The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim

The third time's the charm. It took me three attempts in the five years Skyrim has been out to finally play through the entire game.

Attempt 1: I played some of the main quest and decided I should probably take on some guilds and side quests in order to better prepare for the rest of the main quest line. The result was playing through the College of Winterhold (Mage's Guild), Dark Brotherhood (Assassin's Guild), and Thieve's Guild quest lines before losing interest in the main quest line and taking a break from the game for a while.

Attempt 2: Again, I started the main quest line and quickly found more entertainment in some of the game's other content. This time I played through the Companions and College of Winterhold quest lines. I also took on more of an explorers play style. I set out to earn as many words of power as I could, get my hands on all the Daedric items that I could find, and even learn some of the legendary spells that could only be gained at levels 90 or above. Even after accomplishing all of this, I did not take the time to complete the main quest line. It would be more than a year before I tried again.

Attempt 3: A Steam Summer Sale influenced me to purchase Skyrim and all of its expansions at a fantastic price. I told myself that I would not play any of the expansions until I completed the main quest line. Fast forward a few weeks and I have played through Dragonborn, Dawnguard, and of course the original game's quest line.

All that's left to do now is explore the rest of Solstheim, build a house, and play through some side quests. Skyrim is a fantastic game, but Morrowind is still my favorite Elder Scrolls game. We'll see if the next installment of the series revisits the island of Vvardenfell.

The 4 Disciplines of Execution by Chris McChesney, Sean Covey, and Jim Huling

I see two valuable outcomes from reading this book:

1) Being given a formula to accomplish Wildly Important Goals (WIGs).

2) The realization that the majority of our efforts go toward fighting the whirlwind. We work to get through the day, and rarely to accomplish what is truly important.

What is ironic about 4DX is its similarity to playing a game. There are goals, steps to work toward those goals, a scoreboard, and accountability systems. That sounds like every team sport ever played.

Jim Huling, Sean Covey, and Chris McChesney take goal setting to the next level in The 4 Disciplines of Execution. The book is not just about setting and accomplishing goals, but about motivating teams to accomplish long term goals in a manner that builds accountability and engagement.

The book addresses high level leaders and managers who are struggling to hit performance metrics, those that can strategize but find difficulty executing or rather inspiring others to execute. I found value in this book coming from almost the opposite perspective, as a performer who is looking to learn better how to develop strategy.

I look forward to practicing 4DX at the office in the weeks to come and gamifying the process of making games.

Online Games: Literature, New Media, and Narrative, Vanderbilt University

Vanderbilt University's class is about transmedia and remediation. Instructor Jay Clayton uses the various interpretations of J.R.R. Tolkien's Middle Earth to discuss the differences in how each form of media tells a story. Class lectures discuss Tolkien's original novels (The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings series), Peter Jackson's movies, Turbine's Lord of the Rings Online, and the various epic poems that inspired the original lore. Professor Clayton really makes the class great with his critical analyses of each form of media. He doesn't look at each form of media and judge them by how well they stick to the original lore. Instead, Professor Clayton discusses how well each form uses imagery and conveys emotion.

One interesting lecture discussed the criticism of science fiction and fantasy as being called escapist entertainment. Escapism is described as having no relation to the real world. Learning and real world application do not derive from escapism, only the temporary relief from day-to-day stress. This is a criticism that is often applied to video games. Clayton explains that video games are the newest form of entertainment and are cycling through the same rounds of criticism that novels, poetry, painting, and others went through before. It feels good to hear a rational statement like this. I plan on exploring this argument further.

A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the Future by Daniel H. Pink

A Whole New Mind is a page turner as a coworker of mine would say. A quick read with many solid points supporting its main argument which is this: possessing knowledge and knowledge-based skills is not enough to be successful anymore. Diversification is a necessity and a person must have an appreciation and understanding of the creative forces at work in the world to not get left behind. Pink's book presents 6 creative competencies that every person must understand in order to succeed in tomorrow's world. Those competencies are Design, Story, Symphony, Empathy, Play, and Meaning.

My own life experiences support Pink's argument. I graduated with a degree in business (a common pursuit as Pink points out several times), and found success, but it wasn't until I started practicing more creative skills that I began to feel fulfilled.

There are several take-aways in A Whole New Mind. I look forward to putting the following into practice:

• Design: Looking at everyday objects and thinking about their design (beauty and utility).
• Empathy: The group activity of guessing the high and low points of a coworker's day and then comparing them against that person's actual responses.
• Empathy/Story: Taking acting/improv classes.
• Empathy: Interviewing coworkers to learn the professional/personal path they took in life.
• Empathy: Volunteering more.
• Symphony: Listening to symphonies to understand the complexities of how small pieces make up a whole.
• Symphony: Keeping an inspiration board for everyday things that can enhance a current/future project.
• Symphony: Having more organized brainstorm sessions.
• Meaning: Assembling a list of things I am thankful for. One for every year of my life.
• Meaning: Taking spirituality, and the exploration of spirituality seriously.
• Meaning: Taking time out of the day/week to practice mindfulness.

