play less games.

In addition, in an interesting insight into teen trends, 65 percent of student households own Sony's PlayStation 2, 50 percent own Microsoft's Xbox and just 26 percent own Nintendo's GameCube. GameStop was recognized in the survey as the leading retailer for pre-owned video games with 60 percent market share, and 29 percent market share for new video game purchases.

Finally, and perhaps most controversially, the survey also revealed that, in the sample of North American teenagers that Piper Jaffray surveyed, 75 percent of teens say that their interest in video games is declining, and 78 percent indicated they spent less time playing in 2005.

Of course, as an academic, I wonder if teens interest in video games really is declining, or if their *perception* is that their interest is declining. They can say they are less interested, but still rank it as a top pass time.

Steve Ince on Interaction Density

2005-10-06T19:07:00.000-06:00

Steve Ince, an adventure game development veteran who worked on the venerable games Broken Sword and Beneath a Steel Sky, has written an article on what he sees as the problem with modern video game design: the lack of Interaction Density.

Interaction Density is his term for measuring how much the player has an opportunity to do.

If we look back to the early 1990s, much of the size of a game was limited by the fact that they were published on floppy discs. This meant that every location or level in a game was made to work hard for its keep. For an adventure game, each of the labs, bars, shops, alleys, etc was filled with items to collect, characters to talk with and background objects to examine. Gaining access to a new location was always such fun in itself because the player would spend time simply interacting with the environment and everything within it. When this exploratory interaction was combined with the actual gameplay of working through the developing story, it meant there was always plenty the player could find to do at any given moment. Even when the player became stuck on a puzzle, they generally knew that the solution would be fairly close by because there were only a handful of locations you were likely able to visit.

Women Gamers

2005-10-05T11:36:00.000-06:00

The best and most informative site I found was WomenGamers.com.

The second site is a conference site it may disappear in the future, however, it had many reference links regarding women and girls gaming Women in Games this year's conference has come and gone. Take a look at the links there may be something of interest. I posted some below.

Computer Clubs for Girls
GameGal.com
Game Girl Advance
GirlAmatic.com
Thumb Bandits

The Esoteric Beat: Audio Games, Virtusphere, Mindplay

2005-10-05T11:23:00.000-06:00

Gamasutra's headlines caught my eye today. I haven't tried an audio only game before. I don't think "Name that Tune" is in the same category : ) Here is an excerpt, visit the site for a live link to the audio only games.

This week's column looks at audio games, hamster-ball interfaces and digital relationships.

- First off this week we take a quick look at acoustic games. These audio-only titles have been around for a while, and make up the eclectic mix of adventure games like those found over on Audiogames.net. These games rely purely on sound output to deliver information to players, making them ideal for people with sight problems to experience the immediacy of interacting with digital entertainment. For something free and action based, why not check out German art-game collective a.Game's Sonic Invaders, which is an attempt to make a shoot 'em up based purely on sound input. If nothing else, these games should provide food for thought for those people interested in the use of sound in mainstream Western games. There's a lot that can be done with the senses other than sight, but are we doing it?

The Esoteric Beat: Audio Games, Virtusphere, Mindplay

Democracy

2005-09-28T23:24:00.000-06:00

Game Tunnel has a review of Democracy, a politics simulator which allows you to try your hand at governing a well-developed country like the USA. You make policy decisions for economics, social programs, warfare, etc., and try to get elected the following term.

Apparently, although it doesn't refer to a specific country, the political processes are complex and real enough that it's an educational experience to play this game anyway, which might make it a great tool for constructivist learning in a Civics classroom. If nothing else, it would require students to consider many issues they probably have never thought about, and prompt them to think about where to draw the line between practicality and ideology.

True Western

2005-09-27T00:08:00.000-06:00

Apparently, Bill Kunkel, one of the early videogame journalists, taught a course on advanced game design at the University of Nevada. One of his students, the talented Justin Ficarrotta (who brought us the Freeverse hit Kill Monty), has placed his work for the class up on a web site for all to see. The work is a lot of design work for a theoretical game called True Western, including trailers, explanations of gameplay elements, design bibles, level designs, project requirements, etc. An interesting site to read for would-be game designers.

Parents and games

2005-09-26T11:13:00.000-06:00

MSNBC has an article on the role of parents in their kids' gameplay, When Parents Become Gamers. In a very comfortable way, it conveys some important issues like:

Brenda Braithewaite on the Hot Coffee modification that introduces sex scenes to Grand Theft Auto: "When Hot Coffee erupted into a big story I was wondering why all the parents were irate," she said. "What are you doing with the game in the first place?"

