tl-dr

HEY HI HELLO.

Been a while right?  Like a month?  We took a bit of a break.

First thing’s first though, happy 2013!

So yeah, the break thing.  About roughly exactly 24 days ago, I sent out a tweet from our tl-dr account saying we were breaking up our Tuesday/Thursday posting schedule.  Basically, coming up with creative content on a constant deadline only stays fun for so long, and Diane and Jacob especially needed a little burnout recovery (I’m just here writing every month or so).

James over at Men With Pens does a good job wrapping up exactly why the schedule thing probably isn’t the greatest idea anyway, and our reasoning was more or less the same as his: our readers come when we have interesting things to say, and interesting things require inspiration.  Otherwise, maybe we start to scrape the barrel a bit, and that’s bad.  Bad for you, bad for us.  An all around big barrel of no bueno.

SO there’s that.  From now on, we write whenever we damn well feel like it!!  Quality > Quantity, only the best for you Khaleesi.

NOW ONTO SERIOUS-ER BUSINESS.

In about under a month, I’ll be heading to North Carolina for the annual ScienceOnline unconference.  I’ve talked about this place before, it’s epic, people are friendly, you never know who you might end up listening to weird biological sex jokes with, and cool things happen.

This year I’m co-presenting a session on Games and Science, and how they can totally get along really well together (The session is 8D, Saturday 10:30-11:30 am, Room 7a!).  My partner is Cameron Pittman who does some crazy stuff teaching high school students physics using the game Portal 2.  = winning.  I sincerely recommend checking out some of his videos on his site HERE.

What’s more, my friend Melanie Stegman will debut her 4-year in the making science game: Immune Defense.  Here’s the link for the Blitz Talk she’ll be doing!  I got to demo the game early at a small play-testing event earlier this year at the Federation of American Scientists headquarters. It’s really spectacular to see a new game come through like this designed to be just as fun as it is educational, you know, as good serious games are supposed to be.

For those of you who will be at ScienceOnline, and plan on coming to the games session, this wiki page will have plenty of background info for you to browse through so you too can jump into the discussion!  And, if you need further reading past that, there is plenty here on tl-dr to explore as well.  Alternatively, if you just want direct info, tweet me @EriKlaes #scio13.

See some of you soon!

tl-dr

Our last order of business is to say thanks for being supportive through the first year of this blog. Here’s to another great year of gaming tom-foolery and info-science awesomeness

Ding! You’ve leveled up! Please see your local librarian for training.

I’m sort of writing this quickly because, as my angsty title implies, I’ve got finals around the corner so this post probably won’t examine the science and depth of ideas behind “flow” and emotional game feedback and stuff.  That stuff will be covered down the road, I promise!  But today, I actually think it’s best to start that discussion by looking at what we have, what games exist that use flow miraculously well to convey their meaning, their core concept.

It’s no secret that “flow” in games is essential.  The idea that the experience and mechanics must carry the player as much as the player carries forward the game.  A game without flow is like… Like this gif. (note: this totally looks like my sister, lol)

 

My favorite example of a game that uses flow, like, perfectly, is Mirror’s Edge.  If you haven’t played it, do so, it’s the shit. (also, go for the PC version, as the Xbox version is much less flow-y, what with finicky joysticks and such… which could lead into its whole own post on platforms for experiences… herpderp not now).

Mirror’s Edge is a game about a dystopian future in a pristine city-state world.  You are a “runner” who delivers illegal, physical messages around the city, as the regime in charge brutally monitors all communications, media, everything.  Blah blah blah backstory (also +1 for a emotionally complex and strong female protagonist). At its core, the game is about pursuing freedom when the world around you is supposed to restrict freedom.  That is the game’s core concept, and both the mechanics of the game and the story give that concept beautiful, nearly perfect fulfillment IMO (‘in my opinion’ for those of you still catching on).  This is not an RPG, this is not a ‘figure it out slowly’ type game (often the case with portal); choice is limited, there is usually a single solution, you are frequently corned, gunned down, or killed by your own missteps. And yet, the game conveys the pursuit of freedom gloriously.  With flow.

