Virtual Learning Worlds

Like many other gamers, I’ve been following the development of Will Wright’s next epic, Spore, for several years. We’re finally starting to see some details appear online regarding the creature editor (which is being released mid-June). After reading hands-on impressions, I’m even more excited to get my hands on the editor and moreso the game in September

There’s virtually no learning curve to the creator. It’s stupendously intuitive. Without even a shred of guidance, we were instantly resizing a colorful floating blob to form the body of our creature.

Ah, the elegance of good design and usability. This reminds me of when I first bought my iPhone: NO instructions or manuals to be found. You simply plug it into your computer, it syncs with iTunes, and you’re off and running.

Our decision to go with mandibles instead of hands would mean Hombre X would be able to eat food at ground-level with his pincer mouth, but not reach higher fruit and the like since he had no hands in which to hold it. Jones was quick to point out, however, that it was hard to make a creature that just “didn’t work” – every little design decision would simply affect how the game played.

This is a fantastic design decision and it will be interesting to see if, in fact, every creature design will allow for a good gaming experience. Other games have occasionally gone overboard and offered a plethora of character customization options only to leave the player stuck somewhere 1/2 way through the game. I’m also curious how this design decision will impact replayability. Will a totally new creature change the gameplay enough to keep people interested in playing a second, third, or fourth time through?

Each piece could be moved with surprising ease, as the creator smartly “knew” not to make it clip through the others, and provided us with easy-to-understand iconography for functions such as resizing, twisting, and generally tweaking them to our heart’s content.

This sounds like a very usable piece of software right out of the box. I always wished that productivity applications like Dreamweaver and PhotoShop were ’smarter’ in a sense, helping me complete certain syntax or knowing to put a certain tag in a certain place based on what I’m trying to do. Too many times has Dreamweaver butchered my formatting and forced me to go into code view to locate and fix a problem.

Secondly, we were able to connect to the Sporepedia and browse all of the beasties created by Maxis employees in an interface akin to iPhoto, meta tags and all. If we saw one with a look we liked, we could select it and watch it be automagically applied to our creation.

Sporepedia appears to be all about sharing. Your critters, your buildings, your vehicles, your planets, your solar systems. Supposedly the Sporepedia will also have some type of integration with flickr, youtube, myspace and facebook (instant uploads, screen caps, etc). A few questions to ponder:

• will people playing on various systems share creatures across platforms?
• will users be able to access the sporepedia via a browser, or are we stuck with a custom app?
• will the Sporepedia have some sort of mobile UI for access via cell phones and other handheld devices? (Spore has been demo’d on an iPhone, but no official mobile plans have been revealed yet).

Just something to be aware of, the ESA lost three member organizations over the last week:
- Activision
- Vivendi
- LucasArts

What does this mean for the ESA? I’m not sure, but I’m guessing it can’t be good. Activision and Vivendi are in the process of a merger to become the behemoth Activision-Blizzard that could rival longtime giant Electronic Arts.

From the ESA website:

The Entertainment Software Association (ESA) is the U.S. association exclusively dedicated to serving the business and public affairs needs of companies that publish video and computer games for video game consoles, personal computers, and the Internet.

The ESA offers a range of services to interactive entertainment software publishers including a global anti-piracy program, business and consumer research, government relations and intellectual property protection efforts.

I have no idea why I don’t check Worlds in Motion more often. I finally picked up the feed today with 100+ entries in my reader and found a few things worth pointing out:

Funware, as defined by CEO of rmbr Gabe Zichermann:

…game-like behaviors and mechanics embedded in web-based social applications…Funware attracts users to complete tedious tasks, such as marking photos in Google Image Labeler or filling out profile details in LinkedIn, with game-like rewards.

Not that this is anything earth-shattering, my colleagues often talk about “gaming facebook” and many other social applications. I found the term interesting and I’m curious if it will stick.

I blogged previously about Kongregate, and found an interesting statistic today in another writeup about the Flash Game creators and a Facebook Challenge they are running:

That social strategy has worked out well for Kongregate, as its users spend, on average, up to an hour, playing games at the site, compared to users visiting Facebook and ESPN, who on average stay at the respective sites for 21 and 12 minutes.

While I look forward to seeing how Kongregate will interface with Facebook, the last thing Penn State University students (along with some faculty and staff) need is a reason to spend even MORE time on Facebook.

I’ve been on and off the Multiverse bandwagon a few times now. They tout Google integration and other great features, but I have yet to see them in action or how they work when experimenting with the developer tools. I almost feel as if all these great features are in alpha or beta builds of the software that we may never see. Another great feature was announced last week: the ability of Multiverse worlds to be rendered in the 3D multiverse client or 2D on a webpage via Flash. Educators to Multiverse: can we actually seem some of these features and how they work? A note from Cory Bridges, Co-founder:

With these new capabilities, we’ll soon see true virtual worlds appearing on social networks like Facebook and MySpace. The intersection of virtual worlds and social networks starts here.