Matthew Ford on how game play with his son can facilitate conversations: “As a result we had several very good conversations about what defines evil, why doing evil things can be attractive, and why it can be fun to act out in a game, even though to do that in real life would be wrong.”

It made me wonder what instructions we need to offer parents. There are things I consider just obvious, like the value of the video game rating system, and the fact that there are some games designed specifically for adults (and not just the sex-related things... but advanced themes and violence.) However, it is clear to me from our interaction with kids who all seem to have seen (or claim to) M games, that parents don't take these seriously. I don't think parents play the games (possibly because they are intimidated by the skill of their children), or know how to have discussions with their kids about them.

As educators, what are our roles to help parents out?

IGDA Casual Games SIG White Paper

2005-09-26T08:29:00.000-06:00

The International Game Developer Association Casual Games Special Interest Group released a 2005 Casual Games White Paper back in July. Since educational games are unlikely to compete against top-shelf commercial games, the "casual games" market has a lower barrier to entry, and business models will be closer to that of casual games than commercial games, much of the information out there on casual games can be applied to educational games, so it's worth a read.

Interview with Oregon Trail designer Phillip Bouchard

2005-09-22T19:49:00.000-06:00

There's an interesting interview with Phillip Bouchard, creator of Oregon Trail over on Deadly Hippos. It's sort of a humor site, so there are some offbeat questions, but Bouchard does manage to provide some insight into the design of the best-known of all edutainment titles. Worth a read to any would-be educational game designer.

Another complaint – although rare – was that the game was not sufficiently educational. I was once in the audience at an educational technology conference when another audience member stood up to say that you don’t learn anything from The Oregon Trail. Some members of the audience were offended by the comment. I was rather amused by it. In a very limited sense, he was right. In this game I don’t attempt to stuff a lot of factual memorization down the throats of the players. But I do encourage a lot of learning through experience. And I encourage additional learning by piquing the kids’ curiosity to seek information on their own about the history and geography covered in the product. In a well-organized school setting, the teacher will make effective use of the curiosity stirred up by the game.

Sims are huge... duh!

2005-09-15T18:45:00.000-06:00

Gamasutra has posted the sales data for PC games. Remember, these are PC game sales which I don't think inlcudes console sales (someone please correct me if I am wrong). Five of the 10 games are sims... because sims are traditionally as popular with girl gamers (if not more so) than for boys, I wonder if this speaks highly of the buying power of girls in games. If so, I am pleased that the gender gap is starting to narrow...

Game Conferences

2005-09-15T12:42:00.000-06:00

Ian Bogost over at Water Cooler Games gives a great synopsis of educational game-related conferences coming up.

The 400 Project

2005-09-11T21:26:00.000-06:00

There's a great column in Game Developer magazine called "Better by Design," where they try to enumerate the building blocks of good game design. Now, there's a web site that serves as the home for these ideas called the 400 Project. The goal is to get 400 rules of good game design.

This ties in very closely with the idea of "Design Patterns" - conceptual building blocks designed to solve problems that recur in tough design projects. Whether or not you end up using them in your design process, it's a good exercise to go through them and be aware of them, because it makes you think concretely about the effect - positive and negative, obvious and subtle - that the decisions you make during design can have on the gameplay.

New Issue of The Games Journal

2005-09-02T22:13:00.000-06:00

Just released: the September issue of The Games Journal. Although it's always a short issue, it's usually fairly well-written articles of interest with little fluff.

One interesting article in this month's issue is one in which the author took a game that had fairly nice components but terrible gameplay and attempted to rework the rules, using the same components, to make it fun. An interesting idea for an exercise for a game design class, don't you think?

Making a Case for Short Games

2005-08-28T22:07:00.000-06:00

Gamasutra has an article called Making a Case for Short Games, written by one of the developers of the short-form space exploration game Strange Adventures in Infinite Space.

It's a good, thought-provoking article, but I found it ironic, since my overall impression of playing SAIS a while back was that it felt way too short - just as the game started getting interesting, it would end!

Apple's Game Building Tools

2005-08-25T14:30:00.000-06:00

Apple just put up a feature on game building tools that are available for MacOSX. While it's certainly not an exhaustive list (Director and Flash, for instance, are conspicuously absent), it does show a lot of interesting tools that are within reach of hobbyists and small development shops.

