DICE was such a great conference and this really was the stand out presentation. I was lucky enough to catch up with Jesse at the show and discuss what we’re up to and he’s a fantastic guy, as well as one of the top designers to watch in the years to come as games become even more embedded in our everyday lives, not just as entertainment but as a way of structuring and motivating our lives.

Wow, long time since last post, lots to tell, more coming soon, but in the meantime here’s something really neat:

Quest to Learn is a school established in New York by Katie Salen and co. with the aim of teaching kids entirely through games (both physical and digital). Immediately I’m reminded of The Young Ladies Illustrated Primer, and would love to see first hand how the whole thing is working out for them. From their website:

“It is a place where digital media meets books and students learn to think like designers, inventors, mathematicians, and more. Q2L brings together teachers with a passion for content, a vision for helping kids to learn best, and a commitment to changing the way students will grow in the world.”

I would SO send my kids there.

It’s fantastic that initiatives like this are getting funding and that people like Katie are putting a lot of this Games for Learning theory into serious practice. It’s one thing to put a budget maths tutor on the market, or create an experimental MMO designed to teach history, but running an entire school curriculum on play is entirely next level. Congrats Katie and look forward to seeing more!

This is really neat, not only because it makes a funny video, but because in one day (and a night) these guys tested a hypothesis and reported back some hard data on how making something fun can result in something positive (physical activity in this instance).

I’d like to see whether there was a difference if they changed the keys so that you could only play notes in a fixed scale as it would certainly make it sound a little more appealing, but may remove some of the experimental nature. It’s also likely important for the key layout – both visually and functionally – to emulate what people are already familiar with.

Practical limitations aside, its awesome to see a cool idea in this space that someone actually got their hands dirty delivering. Props to VW for getting behind it, more here:

http://www.rolighetsteorin.se/

It’s been eye opening to finally have some time to reflect over the last few months. Having gone through a pretty extreme version of The 6 Stages of a Broken Heart after farewelling the company I slaved over for 5 years, I now feel well and truly in the throes of Stage 6: Freedom. And for the first time, I’ve had space to truly reflect, to stop and consider where I want to be and what I want to do. I realised that by throwing myself straight into entrepreneurship out of university, I had little time to tune myself as a balanced, energetic, focused individual. There were whole worlds of physiology and psychology which I had neglected, compensating with pure passion for what I was doing. Some people keep this up forever, and if Straylight hadn’t have closed, there’s no telling how long I might have kept on like that. There just never seemed to be enough time. Well, I can now safely say that there has been a significant silver lining to that terribly dark cloud as I discover that spending time tuning yourself makes a remarkable difference to the world around you.

“Personal Development” stirs up some pretty negative reactions in some people. I’ve got to admit I was really embarrassed at first to admit I was listening to tapes while I ran and scrawling journals on values and goals. These actions now seem so essential that looking back on those sheepish moments I realise that I was crossing a barrier of social stigma into a new lifestyle, a new value system that regardless of how cheesy or un-cool its ambassadors may be, has been a resoundingly positive experience and I am sure would be for anyone else.

So why is it that we put up these social barriers to self-actualisation? Why aren’t more people using these tools to get the most out of their lives? Are we all just happy being struggling, flawed artists wallowing in our self pity? It’s probably not as dramatic as that, the real problem is likely a mismatch of learning tools with learning styles, and in a lot of cases a mismatch of style in general (Tony Robbins suspenders are likely a massive turn off to most fashion conscious freshmen).

In this respect, games have a serious part to play in the next wave of mainstream personal development tools. We’ve already seen Brain Age and Wii Fit become incredibly popular, and now we’re starting to see applications like Livestrong Loseit pickup serious internet cred for “gamifying” a healthy lifestyle. I’ve been watching Booyah Society quite closely as well which seems to take things to the next step. I’m really looking forward to seeing a more gamey approach to finances with something like the great Pocketsmith (developed here in Dunedin!).