Are you seeing a trend here? Several educators and other folks in the game industry have been talking about the merging of social networking tools and services with games for about a year now. I kind of feel like gamers were the early pioneers of social networking in an underground sort of way (guilds, clans, forums, bulletin boards, email lists, MUDs, IRC, ICQ, etc), but now it’s really starting to take form.

In conclusion, why not throw a conference about the intersection of virtual worlds and social networking? Enter the Social Gaming Summit:

the programs scheduled for the Social Gaming Summit include Asynchronous Games on Social Networks, Casual MMOs and Immersive Worlds, and Monetization and Business Models for Social Games.

Being a big proponent of educational gaming, I often talk myself into buying games that rarely see more than 4-6 hours of use. I know, I know…I should be playing a lot of these games to completion (or at least give them 10-15 hrs each), but time is more difficult to come by these days. That said, I was not planning on purchasing GTA IV but the hype machine took hold and I made a trip to Circuit City the day it was released.

After an iffy first hour or two, I’ve been engulfed by Liberty City. Two reasons jump to mind:

1. Sandbox gameplay - something the GTA series is recognized for, the ability of the player to ‘go anywhere, do anything’ within the game environment. Even if you don’t want to undertake all the missions, you can have a lot of fun exploring the environment and the rules of the game itself.
2. High production values - GTA IV feels like playing a movie. I stumbled upon an interesting quote from Dan Houser, co-founder of Rockstar and Creative VP:
   

   Well, we don’t look at other games. We regard our competition in the world of characterization and storytelling and cultural relevance as being alongside movies rather than some of the other games. Because we take that detail stuff more seriously than they do.

   I’m finding the balance between cut scenes, in-game dialog, and mission-based gameplay almost perfect. The attention to detail is unparalleled when comparing GTA IV to other games on the market today. For example, just take a look at the similarities between Liberty City and New York City. Even the dialog overheard on the streets feels real and authentic.

In other news, Erik passed me a link to a story in Science Daily that talks about Fold It, a scientific game about folding proteins in the name of science to help try and identify proteins that could play a role in curing ailments. Fantastic example of an educational game with real, lasting impact and potential.

I wrote a few months ago about the desire to play my own music in games like Guitar Hero and Rock Band. The only game I know of that procedurally will generate game content based on your own music library is Audio Surf. I remember finding a guide online that walked you through creating custom Guitar Hero II tracks for a modded PS2, but the guide was 25+ pages long, required a plethora of software tools, and seemed like it would be extremely tedious and difficult to do so (hence the reason we don’t have many bootleg GHII floating around).

Someone pointed me to Frets on Fire a while back, which at first appeared interesting but quickly lost its appeal after digging through the site. Making game tracks based on my own music still seemed too complicated using their software. Today I was sent a URL for Unsigned, which appears to be a Rock Band knock-off for the PC where you can (again) create game tracks from your own music. We recently met with a group of faculty from Penn State’s music department about using Rock Band as part of the curriculum. As anticipated, their biggest issue was the limited database of songs. They wanted to rip specific songs into Rock Band for students to practice. Whether Unsigned will let us do that or not, time will tell. Here’s to hoping it’s easier than modding GHII or Frets on Fire…

Many moons ago, I passed around a link to a new Flash game called Desktop Tower Defense to the usual batch of friends that I thought would enjoy it. I then witnessed the URL go viral in my network of PSU colleagues and friends and heard countless stories of people getting caught in meetings trying to sneak a game or two in.

Via Joystiq, I found out today that the folks behind Desktop Tower Defense are releasing a Facebook application, providing Facebook users easy access to the growing library of games Kongregate offers. Smart move, right? I’m curious if Facebook or some other social networking site will become the top distribution mechanism for casual games like this, or if services like Steam will need bring casual games to the spotlight. If this is where all the innovation in gaming is taking place (as Mr. Portnow would have you believe), whoever figures out how to distribute these in an easy, community-friendly manner stands to make a lot of money.

I finally kicked the WoW habit due to a lot of other commitments throughout the summer which has led to a resurgence in my Xbox playtime. I’ve played Mass Effect ~6 hours a couple weeks back, started plugging through Gears of War, and also picked up GTA 4 last week. None of these games have jumped out at me like WoW, but then again I don’t need to schedule my evenings around raid time anymore either.

I stumbled upon a google maps application for Liberty City, the NYC look-alike landscape where this GTA story unfolds. Kind of ironic in a way that someone used Google Maps to generate a map of a place that doesn’t even exist, but by the looks of it I’ll be using this map during my experiences with GTA because it makes more sense than looking at the giant poster-sized map that ships with the game. Besides, this map seems to have all the necessary information I’ll need during my debauchery in Liberty City.

Tomorrow is the release of Boom Blox, the first of three games EA has contracted Steven Spielberg to produce for the Nintendo Wii. Looks like it should be a lot of run.