Wired Teens

2005-07-27T22:15:00.000-06:00

CNN has a nice little article on how wired teens are. The article points out (based on a Pew research study) that teen girls are the active Internet users... largely because of IM. It also highlights that kids know what technology is good for and what it is not... Something for us to think about as we continue to reach digital kids.

Online RPG Platforms

2005-07-14T16:59:00.000-06:00

For people looking to play pen-and-paper RPG's with remote friends, there are two cross-platform solutions that allow collaborative online gaming.

OpenRPG is a free, open-source Python-based solution, and WebRPG is a Java-based solution that used to be subscription-based, but is now apparently free also.

Games you can't see

2005-07-14T09:02:00.000-06:00

AudioGames is a web site that collects references to computer games for the blind and visually impaired. It includes resources for people looking to develop their own audio-based games.

By way of example, an good article over at Gamasutra on Accessibility in Games was linked off the front page.

The Ransom Method for financing games

2005-07-14T08:32:00.000-06:00

NPR's On the Media interviewed two guys who made a dice game called Meatbot Massacre and used what they call the Ransom Method to finance it. Might be a good model for casual game development.

They made $600 on the game, but I imagine there is an economy of scale there - the more games they release using the Ransom method that get a good response, the higher they can set their goal for future games (as their reputation increases).

More info is available at the Meatbot Massacre web site.

Interesting article on web-based games

2005-06-30T14:32:00.000-06:00

I came across this article about testing games and evaluating users in third grade class rooms.
http://pdfserve.galegroup.com/pdfserve/get_item/1/Sf8042aw7_3/SB994_03.pdf

Interesting Article

2005-06-20T09:19:00.000-06:00

I came across an article written by a doctor when he was a medical student. His interactions and connections to teenage patients through gaming and how he created a foundation based on children and gaming networks in hospitals. Digital Healing

Wired News: Now That's Exertainment!

2005-06-16T07:48:00.000-06:00

Very short article on a school district thinking of using DDR and Eye Toy.

Wired News: Now That's Exertainment!:

"The classes would see elementary-school children getting their daily workout through popular video games like Konami Digital Entertainment's Dance Dance Revolution and Sony's EyeToy: Play that include active, physical elements."

PacMan turns 25

2005-06-15T22:16:00.000-06:00

In a nice little tribute article, CNN reviews a bit of the history of Pac Man. It makes me feel old... but reminds me of why Pac Man was so powerful... truly a quintessential video game. Even now... I still love it and see kids that enjoy it...proof that good gaming is good gaming (sometimes independent of character, graphics, complexity, narrative, etc.)

Casual gaming: the New Hardcore

2005-06-10T23:25:00.000-06:00

The Guardian Unlimited has a nice blog entry on Casual gaming: the new hardcore which talks a bit about a recent flamewar between casual gamers and hardcore gamers, and some of the insights this generated. The main point is that somehow, casual gamers find casual games on the internet, even though there are no publications and media emphasis on them like there are for the commercial titles that you see on shelves at your local game store. Does this mean that casual gamers are just as motivated to play? Would responding to the online casual gaming audience generate more traffic for a small developer than trying to develop a boxed game?

Catch! Touch! Yoshi!

2005-06-08T23:58:00.000-06:00

I just stumbled upon this description of Nintendo's new DS game Yoshi's Touch and Go or, as it is known in Japan, Catch! Touch! Yoshi!. It sounds like it has some interesting game mechanics, such as using a stylus to draw things into the environment and a microphone to blow things out of it:

...The first half will involve Baby Mario vertically falling from the sky, and the latter will be a horizontal ride on Yoshi's back across familiar but repetitive scenery...the player has little to no actual control over the main characters: in the first half, your stylus will draw clouds, push coins and circle enemies in cute little bubbles, and upon Yoshi's back you'll be drawing climbable mountains and shooting eggs. Tapping Yoshi will make him do him trademark jump and hover, and blowing on the screen (via the mic) will dissipate the clouds, but it's in the manipulation of his surroundings that the game makes its mark. Practically everything can be moved, trapped and pushed: enemies trapped in your circles can be thrown around the screen...

What can educators learn from each other?

2005-06-08T11:54:00.000-06:00

In my last post, I proposed a few things educational game designers can learn from professional game designers and called for attention to development of games (in addition to academic discourse on the role or results of educational games).

