Great essay by Danc over at Lost Garden

What activities can be turned into games?

Inspired by an experience with Wii Fit, the crux of the article is that any measurable skill can form the core mechanic of a game. A wider game system can then be used to motivate the player and track their progress, providing a unique, dynamic, and fun way to pick up new skills.

The gravity of this revelation is not lost of Danc:

“As more leisure games emerge that mediate and accelerate the acquisition of skills, there is going to be a economic incentive to spread the science and craft of game design far beyond our tiny game industry. Game design is not just about games. It is a transformational new product development technique that can turn historically commoditized activities into economic blockbusters.”

Wii Fit seems to do a much better job of making this sort of thing fun, an element of the equation that I personally think is still sorely missing from Brain Age.

Wow…. WOW. This is really amazing:

Solve Puzzles for Science | Fold It

Synopsis via Kotaku :
“Could you win a Nobel Prize in Medicine for playing a computer game? Foldit is a game for the PC and Mac that takes the Folding@Home concept and adds a more human element to the mix. Instead of having a network of computers work through all of the possible shapes for folding proteins, a problem so huge it could take centuries for all of the computers in the world to solve, Foldit presents unfolded proteins to the player in the form of puzzles, on the basis that human intuition could tackle the problem much faster.”

The presentation is very tidy, the tutorials effective, the difficultly curve smooth, and even if they do go a little too far with the whole PopCap “stars bursting all over the screen makes a player feel good” mantra, it is actually a joy to play. More comments to come as I get the chance to really dive deeper into this brilliant initiative. But a question in the meantime:

“Is this classed as Collective Intelligence??

I ask because it seems this isn’t as much collective problem solving and design here as it is just brute force utilisation of a niche problem solving skill across a global population.

Remember that “game about making games” that I was gushing over during GDC? I finally found the video that they showed during the presentation online:

There’s also a nice writeup on the design process from Greg Trefry at the GameLab site:
Greg Trefry on the process of developing GameStar Mechanic

I really seriously want to get my hands on this thing.

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.”

Questionut from the BBC

This game is pretty neat. When I saw it’s quirky mystical graphical style and it’s exploratory, intuitive interface, I immediately had very high hopes. Too bad those hopes were almost completely dashed when I was halted by none other than the infamous Multi-Choice Challenge! This is a fantastic example once again how far too many developers are interested in making things visually intriguing, and then running out of time to actually think about how to integrate the educational content into actual gameplay contexts. The actual learning component always seems to be retrofitted, like all the ugly rusting air-conditioning units that line the exterior of Shanghai apartment blocks.

However! I do like this more than Brain Age for a couple of reasons:
– There’s a world which you can escape into and visually it’s really neat, so it doesn’t feel nearly as much like work.
– They mix knowledge testing with skill testing and intertwine both with the visual surrounding.
– They also place many of these multi-choice questions in real life contexts.

It’s just such a shame as I just don’t see how they failed to connect together all these things into a cohesive experience.

P.S. There’s a big difference between learning games, and testing games. Where are all the learning games!?

Cool stuff from GDC:
– More thinking is being done around the interaction between games and serialized content (e.g. TV programs and comic books). In particular, Larian Studios have a really cool online world for kids in Belgium which interacts with a TV program and shows off kid-created content.

– Microsoft are using a game called “Bug Hunter” to increase productivity and reduce bugs in its Windows Defect Prevention team

– Games in academia, in particular the adoption of tools such as XNA in the Computer Science classroom, are proving fruitful in attracting and retaining students, as well as pushing up grades

– “Emotiv Systems”:http://www.emotiv.com/ unveiled the next generation of human-computer interaction with their headset controller that allows you to play games with your mind! While it seems the hardware needs a little tweaking before being released to the public late 08, their demo successfully showcased the ability to move objects through 3D space just by thinking about it (support for The Force Unleashed must surely be round the corner)

– Havok are releasing the binary version of their physics suite for free, allowing unprecedented access to an industrial strength physics solution for the independent game dev community

– Portal rightly took home top honors at the Game Developers Choice Awards. The line for their postmortem on the game engulfed North Hall at 4pm on Friday, which was novel considering the final sessions of the conference are usually quite a docile affair

So we’re here at GDC and its kicking off brilliantly with the Serious Games summit in West Hall. I’ll try to give updates on talks, people, and general discoveries that have relevance to the Meaningful Play message throughout the conference.

