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!

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 :)

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).

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.

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.

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

Brian Crecente over at Kotaku took the initiative to hit up the big three console makers as to the future of educational content on their system.

You can see the full interview here

Here’s a distilled version of what they said:

• They’re already doing it, and have had wild success with Brain Age, Wii Fit, etc
• Taking a broader approach to what “educational” means. It doesn’t need to be a curriculum thing, more like personal development / expression (see: Wii Music, My Spanish Coach), and games like Mystery Case Files that require more mental activity and focus, but are still primarily entertainment products
• Nice quote around how games in general can be a positive influence “Games can open up the imagination, just like a good book or movie can”

• Very committed to it as a driver in expanding the mass market relevance of the 360
• Focusing on development tools (XNA) and distribution models (XBLA Community Marketplace) that lower the cost of development for consoles, hence making consoles a more accessible platform for smaller educational projects
• While both Nintendo and Sony pointed to their links with charities as their commitment to social responsibility, it seems Microsoft are the only ones invested to pushing forward the field of developing games which specifically address an educational or social problem

• Agrees consoles are a good platform for delivery of educational content, as the Gen Y demographic are fluent with their interfaces
• Have already had some success with putting the PSP into schools
• Educational games are a “secondary” (maybe tertiary, after casual entertainment?) focus for the console, and as such will become more relevant as the PS3’s 10 year lifecycle plays out
• They see Buzz as having meaningful elements through development of general knowledge
• Sights LittleBigPlanet as “exactly the type of game with the potential to be held up as providing a positive influence”

In short, Nintendo are happy they’re doing their bit, Microsoft are investing in the progression of game design as an educational medium, and Sony seem focused on extending the value proposition of entertainment titles through meaningful content such as user-created content.

In partnership with “Columbia University, Dartmouth College, Parsons, Polytechnic Institute of NYU, and other colleges”, Microsoft are launching a Games for Learning Institute at NYU, specifically focused on creating educational games to teach maths, science, and engineering.

Microsoft chief research and strategy officer Craig Mundie said that “The Games for Learning Institute at NYU is a great example of how technology can change how students learn, making it far more natural and intuitive.”

It’s a great time for Meaningful Play. As the financial market continues to crumble along with educational standards, its becoming very clear that a brute force “throw more money at it” approach is not an effective solution for effectively engaging with Gen Y.

We need to be working smarter not harder to revitalize curriculum and teaching tools so they are relevant to todays students. Gen Y’s demand participation, personalization, interactivity, and community. Traditional teaching methods just cant compete with the engagement these kids experience through social networks and gaming. And what’s more, games aren’t just cool, but a superior method for understanding and experimenting with concepts and principles.

There is clearly huge opportunity in games based learning through Meaningful Play.

P.S. Over at Straylight we put up a couple of new pages explaining our approach to the utilization of Meaningful Play, in particular it’s application across the three “genres” we see, one of which is Education. Keen for everyone’s thoughts

So I was playing a game the other day that made me think.

In this case it was Square Enix’s Final Fantasy IV for the DS. Which, incidentally, is a very much better game than it’s predecessor on the same console.

The mechanic in the game that stuck with me is a very simple thing, but nonetheless was a striking contrast to the norm in the majority of games. Role-Playing Games), they’re called. They give you a number of characters that go from absurdly weak at the start of the game, to fantastically world-breakingly strong at the end of the game. It’s the accepted norm that as time passes (in-game) characters get stronger.

Your strength, stamina, vitality, wisdom, charisma etc… all get better.

sub-images may be ©Square Enix, displayed under fair use.

As I was leveling up to defeat the next huge boss under a large waterfall, I noticed that a character in my party, Tellah, was getting weaker. In the gaming sense, Tellah was still gaining from experience, his intellect and spirit were increasing, but his strength, speed and stamina were decreasing.

He is an old character, getting older.