There is a lot of great discussion going now in the academic communities regarding games. When it comes to developing games, there are still few reports on 'lessons learned'. The truth is... educators are developing games... and we're succeeding and failing in different aspects among the way.

Here's what I'm hoping to learn and share regarding game development.

What is the best way to assess learning from games?

What is the best way to collect data on game evaluation by players? We're experimenting with blogging by game players, video diaries, creating movies of game play with narration by the player, and others.

How do we successfully use game players as game designers? We're developing a team of game play consultants (ages 12-14)... how do we balance using 'seasoned' consultants (those who know the vocabulary and have worked with us before) with using 'fresh' faces (those who have not been corrupted by being analytical of games)?

How do we integrate our learning goals with those imposed by standardized testing?

What roles do we use in development? What do our design teams look like?

How do we fund our efforts?

How do we document our process, preventing mistakes in future projects?

What can educators learn from professional developers?

2005-06-08T11:40:00.000-06:00

A few weeks ago, I visited Henry Jenkins and Brett Camper from MIT's Education Arcade this week. In addition to other projects, they are working on "Revolution", a game about the Americna Revolution built on the Neverwinter Nights game engine.

It was encouraging to hear that the issues they deal with are the same ones we have been dealing with in our development over the past years. We still are all asking the same questions. It reminds me of how new our field is, and how important it is for us, as game developers, to communicate with each other... more on that in another post.

As educators, our emphasis is on learning, rather than production. As a result, I think there are important lessons we can learn from professional developers. They include:

How do we manage the production environment? How do we track versions, process workflow from artists to programmers and debug our work?

How do we integrate what we know about game play with our designs? How do we educate our development team (which -- in a university setting may include content specialists with no knowledge of game play design) on what makes a game fun, or how we use incentives and challenge to sustain game play?

How do we document the design process, preventing future mistakes?

What are the roles of everyone involved in a design team? In our lab, we all participate in design... what prescribed roles are needed to improve quality control and keep the team on track?

What does a design document look like and how is it used?

As we pursue academic questions regarding the role of games in education, I think it is important to also encourage dialog (read: conference presentations and publications) on development by educators.

Game Design Consultants

2005-06-08T10:29:00.000-06:00

Plans are underway for our Game Design Summer School this summer. The Game Design Summer School includes:

10 kids, ages 12-14. 5 girls and 5 boys who will serve as Game Design Consultants
Monday-Thursday, 2-5pm for 3 weeks

Participants will:

Get to know each others and their teachers: we’ll work to create an environment where kids feel comfortable to share ideas and brainstorm openly
Play games: consultants will play educational and non-educational games, Internet and game-box, even analog games
Build skills in evaluation and review: consultants will develop vocabulary regarding game play, develop skills in discussing and evaluating games.
Share their findings with others: in reviewing games and participating in game design, consultants will develop ability to share their reviews, ideas and suggestions through presentations, writing and other tools.
Document their views and learning: using a variety of assessment, such as video diaries, focus groups, interviews, presentations and written tools, consultants will document their views on existing games, ideas on games in progress, and their progress in learning skills.
Consult on games in progress: consultants will participate in some design sessions on two games in progress.

We are using this 3-week session as a prototype for future programs. Expected outcomes from session:

Guidelines for developing after school program in the fall. How important are snacks? How long does it take for the students to become familiar with speaking in front of each other? What kind of discipline problems can we expect? What kinds of activities are best for building skill in evaluating games? How long should we meet at a time. What is the optimum number of participants? What roles do the teachers play? How should the room be set up? What equipment is essential?
Develop protocol for formative evaluation. We do a lot of formative evaluation, but rarely with a consistent group of kids. If we were to do formative evaluation for an outside games development team, what processes should be put into place? How can we prepare data for client?
Develop process for summative evaluation. How do we structure evaluation of games for kids? What do written forms look like? How are data compiled? What form is best for what kinds of data: video, written, interview?

Ten interesting ideas in videogame construction

2005-06-06T16:55:00.000-06:00

The Guardian Unlimited's games blog recently ran a feature on ten interesting ideas in videogame construction. The ideas aren't new, but they are mostly ideas that have only recently been attempted / possible.

Many of the ideas would lend themselves particularly well to Learning Games, such as the idea of emotional gaming for something other than sex (perhaps to provide empathy training for young children or corporate executives) and personalization that has an effect on the learning landscape (imagine a game set during the civil war that plays differently depending on the skin color, clothing, and sex you choose for your avatar).