Whenever I think of this stuff I always come back to The Diamond Age, and my dream to one day create The Young Lady’s Illustrated Primer :)

P.S. If Livestrong, Nike+, and Pocketsmith all linked in with Booyah, I would use that thing constantly, lets get the API cranking :)

Leading on from my previous post linking the Player’s Only videos about the death of games, an excellent article has popped up over at Gamasutra from James Portnow with a similar stance and somewhat more optimistic tone:

Ludus Florentis: The Flowering of Games

James points out some key forces that signal a sea change in the industry, namely a maturity of developers, research, and consumers that is stirring both production and demand of more sophisticated interactive experiences.

My favorite point came towards the end where he defines an artistic game as one which gives to the player beyond the immediate satisfaction of the game. Something that makes them think, gives them a new perspective, motivates them to become better people. I like the sound of that a hell of a lot more than being stringently tied to delivering an archaic curriculum through bland simulations (which is where most of the Serious Games industry is right now).

My only disagreement with the article would be with his statement that our industries greats will come from these specialized schools. The world is a lot different than it was when the film industry was coming of age, and institutionalized education is becoming less important. I think you’ll find some of the really exciting stuff coming from some independents who have never even seen an exam paper, or some more seasoned veterans who take the opportunity to unchain their true creative potential (just look at Media Molecule!).

This video from legendary game designer Will Wright hits the nail on the head in saying that Serious Games are so focused on being worthy of academic interest that they lose their playful nature. This then works against them as it is that element of play and fun which makes them potentially valuable educational tools. His quote from Rod Sterling about the Twilight Zone being “the only show that could deal with reality” (despite being a science fiction program) perfectly illustrates how we can create engaging fictional experiences that are inspired by fact that then come full circle to inspire their audience to think differently (even though they didn’t consciously come to the content for a “meaningful” experience).

This fantastic two part video explores the current state of the video game market, and the massive changes that are going on in terms of the way people want to play, the developer-publisher relationship, and new methods of distribution. Scary stuff for the publishers, very exciting stuff for developers.

I’m posting this as a throw back to my GDC talk (which I may be able to post here soon). I still believe the bottom line issue with the Serious Games industry is that developers don’t think of their games as products, and hence very rarely actually think about their players (see previous post on danc’s disection of establishing a consumer relationship).

NOTE: And we’re back! After overcoming a series of technical hitches the back-end of the blog is back up and running and posts can resume. I’m looking to revamp the blog a bit over the next month to fit in more with this new chapter in my life and career, so stay posted for an MP reboot. A quick post to kick things off:

Image from Pet Society by Playfish who are seriously ripping it up on the social game scene

I’ve had the good fortune over the last few months to take a ground up look at the games market and feel out the opportunities for a new studio looking to create original content.

While the iPhone is certainly an exciting new platform and PSN / XBLA are now solid, reliable bets for high-quality indie content, the area I’ve become the most enamored with is instead browser based social gaming. The immediacy of the format is intoxicating and its demographic reach simply without equal. This makes for not only huge market potential, but brutal competition and some seriously exciting design challenges more demanding than the daily grind on the next console sequel.

So I’ve been doing a lot of reading, but one article stood out for me, once again from the fantastic Lost Garden’s danc:
Flash Love Letter – Part One
Flash Love Letter – Part Two

It’s a medium in its infancy. There are few examples of real quality and success. It will grow, and I’m inspired by the possibility that I might be involved with one of the developers that rises to the top in this crazy micro-payments gold rush.

He hits the nail on the head in terms of the platform’s potential, but more importantly, dives into some practical design, business, and marketing tips for realizing true value in your game for you and your players. A highly recommended read.

Also, I’m very keen to know: Have you paid for a Flash game? If so which one and why? Are there any awesome Flash games out there you would like to pay for but there just isn’t that premium option?

