How to Prototype a Game in Under 7 Days: Tips and Tricks from 4 Grad Students Who Made Over 50 Games in 1 Semester 4. General Gameplay: Sensual Lessons in Juicy Fun In addition to learning the hard way about rapid prototyping, we also stumbled over some general gameplay guidelines. The following are a collection of some that significantly add to that “fun” experience. Complexity is Not Necessary for Fun If mankind can entertain itself for literally thousands of years with variations on the t… Continue

How to Prototype a Game in Under 7 Days: Tips and Tricks from 4 Grad Students Who Made Over 50 Games in 1 Semester 2. Design: Creativity and the Myth of Brainstorming A great idea takes a split second to happen, but waiting for that lightning to strike can be excruciating. There's no such thing as forcing a great idea to squirt out, but this section should help cultivate your creative juices. Formal Brainstorming Has a 0% Success Rate We tried hard - boy we really wanted brainstorming to wor… Continue

How to Prototype a Game in Under 7 Days: Tips and Tricks from 4 Grad Students Who Made Over 50 Games in 1 Semester "Tower of Goo" was downloaded over 100,000 times within months of hitting the net. Here's a crazy game idea: Drag trash-talkin' gobs of goo to build a giant tower higher and higher. They squirm and giggle and climb upward over the backs of their brothers, but be careful! A constant battle against gravity, if you build a tower that's too unstable, it will all fall down. "Tower of… Continue

I just saw this interview with George Lucas, and although some of you may already know it, I thought it was interesting to send the link to this list. Dreamforce 07: George Lucas pitches edutopia At the Dreamforce 07 conference in San Francisco, Calif., filmmaker George Lucas discusses his educational web site, edutopia.org. The interactive platform is being used to help teachers develop project based learning curriculums for their students. http://video.techrepublic.com.com/2422-13792_11-16514… Continue

Clark, it's called "part-task" training. The two other possible training types are whole task training and part-whole task training. And each has a purpose which has to do with something called "element interactivity." High element interactivity refers to conditions were all the component parts are so intertwined that, without performing all effectively and together, one cannot master the task. And example is swinging a golf club or a baseball bat. Low element interactivity refers to conditions… Continue

'Brain training' games do work, study finds By Roger Highfield, Science Editor Last Updated: 10:01pm BST 28/04/2008 A novel kind of mental exercise that limbers up the brain's overall ability to solve problems has been shown to work for the first time. # Brain training games: Put your brain through its paces | Solutions # Brain exercises take ten years off your mind # Top neuroscientist backs computer brain game The scientists who develop the method believe that it will prove to be a boon for… Continue

This is from a serious games listserve conversation: Clark, I'm not sure if this is exactly what you're looking for but I actually see several game design concepts in play... Back when we were working on platform games, we referred to game mechanics as things like elevator platforms or floating barrels that you had to jump on and then off when you got to the desired location. We tried to limit one new mechanic per level for two reasons: 1) to foster the player's learning curve - he only has t… Continue

According to Ben Sawyer (Digital Mill) and Peter Smith (University of Central Florida), “Everyone has their own name for what serious games should be called. When they’re using these terms, they’re still talking about serious games… It’s not that these words are wrong. It’s just, they’re trying to categorize things. And there’s nothing categorical about any of these names.” Addressing this problem, Sawyer and Smith have developed a taxonomy of games — actually a number of interlocking, market-se… Continue

War Games by Ben McGrath May 5, 2008 The centerpiece of the recent “Form as Strategy” exhibit, at Columbia’s Buell Center, was a copper- and silver-plated board game called Le Jeu de la Guerre—a kind of modernist take on chess conceived in 1977 by the Marxist philosopher and filmmaker Guy Debord, with inspiration from the military theorist Carl von Clausewitz. ... a cardboard edition, intended for mass distribution, had been produced, along with a book detailing the rules. But the game’s fate w… Continue

Ok - If you have signed up for this networking page you already believe that games are useful. So, we won't begin this blog with reasons to use games. The question is "Are games always the answer to learning solutions?" Some would argue that they should not be used for serious subjects or serious participants such as finance analysts, software architects, engineers, vps, etc. That will be the subject of another post. Today, we explore when to use games. Games can be used to review content. If y… Continue