Unity Game Engine

2005-06-06T15:08:00.000-06:00

Another game engine that appears to be releasing today is Unity, the long-awaited game development environment that was used to create GooBall.

Power Game Factory

2005-06-06T14:30:00.000-06:00

Sawblade Software has just released Power Game Factory, a user-friendly tool for making Mac-based sidescroller games. Tools like this would be a fun thing to make available to students in the Game Lab to get them thinking about gameplay elements from a designer's perspective.

Personally, I think exposing kids to game design is an important educational experience that the Game Lab could provide. Designing games brings in concepts of logic, set theory, physics, and other areas of mathematics, as well as being fertile ground for artistic expression. With the emergence of creative aspects of gameplay, such as the moviemaking tool in Sims 2, understanding creative play might be a key concept to creating successful games in the near future, especially if one is targeting nontraditional game audiences.

Article on Gaming

2005-06-06T07:58:00.000-06:00

Here is an interesting article on gaming:

Video-game industry mulls over the future beyond shoot-'em-ups

Many observers agree that the online game community represents the most important social and cultural components of electronic software's future. "Online games have the potential to transform entertainment into a global-community exercise, breaking down borders, cultural and language barriers, and even political prejudices," says ESA's Lowenstein. "I doubt any other form of entertainment holds out that promise," he says. "We have only scratched the surface of what [interactive entertainment] can be."

Measurement Techniques for Game Designers

2005-06-06T01:03:00.000-06:00

An interesting article over at Gamasutra talks about Measurement Techniques for Game Designers. In it, the author makes the case for gathering empirical data on successful games for comparison to your own games under development, and suggests some ways to make it meaningful and not too onerous.

For instance, he suggests measuring the amount of screen real estate your avatar uses in a game. Rather than measuring and computing area and screen percentage, he just plays a series of games, and draws on the monitor with a Chinagraph pencil to record the onscreen extents of the avatar. Then, playing the in-development game on the same monitor provides instant feedback on the relative sizes of the on-screen avatars. A clever, quick, and compelling experiment!

Descent to the Underworld

2005-05-30T23:12:00.000-06:00

Students at nine universities from four nations used Internet2 to collaborate on Descent to the Underworld, an educational videogame that teaches players about "myth and mythical narrative."

A Gamers' Manifesto

2005-05-30T23:02:00.000-06:00

This gamers' manifesto is mainly aimed at console games, but there are a few tidbits in there that speak to game design for educational games, too, such as the "Save anytime, anywhere" thing. It's always good to take a step back and question the things we take as axiomatic in games, and see if we can break them - it will either make our axioms stronger, or help us divest ourselves of limitation. Either way, it's a win.

Virtual Magic Kingdom is in public beta

2005-05-24T20:59:00.000-06:00

Well, Disney's multiplayer virtual theme park, Disney's Virtual Magic Kingdom, is now in public beta, and it was made in Macromedia Director (not Flash), which means this sort of application is within reach of smaller development shops, with a little effort. In fact, it was made by the fine folks over at Sulake, makers of the popular Habbo Hotel virtual community.

The game itself appears to be a glorified chat room at first, but there are lots of things that extend it beyond that. Customizable avatars, a game world currency, personalizable rooms, and pickups throughout the theme park are just the start - there's also a framework for delivering multiplayer games, like the excellent pirate ship combat game (particularly interesting since we're working on a similar themed game ourselves).

Spybotics

2005-05-20T23:48:00.000-06:00

Over on the Lego site, there's a tactical combat game called Spybotics: The Nightfall Incident that is surprisingly deep from both a gameplay and a story perspective, and also very polished.

The gameplay hinges on using programs to hack into network nodes, using each program's strengths to gain different advantages on the battlefield. The storyline, even early on, brings in a mystery of sorts, where you don't know who to trust, despite the simple yes/no dialogue interface. For a promotional online game aimed at kids, the game creators really pulled out all the stops. I'm not sure I'd call it educational, but it certainly does challenge the player to think critically and plan ahead. Pretty impressive.

These are the caliber of games that small production houses can create to good effect, I think. I haven't seen a postmortem on this game, but I suspect it was a small team working for a month or two. There's nothing there that isn't accessible to a reasonably skilled Director or Flash programmer, so educational games like this could probably be produced without too much pain.