Watch this: Mirror’s Edge, all in-game footage trailer.

Every jump feels dangerous and elating, every footstep and breath resonates, the colors used in the environment are both beautifully calming, and also quietly, almost jarringly reminding you that this city you’re fleeing through is a sham; a painted cage.  Running in Mirror’s Edge truly gives the feeling of freedom feels free, it’s one of the best implemented motion mechanics I’ve seen, yet the world around you does everything in its power to set up a juxtaposition to that freedom.

[Enter 'serious' games]

Herein is an essential key in making games that affect ‘the real world’.  The biggest issue often with ‘serious’ / ‘transformative’ / ‘will-we-ever-settle-on-a-name-here-people?’ games is that they lack flow.  To be fair there are many many other failing factors frequently plaguing the reality-changing-games space, and other factors too such as the idea that finicky little buttons and switches might be the bees-knees to a kinder gardener and the utter hell of gaming to me, a 19 year old (this is something Melanie over there at the Science Game Center pointed out to me; she has evidence too!).  And yet, flow does not have to be constant empowerment or player agency or total understanding, all flow needs to suck the player in is meaningful ensured progress.  I’m not talking about to dive into a lengthy look at issues with the ever-infamous ‘Fail State‘ where games might often mistreat failure at the cost of flow, just that when the player makes an educated action, even in a split second like jumping off a frickin’ roof top, they are rewarded and pulled forward to the next challenge; hell, that pulling effect is the reward.  Mirror’s Edge (the main campaign anyway) does not have points or scores, only flow to motivate the player.  I would argue that points and scores are usually less motivating to the player than effective flow as well!

Behold, good reader, that the world of games-that-give-a-fuck is not totally bleak in the realm of flow.  Allow me to present my favorite example here also!  Dys4ia by Auntie Pixelante.  It’s free.  Go play it.  I will wait.

…

Done?  Awesome.  Let’s chat.  (if you don’t have a chance right now, play it when you grab some free time. It only takes like 10 minutes! It’s worth it).

Dys4ia, quite obviously, is about Auntie Pixelante’s experience of going through hormonal therapy as a trans person.  There’s a lot to talk about here, but I want to focus on the game’s use of flow.  Each little puzzle, each scene and situation used to represent Auntie’s emotions and experiences, consistently pulls the player forward without sacrificing the message of the game.  The point isn’t points or winning, the point is progressing as Auntie did, and allowing the player to experience her feelings through the game’s mechanics.  It is easy to jump in, it is consistently rewarding to stay in; the reward is the new experience; the emotional connection.  Not points.  Not checkmarks.  Not gold.  Not leet gear.  The experience is its own reward in a well-made, core concept-oriented game.

There are a few other examples out there, and I could keep going on and on and on here because there is A LOT to explore in experiencing flow-y gameplay.  If you’re hungry for more along this train of thought and don’t want to wait for another post… actually, regardless of your academic game hunger, go watch this Extra Credits episode on “Mechanics as Metaphor”; it’s related, I promise.

tl-dr

Games that use flow to motivate the player are more rewarding, and more effective at communicating their core idea.  Play them, love them, let’s make more of them.

Ding! You’ve leveled up! Please see your local librarian for training.

About two weeks ago, this happened.

In case you’re feeling finger lazy today, the link leads to PETA’s (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) latest attempt at rallying the masses against animal abuse, an absolutely excellent and necessary cause mind you.

It’s an embedded game on their site called…

wait for it.

“Pokemon, Black and Blue” …clever right?!  The goal of said game is for the player to “Help Pikachu and his Pokemon friends as they struggle for Pokemon liberation!”

AND furthermore, from the official PETA press release:

“Games such as Pokémon send kids the wrong message that exploiting and abusing those who are defenseless is acceptable when it’s not,” says PETA Director of Marketing Innovations Joel Bartlett. “But with Pokémon Black and Blue, children can experience the great feeling that comes from saving others from harm.”

 

OOoooook.  So I realize this connects much more intensely with my generation than perhaps others, but there is a big BIG issue here for everyone.