I was really looking forward to the opening talk for the Summit by Ben Sawyer and Peter Smith that aimed to look at the current state of the Serious Games industry, and the way we define the scope of the field. While they gave quite a nice overview of where games are being used for applications other than pure entertainment, they didn’t actually make much progress as to whether “Serious Games” is in fact the best definition for what we’re trying to do. For anyone that’s read our paper on the issue, you’ll know that we’ve put that definition on our blacklist for bringing up way too many negative connotations when presented anyone outside the industry.

On a lighter note, it’s not even lunchtime yet and I’ve already seen what is sure to be one of the coolest things at the show. Katie Salen (Parsons School of Design) and Greg Tretry (GameLab) presented their quite stunning game about making games: Game Star Mechanic.
Aimed at children in the 10 – 15 age group (I think), the game is presented through a beautifully rendered stream-punk-esque Anime World, drawing in any kids who might even be slightly interested in the YuGiOh or Pokemon franchises (which I think must make up around 70-80% of American kids). The story revolves around warring factions of Mechanics, who each think they know how to design the best game (each represents a different style or genre). The player is tasked with exploring these worlds, and fixing broken games. As they use subsets of the tools to make broken games playable again, they’re introduced to new elements of the game construction system. Before they know it, they have all the skills to start making their own games, without a single piece of code, and all playable by simply flicking a big EDIT / PLAY button always present at the top right of the screen.
Unlike other “simple to use” game creation tools (like Game Maker) this game doesn’t require a single piece of code to be written, and is all driven by and drag-and-drop, slider based interface.

Really quite amazing, and from the videos they showed us of the game’s in use in the classroom, the kids absolutely love it as well.
Other interesting developments of the day include Submarine training simulations, an open critique for a redistricting game, and a meditation game that you play with your heart rate!
Neat stuff. More soon.

Creator’s of America’s Army, Virtual Heroes, have used their platform to create a virtual training environment for customer service:

HILTON GARDEN INN® UNVEILS ULTIMATE TEAM PLAY

Besides the fact that they chose a terrible name for the game, and made a dubious claim that their game is the first application of games in the hospitality industry (how about The Kitchen guys!), it’s good to see big players like this break out of the military space and look at more mainstream applications for their technology.

It will be very interesting to see how their branching dialogue system pans out, as simulating realistic human behavior is just a little tricky. I’ve got to say I was pretty impressed by Mass Effect, but I’m assuming this scenario will call for more direct repsonces quoted stright out of the Hilton 3-ring binder.

As much as mainstream media beats up on violent videogames, I’m not sure they could find a negative angle on the following story:

America’s Army Player Saves Life

Now I can’t say I’m falling over myself to promote America’s Army as a squeaky clean exemplar of Meaningful Play, as its primary purpose is still to recruit into military. An application such as this makes really awesome press, hence why we should milk it for all it’s worth when promoting the effectiveness of games for training. This is a particularly great example of how practical, contextual (simulating the real world application for the knowledge / skill) training can build up an ingrained automatic response to a crisis scenario.

This news also comes at a time where the art and science of habitual training is moving towards a focus on prevention, as opposed to care. Pity that accident prevention isn’t nearly as exciting as a somersaulting SUV.

Penny Arcade had a fantastic post and comic a couple of days ago describing their revelations around how non-gamers approach games.

Old School via Penny Arcade

I was particularly interested in Tycho’s comment about Brain Age being a gateway drug to other game content in that the casual market can warrant spending time with it as a kind of chore. “Gym for your brain” indeed. The thing is that when I go to a real gym I actually tend to enjoy it at the same time. You get the rush of endorphins, maybe listen to a bit of music while you’re there, get a bit of downtime, and as a bonus you’re getting fit and healthy. It isn’t nearly so much of a chore as Brain Age, which isn’t very fun to play, and is potentially a very stressful experience.

But the game has still been hugely popular because it has tangible relevance to the casual gamer’s real life. People are ready to throw time at any inane activity as long as some reliable source says it’s good for them. I wonder how much more we could expand the market if we actually made these experiences fun and explorative at the same time, as well as being certified “good for you.”