Japanese Puzzle Games

2005-05-20T07:56:00.000-06:00

I love puzzle games and just saw this over at Wired.com. There is a craze for these su doku puzzles over in the UK that has jumpstarted newspaper purchasing. I need a good puzzle.

Industry closes door on original ideas

2005-05-18T23:29:00.000-06:00

The Guardian Unlimited Gamesblog has an editorial on how the game industry is shying away from developing new IP in the waning seasons of the current generation of consoles. In particular, it says that "there are no new games going into development for PS2 and Xbox, it’s all sequels and branded tie-ins from now on." The author takes the position that this is a bad thing, asserting that:

Relying solely on sequels is the videogame equivalent of incest – eventually, the gene pool goes stagnant.

I agree with that sentiment as far as practicalities go, but I don't think sequels have to be "design incest." Really, all the beancounters want is the brand-driving force of a recognizable title. Once the customer is ~~suckered into~~convinced to purchase the game, the game designer has the freedom (or is it obligation?) to diverge from the original game to define compelling new gameplay for the sequel.

Still, what this probably means is that the typical game buyer is reluctant to drop cash on unknown IP, which might be an important lesson for educational game developers. Series like "Math Blaster" seem to really trade off of the name recognition, so I think there's evidence for this phenomenon in the educational ciricles, too. For us, I don't think this necessarily means that we ditch what we're doing and license a movie character instead, but I do think it means that we should have as one of our goals to generate some IP that can sustain a long series of educational titles, because that will serve us better in the long run.

High Tech High Albuquerque

2005-05-18T10:51:00.000-06:00

We are seeing many magnet programs and charter schools redefining public education. How does this group feel about such an intensive technology program such as this, rather than a broader based approach to learning? Our lab will allow us to study the technology kids are using in a concentrated short amount of time. Are these schools something we should be looking at for studies and or structure as we began to shape our lab and efforts?

High Tech High Albuquerque
High Tech High Albuquerque is a small public charter high school that seeks a diverse student population and provides a rigorous academic curriculum that rivals the best programs in the country. High Tech High Albuquerque is a college preparatory program emphasizing:

Project-based learning
• Multidisciplinary study
• Emphasis on math, science, and technology
• Socratic practice
• Team approach
• Concurrent enrollment
• Internships for all students
• Close linkages to higher education and industry

New version of GBA

2005-05-17T22:39:00.000-06:00

Nintendo has announced yet another repackaging of the Game Boy Advance handheld console, this one called the Game Boy Micro. It's got a stylish silver case, and it's tiny - 4 inches by 2 inches, weighing about the same as "80 paper clips."

The GBA is one of the few major consoles out there that has reasonably accessible hobbyist development tools, and is a possible avenue for educational game development.

New Legend of Zelda game screenies

2005-05-17T22:07:00.000-06:00

GameSpot has posted some The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess screenshots. I was particularly impressed by the art direction - the detail in these screenshots is impressive, but the staging and the mood effects are pretty compelling, too. (If you look closely, you'll see different environmental effects, such as the "floating crap in the air" a'la Legend in the more serene places, pinned yellow glows in forest glades, and dirt tromped up by horses and war pigs in the mounted battle scene.)

These are the sort of production values that game titles are starting to lean towards. The gap between what an entertainment title can achieve and what an educational title can achieve is widening into a yawning chasm, which is going to make it that much more difficult to teach in the context of games, because we can no longer even approximate the sorts of immersive experiences players get when they play the AAA titles.

Why good ideas beat good graphics

2005-05-16T20:24:00.000-06:00

There's an article over on BBC News about why good ideas beat good graphics in game design, with thoughts on the matter from Nintendo president Satoru Iwata, world-class game designer Peter Molyneux, and others.

Not just a video game

2005-05-16T11:07:00.000-06:00

There is a big push for the "Infusion" of integrating thinking skills into the regular curriculum. Why is it that most teachers fail to see the value video games bring to students? I see it as creative thinking in which one is building on fluency, flexibility, originality and elaboration. Creative thinking skills are very much related to critical thinking skills, which these students should acquire.

Below is an excerpt from an article posted to my DE listserve. The link is also included.