This is a serious game.

It was made to deliberately address a very serious and prominent real world issue.

It was made to be “educational”.

It was made.  Period.  And while this last piece of “being made” doesn’t qualify it as a serious game like the two above, it’s the most alarming part here.  Time and time again people throw back to “with great power comes great responsibility” when talking about the future of serious games.  Well folks, I really didn’t expect it to come from PETA, to be honest I expected it to come from Wall Mart or Apple, a big profit driven corporation, but this is a serious game used wrongly none the less.

Now, before we move any further here, let’s quickly debunk any semblance of truth about what this game (and PETA) is claiming.  I grew up watching and playing Pokemon, and for many reasons I can honestly, whole-heatedly say doing both made me a better person, for the exact opposite reasons PETA states.  Countless times I would run desperately through a forest to get my Pokemon safely to the next town’s Nurse Joy.  Countless times I would make in-game special food and treats for my precious little pixelated friends.  Countless times I ran headlong into bad guy lairs to save other Pokemon in harms way.  Everything in those damn games is about saving Pokemon and helping humans live in harmony with their Pokemon friends.

How does PETA portray this?

And frankly, the number of Pokemon gifs I just found in the last 20 seconds of searching which show Pokemon snugling/playing/frolicking/loving people, and people returning those feelings.. it’s like over 50.

So whatever.  PETA is lying about fictional relationships between mutant animals and people.

OH WAIT.  An entire generation *raises hand* loves these creatures more intensely than the burning core of the Sun.  Pokemon, for many of us, is like purified childhood in a bottle.

And herein is the danger PETA unleashes upon its self, and the animals it cares about helping.  Until seeing this, I was another teen that doesn’t know much about PETA.  I knew what they stood for, and I have three pets I wouldn’t want to suffer so PETA seems like a legit cause, but I also knew they have an occasionally radical way of doing things.  By trying to reach out deliberately to me and my fellow millennials (alternatively called the Pokemon generation) with this game, PETA has thoroughly alienated me.  By creating a tool that can so widely reach and preach as this game does, many MANY others who love Pokemon, and what Pokemon are all about, will lose even more regard for PETA (as multiple reddit threads spreading the game revealed).  They used a game irresponsibly, and are hurting their own cause for it.  They send the message that animal rights advocates are a little bit psycho and more than a little bit out of touch.  This, in turn, can effect popular support for other legitimate animal rights pursuits PETA carries out, marginalizing their voice and ability to actually do good even more, as well as potentially dragging other lesser known advocacy groups down with it.

tl-dr:  Fighting animal abuse IS important, but when you jump on the crazy train you can’t expect everyone else to follow, and you can’t expect to get far without anyone else riding your train.  And dammit, this will NOT be the future of serious games.  (I don’t really think it will, but still).

And just for kicks..

I swear to you, today’s post is of utmost importance and seriousness.

Part of that seriousness may or may not relate to one’s ability to run about a battlefield, completely and properly covered mind you, but choosing to do so with a refreshing underbreeze whilst sporting a fine robe.. and only a robe.  Pants, after all, are so much more stifling.

Granted, most games won’t let me play my mage totally commando, for the sake of ratings and ERP discouragement.  Which IS definitely for the best.  All the same, my choice as a player is limited, the character I might want to portray is limited, and thus my experience, like the freedom of my virtual nether regions, is bound and limited.

 

If you’re still with me, congratulations!  You gained +1 internetz tolerance.. or troublesome curiosity… hard to say, but let’s continue unabashed.

Really though, this is serious business.  Because underneath it all (LOL underwear joke), I want to uncover a few unpleasant realities that are found in the story telling design of Guild Wars 2.

I know, let that sink in. It was pretty hard to type.  There are flaws in this beautiful, wonderful, designed-so-brilliantly-it-can-cause-physical-pain-to-stop-playing game.

