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

Excavator (A CAWP Arcade Game)

     Excavator is a puzzle game that teaches players the basic planning and three dimensional thinking skills needed to operate a real life excavator. Players must plan and execute digs as efficiently as possible in order to receive the highest rating on each level. All of that may sound complicated, but it is quite the opposite. The game mechanics and art style make this game look and feel magnificent.

     

     We developed this game for the Constructors Association of Western Pennsylvania as part of their Virtual Pre-Apprenticeship program, an online hub for acclimating aspiring construction workers to the different jobs within the industry. Everyone at CAWP has been fantastic to work with, and I know that we at Simcoach look forward to the opportunity to build many more games together. *fingers crossed for Space Excavator*

     

     I highly recommend Excavator to anyone who is looking for a fun and challenging puzzle game. Check the game out at one of the links below, and write us a review to let us know what you think.

Apple Store:
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/excavator-game-cawp-arcade/id979703991?mt=8

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

Dishonored

     Dishonored is a very cool game for a few reasons: 1) it has successfully coined the term "whalepunk" 2) the player makes the game as difficult as he/she wants depending on which objectives are pursued 3) the various styles of play create so many different experiences making the game very replayable.

     Steampunk refers to a subgenre of science fiction that incorporates technology and aesthetics inspired by 19th-century steam-powered machinery. There is often a wealth gap featured in steampunk fiction where the wealthy get to play with all of the fantastical steam-powered novelties and the poor battle typical old society problems (famine, disease, etc.). Dishonored has a very similar style to steampunk, except everything in the game is powered by whale oil instead of steam, hence the term "whalepunk." Additionally, whale oil is used to create electricity (arc pylons, walls of light). The game does a very good job of featuring the typical steampunk societal issues. The player experiences all sides of Dunwall's economic climate by having to sneak through the city's plague infested streets followed by crashing high society parties.

     I experienced varying degrees of excitement and disappointment during the first few hours of Dishonored. My original strategy was to use my sword and hack through everything in my path, which made the game feel a little flat. I think I killed 15 guards on my first play through of level 1 and received a "high" chaos rating. Seeing the chaos rating and feeling a little disappointed at how one dimensional the game was so far, I started reading through forums to find out if things get better. It turns out that things do get better. Not only do you get different endings depending on your overall chaos rating, but the game adapts to your style of play as well. Killing more characters puts the city on high alert, which increases the amount of opponents you'll face. Using a sneakier approach actually reduces some of the city's plight, and leaves you with less enemies to circumnavigate.

     The game is tough to go through if you choose not to kill characters, but there will be less NPCs to sneak past if you choose to play this way. If you want to hack and slash your way through the game, the system will add more enemy NPCs and hordes of rats, making it tougher to fight everyone off. I received great joy once I learned about the game's adaptive system and immediately replayed the first level as sneakily as possible. The game functions so well as a stealth RPG. I was reminded of the fun I used to have playing Metal Gear Solid and Tenchu Stealth Assassin. Then a new element was introduced, and my excitement fell once again.

     Shortly into the game you are given special powers. These powers let the player see through walls, teleport, possess creatures, push back enemies, summon rats, and more. The player gradually unlocks and upgrades powers as they collect runes throughout the game. I was extremely disappointed when powers were first introduced. When you start the game without powers, it is refreshing and feels like an older game where strategy and perseverance are needed to overcome challenges.  Just when the game was starting to feel original and challenging, here come the same old powers already overused in every other game to hold the hands of impatient players. The player is the one who ultimately decides whether or not to use powers, which again goes back to the player having control of how difficult they want to make the game. With that said, it is very difficult to resist using x-ray vision knowing that it will help you get past a particularly difficult point in a level that you have already failed five times.