Indeed, video games are not games in the sense of those pastimes-like Monopoly or gin rummy or chess-which most of us grew up with. They don't have a set of unambiguous rules that have to be learned and then followed during the course of play. This is why many of us find modern video games baffling: we're not used to being in a situation where we have to figure out what to do. We think we only have to learn how to press the buttons faster. But these games withhold critical information from the player. Players have to explore and sort through hypotheses in order to make sense of the game's environment, which is why a modern video game can take forty hours to complete. Far from being engines of instant gratification, as they are often described, video games are actually, Johnson writes, "all about delayed gratification-sometimes so long delayed that you wonder if the gratification is ever going to show."

http://www.newyorker.com/critics/books/articles/050516crbo_books

BlitzMax

2005-05-16T09:01:00.000-06:00

BlitzMax is a new cross-platform (Win, Mac, Linux) rapid game development product. It's cheap at $80, has a faster engine (ostensibly) than Director's sprite engine, and has native access to OpenGL programming for 3D work.

Three More Interesting Games

2005-05-16T07:51:00.000-06:00

This is a bit of fun. Student Survivor is a marketing tool to help raise the profile of UNIAID, a charitable
organisation dedicated to supporting students aiming to reach and cope with the
challenges of higher education.

http://www.studentsurvivor.org.uk/

According to wikipedia, "The Stroop effect in
psychology is a demonstration of interference.
When colour words such as blue, green, red, etc.
are printed in various colours and someone is
asked to say the colour the words are printed
in rather than reading the words." Blimey.
But according to your Ginger Fuhrer, "It's a
good idea for a game with a lovely little sing-song."

http://www2.b3ta.com/clickthecolour/

It's not often you'll get peed on by a flying
alien in diapers, but this short little game's
got that and lots more frankly bonkers Japanese
animation. When the whistle blows it's up to you
to drag things around to get to the next bit.

http://www.page.sannet.ne.jp/akira-iga/survivoo/index.html

Nickel and Dimed to Death

2005-05-13T23:17:00.000-06:00

It looks like the next console generations from Sony and Microsoft are including as a key feature the ability to kill you two ways: by having the monster bash you until you run out of hit points, or to kill you - the player - by nickel and dime-ing you to death. That's right - microtransactions built right into your game console! Hey, for just ninety-nine cents, you can upgrade your sword. Oh, for another ninety-nine, you can beef up your armor. Oh, that boss monster still to tough for you? Perhaps you'd be interested in a couple of healing potions - only fifty cents a pop.

An article over at Grimwell Online points out the perils of this plan:

When the game becomes nothing more than a tool to drive more money to the shareholders, it's quickly able to shed all vestiges of a game.

He correctly points out that there is great temptation now for the executive producers to demand games that are little more than vehicles to prompt people to buy in-game content - and indeed, to hold back the best content for the highest-paying customers.

And what does this mean for educational games? Well, first, it means that the commercial gulf between the emerging "Hollywood" game development culture and educational games is widening further. Not only can educational game titles not compete on the graphics and depth of media against the AAA titles, but now, they'll have to compete against games that make money not only on the initial purchase (which already tends to be steeper than educational games), but continue making money after the sale.

Probably not much educational titles can do to encourage micropayment competition against entertainment titles, although I could see a devious model which allows the hapless student to pay fifty cents to skip over the boring educational parts of games to get to the fun parts. Heh.

Werewolf

2005-05-11T23:43:00.000-06:00

Even a man who is pure of heart and says his prayers by night may become a wolf when the wolfbane blooms and the moon is full and bright.

Apparently, there is a class of social games which places a predator amidst a group of victims. Greg Aleknevicus has an interesting article on Werewolf, a particular variety of the game.

I've seen other reviews of games set up like this, and one of the assertions is that because this is a social game, it would not lend itself to computerization. However, I'm not convinced about that. I could see a game of Werewolf that is played distributed across cell phones or other mobile devices, or played through email. You wouldn't get the intense person-to-person interaction, but perhaps you could modify the game somehow to accommodate the more pensive atmosphere that would occur through email. And considering the fact that a good game of Werewolf requires gathering 14-18 people together - something a lot of us would have trouble doing - a distributed sever-based version would help connect willing players who might not otherwise be able to play.

Might be an interesting experiment to try.

Casual Games Conference

2005-05-11T22:41:00.000-06:00

A new conference called the Casual Games Conference has cropped up to support the burgeoning casual games industry. This is a ripe segment that our media program could handsomely target, since we're not targeting the big game media market.

The conference is July 19-20, 2005 in Seattle, Washington, and the price is $195 early, $295 the week before, and $395 at the door.

