25. August 2008 by admin.

I posted the following game competition list for my Programming for the Artist students at the Illinois Institute of Art, Chicago last week:

“I suggest that as you work toward completing your games you consider submitting them to small, student competitions. It is a good educational experience. Game Career Guide’s list of student competitions should point you in a good direction. Besides, if the honor of winning our in-class competition doesn’t motivate you, perhaps a $20,000 grand prize will (see IGF).

You should also consider posting them to something like the Great Games Experiment to start to build an online portfolio. It doesn’t make sense if your game is very rough, but those of you who do complete your proposed design, or who win our in-class competition may find the “publicity” beneficial. Of course, bad press, is bad press, so be careful with what you post. Also avoid copyright issues.

In case you didn’t know, these may be particularly appropriate:

Gamers Institute Competition (Closes September 16, 2008)
An AI sponsored online game competition. There is a bias toward web based games (e.g. .swf), but they will consider small games like the ones we are creating. These smaller competitions are really gems for small student games.

Independent Games Festival (2008)
The premier independent game festival and competition for students. Successes stories include Braid and Portal.”

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24. August 2008 by admin.

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23. August 2008 by admin.

I found this site, notesongamedev.com, through the game education SIG at IGDA.  There’s a healthy set of blogs and some interesting content about specific designer/developer experiences.  It’s worth checking out.

Lindsay Grace

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20. August 2008 by admin.

Gameplay needs to be tested. However it’s very expensive to evaluate gameplay after you have spent all the time and energy to produce a complete game. Enter prototypes. Prototypes of varying levels of technical sophistication allow the designer and developer to evaluate a game concept before they invest substantial time and energy in a game. This is essentially a “try before you buy” approach. Why would you commit two hundred employees to an idea your unsure about working?
In class we will talk about a few tools for prototyping. We will start with the paper-prototype as a low cost tool for testing some design aspects. The paper prototype is practical, low cost, and lets you build a board game equivalent of your video game (that’s a plug for the relationship of board, tabletop, and card games to video games).

I’d start with this information about building a prototype from Casual Games.com. It’s an easy to read list that takes about 10 mintues to consume and covers the basics. You should follow that reading, with some tips and tricks for paper prototyping from gamasutra.

Since paper prototypes do have their limitations (esp. flow), we’ll also have a brief discussion about basic game building technologies. These tools are relatively simple to use and allow you to test a new gameplay experience without the costs of complete development.

As you work, you might want to take a break by reading The Common Pitfalls of Game Prototyping or you could take a bigger break by playing some pitfall (Commodore 64) and super pitfall (NES).

Here are some paper prototypes done by my Protoyping for Games students.

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18. August 2008 by admin.

FYI

CALL FOR CHAPTERS
Proposals Submission Deadline: 9/5/2008
Full Chapters Due: 2/28/2009

Serious Game Design and Development:
Technologies for Training and Learning
A book edited by Dr. Janis Cannon-Bowers & Dr. Clint Bowers
University of Central Florida

Purpose and Goals of the Book
The use of gaming approaches for more serious purposes is not a new phenomenon. Teachers have used board games, memory games, and others in classrooms for decades. However, the advent of video gaming technologies created a host of opportunities for people to use the immersive, interactive, environments provided by such technology to deliver pedagogical content in a simulated environment that is thought to engender deeper learning in a more entertaining environment.

The use of video games for serious purposes was largely fostered by the US military, which saw the low-fidelity simulation abilities of these platforms as a low-cost way to deliver training. Buoyed by successes in this market, developers have expanded their activities to a whole range of serious applications, including K-12 education, advertising, and social change, to name a few. The increasing use of these games has now drawn the interest of various disciplines within the scientific community, who seek to understand the nature of effective games and to provide guidance for how best to harness the power of gaming technology to successfully accomplish the more serious goal.

At this point, several serious games have been fielded, with varying levels of success. Many of these games have not been formally evaluated, while others have been, but the results have not been published. Conversely, scientists are beginning to report results about effective game elements, but there is not a clear conduit to get these results to the developers who could most use them.

Our goal, therefore, is to create a volume that seeks to “bridge the gap” between development and science. Specifically, we will approach leaders in the game development community to share their successes and the area where they could benefit from scientific guidance. Similarly, we will invite prominent scientists to describe their current findings and to provide their input on the future of the field.

Recommended topics include, but are not limited to, the following:
Serious Games in K-12 Education
Serious Games in Postsecondary Education
Serious Games in Business and Industry
Serious Games in Training
Serious Games and Health
Serious Games as Social Tools
Research in Serious Games
Serious Games in the Military
Serious Games and Communication

Submission Procedure
Researchers and practitioners are invited to submit on or before September 5, 2008, a 2-3 page chapter proposal clearly explaining the mission and concerns of his or her proposed chapter. Authors of accepted proposals will be notified by November 30, 2008 about the status of their proposals and sent chapter guidelines. Full chapters are expected to be submitted by February 28, 2009. All submitted chapters will be reviewed on a double-blind review basis. This book is scheduled to be published by IGI Global (formerly Idea Group Inc.), publisher of the “Information Science Reference” (formerly Idea Group Reference) and “Medical Information Science Reference” imprints. For additional information regarding the publisher, please visit http://www.igi-global.com/.