Good to be back :)

I was excited to see yesterday that the Gamestar Mechanic Beta is now open to the public, swiftly signing up and beginning to play through the first season. I first saw the game in Katie Salen’s presentation during the Serious Games Summit last March, and was immediately captivated by its premise and generally top notch production values. I highly recommend giving the game a go, whether you’re interested in games for education or even just for a bit of fun. Yes, you heard that right, this is a new standard for serious / educational / meaningful games in that it is indeed fun in its own right.

Click here to play Gamestar Mechanic

Gamestar Mechanic is a game about making games. In particular it’s designed as an immersive interactive primer in game design, no programming or art skills required. Right away you’re thrown a bunch of simple game challenges to beat, clashing egos with the other players in the arcade, learning the basic controls of the top down or side scrolling interface. It gets really interesting when you stumble upon a malfunctioning game reactor core thats about to go critical. The games are all broken and the facility will blow unless you fix it. And so the centrepeice of the experience comes into play, a big red switch that flicks you between play mode, and EDIT. You’re now able to rearrange all of a levels elements, configure enemy’s AI, set win conditions, etc All of the fundamental building blocks of game design are there, and while a veteran designer might be frustrated by the limitations of the interface, it in insanely easy to pick up and be productive with right off the bat.

An interesting aspect of its implementation is the heavy focus on narrative, something that I’d expect was a hard sell to the funding bodies, but pays off in spades. GameLab have done a terrific job of crafting the world of Factory 7. The depth of their imaginary world is immediately apparent, a completely original canon wrapped in political intrigue and quirky characters, anchored by a classical hero’s journey tale of a young “mechanic” who aspires to be a great game designer. This drives the player through the various play / edit challenges that the game presents, feeding shreds of the story in as you progress through the world’s arcades and collect new items with which to build your own levels. The balance and tuning in the game really is downright professional, and something which I could easily see becoming a hit as a cart for the DS whether people knew it was “educational” or not.

This really is a shining example of where “Serious Games” need to go. A few things that GSM gets right that others in the field should pay special attention to:
– The lessons are interwoven into the gameplay, you really do learn by experiencing the mechanics at play. After editing your first level, it completely changes the way you look at all the play challenges after that. They gently introduce elements into levels like timing, AI pattern recognition, projectiles, gravity, all these building blocks are experienced first hand by the player before they’re then thrown into their toolkit
– Even if you didn’t give two hoots about game design, this would be fun. It stands alone as an intriguing, innovative game that is smart and well balanced. I can probably count on one hand the amount of other games with any inkling of educational content that I could say the same for
– The immersion in this narrative isnt disturbed by any hard link to curriculum. This is SO key. The game makes no mention of learning anywhere, it is not being sold as an “educational” game, which removes so many barriers when it comes to uptake with students
– The aesthetic is magical, leveraging common elements from the very hip eastern / western fusion comic style, but still managing to stay different enough to avoid looking like a copy-cat. The animations, character design, coloring, music, and sound effects work harmoniously to present a world you just want to keep playing in.

I’m going back to finish off season one. Everyone should give this a shot, and send your feedback to the creators, they deserve to have a strong community behind the project to help them refine the final product.

It is my sincere hope that the project continues to get funding and is as successful financially as it is creatively.

I Fell In Love with the Majesty of Colors via Kongregate

Lovely art game that loosely fits into the Perspectives genre of Meaningful Play:

“Last night I dreamed I was an immense beast, floating in darkness. I knew nothing of the surface world until I fell in love with the majesty of colors.

“(I Fell in Love With) The Majesty of Colors” is a pixel-horror game that puts the player behind the tentacles of a titanic, writhing sea creature. It’s a tale of love, loss, and balloons with five different endings. Will you befriend the humans or fight them? The choice is up to you.”

Its quick, tidy, charming, and all kinds of awesome.