The fact that he wasn’t in quite the same shape as his team members subtly conveys themes of aging not usually seen in video games. Not having yet played the latest in the Metal Gear series), I can’t comment on how it treats aging, and the issues that it brings. But it was great to be confronted with this in the context of play…

It almost was enough to make me not want to level up, to stall the progression of time. It gave me the feeling that time is slipping through your fingers, not wanting to confront the reality that we will all face… eventually.

There are many games (and movies for that matter) that deal with issues of death and loss, but the subtlety in this mechanic made for a particularly poignant moment for me, small and quiet in the context of the bigger story and themes passing by in the rest of the game, but nonetheless there.

The experience of FF-IV is much better off for this.

One of our programmers passed on a quote to me this morning with resonates with our Meaningful Play message:

“If you tell me, I will listen.
If you show me, I will see.
If you let me experience, I will learn.”
– Lao Tzu (6th Century B.C.)

People have little patience these days for inefficient, passive learning environments. They demand customisation, personalisation, interactivity, and engagement. Ultimately, the best way to truly understand a concept or system is to experience it , to experiment with it, discover its limits, break it, play with it. Games are the perfect medium for providing a space in which this sort of Meaningful Play can occur. Whether it be a metaphor or direct simulation of a real-world environment, this truly is a hark back to the classical student-mentor style of one-on-one learning, and a welcome departure from static, cookie cutter style “push” teaching methods.

This reminds me, I finally got around to reading The Art of War by Sun Tzu. Neat stuff, and actually a great bedtime read as something to settle and clear the mind before drifting off.

One of the cooler possibilities about an immersive, interactive game is that it’s one of the best ways to teach empathy. A game can put you in someone else’s shoes, and can make you feel for the character. It gives you a view of why people make the decisions that they do.

I was in Te Papa National Museum the other day, in an exhibition about the colonisation of New Zealand.
The impact it’s had on the plants and animals is quite large: more than 75% of the country used to be covered by forest (15% now), and many species have become extinct.

There was a game there for kids called “Survivor”. Basically, your character was an Alien that had to leave your home planet and live on earth (An analogy to the colonists coming to NZ from England). In the game you pick various species of animals and plants to take with you to.
The possibilities here are huge, not to preach about the evils of humanity, but to help the kids understand why the colonists (Maori & European) brought “useful” species with them.

Unfortunately, the only possible outcomes were:
1. The species you took with you didn’t survive in the different climates, forcing you to leave…
2. They struggled, and you went mostly hungry…
3. Or they thrived, but killed off the native animals or plants.

It’s not possible for a kid to pick species that do fine alongside the native species (like sheep do), so it comes across as a little preachy.

However, great work to them for coming up with a fun way to explain the complexities of bringing new species when colonising.

Board games were always a great way to bring the family together. The early consoles and arcades were very much billed as family entertainment. With the rise of the PlayStation era, games got more focused on the core demographic and radically changed the public opinion of gaming, pigeonholing it as a pastime reserved for the solitary geeky young male.

Nintendo have started to break away from this trend with the Wii, and it appears Nolan Bushnell, founder of Atari, thinks the world is ready again for more public, social gaming:
Nolan Bushnell Looks to Social Gaming Holodeck Come True via Kotaku

Love the idea, hope it gets traction. The key issue will be breaking the public’s perception of what a gaming centre looks like these days

Not personally crazy about the name UWink. But hey, I think I’m still in denial over Nintendo naming their latest console the Wii, and it’s gone on to sell a couple of units.

The Guardian have a nice interview with Will Wright up that discusses his approach to game design, in particular the empowerment of the player through the provision of tool-sets and simulations that act as a platform for expressive play.

Unlocking the power of parallel play

He says of his experience designing Sim City:

“I had this little guinea pig city which I could do experiments on, which made the subject so much more interesting than reading a book. So the process of discovery, and getting other people to enjoy discovery has always been a part of it.”

I think we could probably consider all of Wright’s games Meaningful Play to varying degrees. I’m certainly keen to see whether his new Spore game can capture the imagination of the masses through its ambitious attempt to simulate ”...life from a single cell to a solar empire.”