Inquiries and submissions can be forwarded electronically (Word document) or by mail to:

Dr. Clint Bowers
Department of Psychology
University of Central Florida
Orlando, FL 32801

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16. August 2008 by admin.

Ico: http://www.us.playstation.com/Content/OGS/SCUS-97113/Site/

“The player of the game takes on the role of Ico, a young boy born with a pair of horns, who must escort a princess named Yorda safely out of a castle without her being captured by the shadowy figures that prowl the castle or being killed by the castle’s numerous environmental hazards. Despite selling only 650,000 copies worldwide, Ico received strong reviews, and has become a cult hit among video game enthusiasts.”

“It makes effective use of minimal dialogue and story to forge strong emotional connections with the characters and environments in the game. It includes action, adventure and puzzle elements. The game also has a notable fictional language which has been theorized [1] to be backwards Japanese.”-Wikipedia

Video: http://video.google.com/videosearch?q=ico

System Shock: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/System_Shock

“Set aboard the fictional Citadel research and mining space station, in a Cyberpunk future . . . it was critically acclaimed for having detailed 3D environments, an engrossing storyline, deep gameplay and a memorable villain. System Shock is often cited as an inspiration for games like Half-Life and Deus Ex; indeed, some of the same key people behind System Shock worked on the latter.”

also review Bio Shock

Story

“Set in 2072, the game casts the player as a computer hacker caught while attempting to remotely access files concerning Citadel space station, which is owned by the TriOptimum Corporation, the largest corporation in the world. The hacker is taken to Citadel and brought before Edward Diego, a greedy TriOptimum executive who offers to drop all charges against the hacker in exchange for a secret hacking job on SHODAN, the artificial intelligence (AI) that controls the station.

To make the deal more enticing, the hacker receives a valuable military-grade cybernetic implant with the implantation operation bankrolled by Diego. After hacking SHODAN, removing the AI’s ethical constraints, and handing control over to Diego, the hacker is prepared for the promised surgery. Following the operation, the hacker is put into a six-month long controlled healing coma in the surgical suite of the station’s medical level. The game begins as the hacker awakens.” - Wikipedia
Video: System Shock 2 Training Component : http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6072271534991938972&q=system+shock

Grim Fandango: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grim_Fandango

The story unfolds in four episodes, each set a year apart on the Day of the Dead. It is from this festival that much of the game’s imagery is drawn — most of the game’s characters are skeletal calaca figures (based on the work of Mexican printmaker José Guadalupe Posada). Various flowers are also used as tools of murder, in the form of a substance known as “Sproutella”, which reacts with bone, destroying it by causing flowers to grow in it extremely rapidly. Characters refer to this manner of death as “sprouting”. There is also unique fauna scattered throughout the game, such as bone-eating fire beavers and gigantic cats used for racing.

Unusually, the game combines this mythical underworld with 1930s Art Deco design motifs and a dark plot reminiscent of the film noir genre. Manny, whose job combines the roles of Grim Reaper and travel agent, turns detective when he discovers that deserving souls are being denied their rightful post-mortem reward of direct travel to Mictlan, bypassing the four-year trip that all other souls must take. Manny’s investigations draw him into a tangled web of corruption, deceit, and murder.

The second part of the game, when Manny is running a nightclub, is inspired by Humphrey Bogart films The Maltese Falcon, Key Largo and Casablanca. In the game, the gambler Chowchilla Charlie is extremely reminiscent of Peter Lorre, and the town’s corrupt police chief is based on Claude Rains’s Captain Renault. Despite this, Tim Schafer stated that the true inspiration was drawn from films like Double Indemnity, in which a weak and undistinguished man (an insurance salesman, not a detective) is involved in murder and intrigue[1].

Video: http://video.google.com/videosearch?q=grim+fandango&num=10&so=0&hl=en&start=10

Psychonauts: http://www.psychonauts.com/

“For years, the Psychonauts have deployed their psychically-armed operatives all over the world, but this time trouble is brewing in their own boot camp. A deranged scientist is abducting camp cadets for their brains. One student, a mysterious and powerful new arrival named Raz, stands alone against the lunatic. Raz must develop and unleash an arsenal of paranormal powers including his most powerful weapon of all—the ability to launch himself telepathically into the minds of others. Ultimately he must enter the psyche of his worst enemy and destroy his dark plans at their source while trying not to lose his sanity in the process.” - from the psychonauts website

American McGee’s Alice: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_McGee’s_Alice

“Shortly after her second adventure, Alice’s parents are killed in a fire of which she is the only survivor. Driven catatonic and having attempted suicide (implied, but never directly referred to), she is institutionalised in Rutledge Asylum. Years later, Alice is called by the White Rabbit to the aid of a radically altered Wonderland now under the despotic rule of the Red Queen. The Cheshire Cat in particular now looks very different from Sir John Tenniel’s original illustration: he is shown here as skeletally thin and his grin looks are more devious than mischievous. The Cat is Alice’s constant companion throughout the game, popping up now and again to guide the player or offer advice.” - from Wikipedia

Video: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6610946121321985782&q=mcgee%27s+alice&total=188&start=0&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=1

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