Jane had a revelation recently: that the games she develops are “Experience Grenades”

From her blog entry

“Experience grenades: You play them, and that’s like pulling the pin on the grenade. Nothing has to happen right away. Nothing has to change or be solved right away. Then, you wait. It’s later—an hour later, a day later, a week later, a month later… it goes off in your head, like the delayed explosion of a grenade.

You realize: You’ve learned something. Your cognitive patterns are different. Your view of the possibilities in the world around you has changed. Your sense of your own potential is changed. You’re ready for something you didn’t even know was coming. You understand something intuitively that seems alien or confusing to others”

This was particularly interesting for me, as it reinforces the requirement for Meaningful Play experiences to be immediately engaging and fun, because she’s completely right in that a lot of the time you’re not going to see or feel the benefit that the experience is having on you right away.

Lucky for us then that the medium we wield has a tendency to be quite a lot of fun.

Very excited that Jane will be coming to New Zealand for Webstock in February

Straylight will be at the Animfx conference this weekend taking place in the Wellington Convention Centre 14th – 16th of November.

Visit our booth to have a play round with 3 of our games, included a first time look at our brand new title. I cant tell you what it is just yet, but I can say that if you’re into Meaningful Play as a way to spread the word on climate change, then you should definitely go out of our way to pay us a visit.

I’ll be taking part in an online symposium later in the week tackling the challenges that face virtual retail.

October 29-31 2008
An online symposium to discuss future possibilities for retail in Web 3D and Virtual Worlds, and the impacts these may have on our lives.
Free Event.

Having developed a number of online retail solutions we’ve had a real mixed bag of experience ranging from straight-up, flat web retail environments through to highly dynamic spatial navigation structures.

My theme (which wont be a surprise to anyone that reads this blog regularly) is “Where’s the Value”. We have to ask ourselves this question every single day. It can be so easy to get excited by the cool factor of a new technology and be completely distracted from the reality of whether new technology is actually going to enhance the user experience of your target demographic.

For more info checkout the The Future Telco Network

Thanks to John Eyles of Telecom New Zealand for organising this.

Great video, definitely worth a watch, well done to Daniel Floyd for putting it together.

(I know I’m a little bit late of the gate on this one, but better late than never)

• Tangental Learning is great, its a step in the right direction, but I think the video misses the most important point when it comes to games and learning. To ensure effective retention and transference of knowledge you need to actually integrate the knowledge / skill that you’re teaching into the gameplay experience as opposed to simply being a sideline attraction. Thats not to say that it needs to be a “shoved down your throat” as a critical path objective, but you need to reward your player for applying their new found knowledge or skill. That’s what Edgar Dale’s Cone of Learning is all about. It’s the actual doing that cements the understanding.
• This type of video format (ZP inspired or not) works a heck of a lot better than a daunting essay
• Entertainment mediums that consume a significant amount of a person’s time have a sort of cultural responsibility to the player. Culture is no longer passed on through bards or round campfires, but through movies, books, and yes even games. We need to think more about the lasting impression that an interactive experience has on someone, and how that helps define us as individuals and a collective culture.

Just had this book and page pointed out to me called Changing the Game by David Edery and Ethan Mollick. After reading through the synopsis I ordered a copy right away,

Changing the Game

From the preface:

“Games can make it fun for employees to learn how to manage a supply chain. Games can encourage customers to voluntarily spend hours learning about the features of a product. Games can encompass massive economies of virtual goods and services that are worth billions of real-world dollars. All of this, and much more, is happening right now at the intersection of business and games, and the forward-thinking companies at that junction have already begun to reap the great rewards of their effort. There are so many ways in which games are transforming the nature of work and play, that whether you work in a business, a governmental organization, or a non-profit, there is almost certainly a way to take advantage of games to better accomplish your goals.

So, are you ready to play?”

They’ve also put together a great page with links to quick fire examples of how game mechanics have been used in various forms to promote, education, and entertain, from the Google Image Labeler through to Americas Army.

Games for Non-Gamers 101