LIMBO

This summer I have taken full advantage of the Steam Monster Summer Sale to stock up on games that have long been on my list. One of those games is LIMBO: a 2D black and white side-scrolling puzzle game featuring an unnamed boy searching for his sister. The game arms the player with simple core mechanics (run, jump, climb, grab, push, and pull) which are nicely complemented by a basic physics system. Advanced mechanics are gradually introduced in the game at certain points (reverse gravity, activate magnets, etc.).

The colorless artwork, continuous gameplay, and minimal background noise create a very eerie ambiance in LIMBO. You encounter giant spiders, band saws, bear traps, and many other unpleasant obstacles throughout the game, all while tackling increasingly more difficult puzzles. The story is limited which leaves much room for the player to contemplate and inject his/her own meaning. I would not have realized it was the character's sister I was searching for had it not been for an abstract I read after playing.

There is one point, where after having been through many dark and sad environments, you come across a butterfly, then another, and several more. You start to think to yourself, "maybe there is some good left in this virtual world after all." These butterflies lead you toward your sister who is playing in the dirt on the other end of the screen. Of course my first instinct was to sprint toward the playing girl in hopes of no longer experiencing this dark virtual world all alone. Just before you reach her, a glowing slug drops from a tree branch, lands on your head, and burrows into your mind. This event triggers a gameplay mechanic where the player loses control of his character until the slug is removed. I sat watching my character run out of control in the opposite direction of my objective. I felt shocked as the hope I once had was sucked out of me.

LIMBO is unique in that it triggers emotions not typically experienced in a platformer (sadness, hope, hopelessness, wonder). This was a short game, without much of a story and yet it packed more of an emotional punch than any movie I have seen recently. One could spend a good amount of time pulling deep meaning out of LIMBO. I recommend this game to anyone who is struggling with the "games as art" argument. If LIMBO is not a work of art then I don't know what is.

Reality is Broken by Jane McGonigal

It took me a little while to read this one. Sometimes life gets in the way of reading a good book, and Reality is Broken is a good book. Jane McGonigal is a famous game designer with a great deal of experience in experimental game design (Check out some of her TED talks to see what she's all about). In Reality is Broken Jane talks about some of her experimental designs. She also touches on the underlying components that make games such great tools for behavior change. That is the premise after all: using games and game features to improve how we interact with the world around us.

Part III: How Very Big Games Can Change the World is my favorite section of McGonigal's book. In this section, Jane talks about ten game designs that utilize crowdsourcing to solve real world problems. A few of these designs include inviting people to browse through expense receipts from members of government to identify political scandal and engaging individuals to practice planet craft to plan for the next 1000 years of life on Earth. Another amazing example involves using the idle computing power of networked Playstations to run protein folding simulations in order to better understand how certain diseases like Alzheimer's and various cancers manifest.

Crowdsourced problem solving on a global scale sounds epic for lack of a better word. It reminds me of the premise of any movie where there is an impending life ending threat and humanity has to put its differences aside in order to survive against all odds. Unfortunately, I think it really will take a global threat in order for the world to come together and put our collaboration super powers into full use. Necessity is the mother of invention after all, and nothing necessitates global collaboration like a global threat. There are too many distractions for the world to come together otherwise (politics, religion, greed, etc.).

Even though I believe the global community is a little ways off from adopting game logic to solve its major problems, it is still comforting to know that people like Jane McGonigal exist to paint the picture and lay the ground work for us to join in on when we finally come to our senses. Thanks Jane for a good read, and for planting the seeds for a better future.

CAWP Traffic Control

     Traffic Control is another mini game for CAWP's Virtual Pre-Apprenticeship program. In the game, the player is tasked with controlling traffic around a construction sight, a job that is easier said than done. Just like a flagger in real life, the player has to be aware of oncoming traffic, emergency vehicles, construction equipment, animal wildlife, rock slides, and other elements. The player earns points for every vehicle that safely circumnavigates the construction site. The highest score I have seen so far is 2,000 points. If you think you've got what it takes to master the traffic controlling arts and beat this high score, then download CAWP Traffic Control at the links below. Also write us a review to let us know what you think.


Apple Store:
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/cawp-traffic-control/id966998499?mt=8

Google Play:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.SimcoachGames.CAWPTraffic&hl=en