Righteous Game Development

2005-05-10T22:11:00.000-06:00

Ian Bogost of Water Cooler Games blogged earlier this week about Armchair Games, a set of extremely simple games used as an advertising tool for a big screen television. (Example... use your left and right keys to make a guy run to the bathroom... ready, go... 8 seconds... new record!... email us your information and we'll put you in the running to win the prize).

After a difficult day of trying to design an entertaining game that teaches the difference between the independent variable and the dependent variable (we're going with monkeys... can't go wrong with monkeys), it is dissappointing to see such a simple game online. This isn't a game, really... I mean, sure, it may meet some of the standards of what a game is (see a great review of Malone and other's research on this at http://www.nestafuturelab.org/research/discuss/02discuss01.htm... but shouldn't a game player want to be engaged for more than 8 seconds for it to really count? In truth, this is data harvesting with a game façade. "Hmmm... they may just not voluntarily give us their name and email address for us to send them unsolicited emails... maybe we can convince them they have won something." Shouldn't a game do more than this?

Are we any better in education? Part of our frustration today was designing a game that kept our game player engaged in a game long enough to learn something, without her feeling that she was being punished at some point in our game by learning. Really, we want to develop games that are so compelling, the player will continue despite learning something. Do we use games to get the user's attention and then slip them some kind of knowledge? What do we owe our learners when we call something a game? Must it have all components of a game... or are we simply tricking them into giving us their attention by calling something a game?

Mike Doyle Interview

2005-05-09T22:20:00.000-06:00

In the latest issue of the Games Journal, there is an interview with Mike Doyle, an artist who does box art and component design for board games. While much of the article is specifically targeted at board games, there are some things that I think have relevance to the world of educational gaming as well. In particular, he talks about shedding the "stigma" that board games suffer under. Since educational games suffer under a similar stigma, it's worth a read.

"The world of games desperately needs to become relevant and desirable within our culture... With all the exciting facets these new games have to offer, publishers should be holding the keys to a lifestyle that people want to be part of."

Can Videogames Change School Culture?

2005-05-05T22:33:00.000-06:00

There are several instances of Dance Dance Revolution (DDR) games being used in after school programs, gym classes, etc to help stem the obesity epidemic among our youth. In talking with other another parent (also a nutrition Extension educator), we wondered if we can use a DDR videogame to change the culture in schools of using food as a fundraiser. In many schools, vending machines provide valuable revenue for PTAs and other groups, making schools reluctant to remove them. Additionally, many schools have school fundraisers centered around food: bake sales, candy sales, etc. We wondered if we couldn't create a pilot project where fundraising centered around activity: bouncy castles and slides at recess, DDR video games in the halls, pedometer sales, etc. If we were to go back 20 years to when I was in school, I can't imagine a school allowing any arcade game into the hallways... are games finally reaching a status level where they will be allowed in educational institutions?

Great 3D Learning Gizmos

2005-05-04T11:01:00.000-06:00

Check out these awesome 3D learning gizmos by ForgeFX. Done in Shockwave3D, they are great examples of what the 3D capabilities of Director are. (Note for users of Safari: there's a bug that shifts the shockwave3D content up about 30 pixels, so you'll have to aim low with your mouse to interact with the gizmos.)

Keita Takahashi on Game Design

2005-05-03T16:39:00.000-06:00

Since we're talking about Katamari Damacy, you might want to check out this synopsis of Keita Takahashi's speech at the Game Developer's Conference. (Keita Takahashi is the person who came up with Katamari Damacy.)

In his speech, he expressed skepticism about the necessity of games, concern that video games rob children of their childhood, and hope that if, indeed, the violent videogames have a negative impact on people, then perhaps pleasant, peaceful games like his own masterpiece can have a positive impact. In the end, he got a standing ovation.

Katamari 2

2005-05-03T07:55:00.000-06:00

Good article at 1up:

http://www.1up.com/do/feature?cId=3140041&did=1

NESTA Literature Review

2005-05-02T23:28:00.000-06:00

Keri Facer, head of Learning Research at NESTA Future Lab, does a nice job reviewing some personal thoughts and research on games and learning. The review (found at http://www.nestafuturelab.org/research/discuss/02discuss01.htm) does a nice job of introducing some of the major names in the field, Malone, Prensky, Csikszentmihalyi (Pronounced chick-sent-me-high-ee), as well as some of the issues for research (classification, motivation, learning). It is a good read if you haven't done much research in games area.