     I played the game all the way through as stealthily as possible. I killed one character the whole game (by accident), and was only seen by enemies less than a handful of times. Dishonored was extremely enjoyable for me playing this way. I plan to play through the game at least one more time using a more chaotic approach. I'll have to come back and edit this post once that happens. Props to Bethesda for making a cool adaptive world. I dock you a couple points for lack of originality with the addition of powers, but I understand that the company was trying to keep the market for Dishonored as wide as possible, Not everyone welcomes challenge in a game as much as me. Looking forward to playing again soon.

The Last Starfighter

     Oh man I don't know how I managed to get to my current age without watching this gem. The Last Starfighter (1984) features a young high school age boy who lives in a trailer park community. The boy plays and masters an arcade game at the trailer park, which leads to him being recruited into an intergalactic defense force. The arcade game is used as a device to test the player's competency as a spaceship gunner. Once the player reaches a certain score, they are abducted and turned into soldiers set out to save the universe.The CGI in the film was impressive for how old it was. It must have cost a fortune to implement that kind of technology back then.

     The story mimics almost every component of the hero's journey, which made it very predictable. But it's about a kid who goes from playing a video game to becoming a space gunner, meaning it probably wasn't in the Oscar running to begin with. One interesting thing I noticed with The Last Starfighter was its similarity to Ender's Game (1985), a novel about a boy who is brought up to lead a space armada against an intergalactic force. I wonder if there was any relationship between the movie and Ender's Game or if both were just coincidental products of that time period...

Design Thinking for Business Innovation, University of Virginia

     It's funny the terms that materialize and trend in the business world. "Design Thinking" is another one of those terms. "Design Thinking is seen as offering a new approach better-suited for dealing with the accelerating pressures for growth and innovation faced by so many organizations today." The process for Design Thinking involves asking four questions:

• The current reality (what is?);
• The envisioning of a new future (what if?);
• The development of some concepts for new business opportunities (what wows?); and
• The testing of some of those concepts in the marketplace (what works?).

      Design Thinking follows a process of rapid prototyping and playtesting to come up with products that fill needs for specific markets. This is not something that is new, companies like Apple have just slapped a new name on it and brought it to the public's attention. My company follows a nearly identical process which we mostly refer to as "iterative design." We are constantly adjusting the product throughout the development cycle, essentially meaning that we are never "done" developing. In my opinion it does not matter which of these trends you grab onto, as long as your organization makes a thoughtful plan and sticks to it.
     The University of Virginia's class on Design Thinking is a very high level course, but students still walk away with several tools for developing and marketing new products. The ethnography and storytelling tools for example teach students how to market business solutions in a memorable way and how to properly test those solutions with the target market.
     I do wish they spiced up the presentation of the material a little bit. Class lecture videos were mostly made of a single professor talking in front of a green screen for varying amounts of time. Sometimes industry professionals would give examples of how they used the tools presented in the course. I have been part of other courses that interrupt lectures to test the student's understanding of the presented material. This at least gives the student a little bit of interaction with the material (outside of homework assignments). With that said, I was able to relate to much of what was being presented. I recommend this course as a casual reminder of how to properly plan and execute new solutions for the everyday business professional. Take the class for free here!

Repo! The Genetic Opera

     I am not very familiar with rock operas (other than the occasional Meatloaf song), but I decided to give Repo! The Genetic Opera a try. The film had potential but it favored gore and fan service too much for my taste. I enjoyed the art style along with the music. The setting felt very dark with comic book-like exaggeration, similar to Tim Burton's Batman. The music was pretty good as well. I did not enjoy the extreme gore and oversexualization. It was not uncommon for a character to be sliced open then roll around in puddles of their own blood. The point of these extremely graphic scenes may have been to shock the viewer, but I think they may have taken things a step or two too far. I could say the same thing for the costume design. The idea probably was to portray a future where individuals are so consumed in themselves that they will do anything to maintain their beauty and youth, hence the premise of a company growing profitable by up-selling organ transplants with breast implants and other physical enhancement procedures. I wanted to like this movie, but guts and gore for the sake of guts and gore is not my taste.