As addressed above, player choice is a difficult thing to balance.  On the one hand, games emulate parts of real life, which is a very complicated thing to copy.  Games also allow us to do things that we aren’t able to do in real life; games are freeing.  And yet, the reality is, the more freedom you put into a game, the more complicated it becomes in every freaking way.  Be it from a technical standpoint of actually coding the the ideas game designers imagine relentlessly regarding player choice, or from a responsibility standpoint of, well, not letting players crusade across the land stark butt naked.  Add deadline and budget on top, and it’s easy to understand why game developers often cut features that expand player freedom.  Because, well, they have to.

But sometimes that’s no excuse.  Because sometimes, they didn’t have to.  But they did anyway.

Guild Wars 2.   My dearest beloved.  To paraphrase a quote a young Nabooian Queen once said, “You’re going down a path I cannot follow.. but I have to anyway as you force choke the words right out of my character’s mouth!!!”

If you haven’t yet played the game, let me quickly say, the issue is not in the worldbuilding story side of the game, the NPC’s around any given city or town are both hilarious and interesting.  You may see children playing hide and seek in the streets, or some shadier looking folk talking about the politics of their leaders in a dark ally.   It’s fantastic stuff.

No, the issue is in the “personal story”, the “individualized” tale your own character embarks on from the very moment you create him or her.  ArenaNet toted this as a huge selling point for the game’s progressive attitude, and to be fair, there are moments where your character makes some pretty significant choices.  But they only affect your own story, they only happen occasionally, and most importantly of all, they don’t really change the overarching story of your character.  At any major story point, a cut scene will take place, in which you lose all control over your character’s …well, character.  They become ArenaNet’s character, and you are unable to control their actions or words or anything.  You are THE HERO, no matter what.  NO MATTER WHAT.  You could have just gleefully murdered a town of Skritt and stolen everything they owned, gone for a run through the city of Divinity’s Reach in your underpants (though, alas, not totaly naked), and punched a friendly dolphin in the face all in one day, and you would still be THE HERO.

 

 

I really, really hate to say it, but in some ways Star Wars: The Old Republic’s individual story telling was better.  SOME WAYS.  In SWTOR, even though your choices were ultimately of little consequence to the world around you (same as GW2′s personal story I’m afraid, which is at least in part remedied by Dynamic Events), you always got to say what you wanted to say, or something close to it.  You DIDN’T have to be THE HERO, because that would be (and is) boring for every player to basically be the same person at the end of the day.  Good, evil, or in between, it’s for you to decide.

Here’s the really really aggravating part.  Guild Wars 2 came this close to actually giving the player some meaningful freedom, as A-Net writer Ree Soesbee says:

In the first stages of production of Guild Wars 2, we discussed what we wanted from the character’s choices. Would we allow “evil” actions? Villainous characters? What about anti-heroes? In the end, we decided that we wanted to follow in the footsteps of the original Guild Wars game. Much like Jeff said: the player character is a hero.

It’s one thing when you can criticize a game for falling short, because, well, it just fell short.  It’s another to see the developers deliberately choose, within their ability, to limit the player.  Especially in something like story which, by nature, goes to the very core of who your character IS.  I love Ree, I love her work in building the world of GW2, I love a number of the other characters I’ve come across, I just don’t love me.  I’m too perfect, too good.  To all-star hot-shot knows-it-all.  Sure everyone wants to be that, but here’s the exciting part; we’re not!!  And it’s in trying to be better where our stories become interesting, not in being super-duper off the bat.  In RP, we call such characters ”Mary Sues”.  And indeed, they are common among the gaming industry as well; perfect heroes ever resolute, charming, and with great bods.  Even WoW, a universe I consider one of the best built fantasy anythings ever has Thrall, a huge Mary Sue that has not stopped Mary Sueing since his first steps in Warcraft lore; games and books alike.  These are not interesting characters!  Yes, they can serve a purpose, they can even inspire to a degree, but they rarely achieve anything really emotionally meaningful in their story.  It is misjudgment and/or hubris to say all players should be THE HERO.

Bitching aside, the overall track record for what ArenaNet has done with narrative in GW2 so far is good.  Overall, I’d even say it’s better than what any other mmorpg before it has done in terms of immersion of lore, and presenting a wholly original fantasy world.  But there are shortcomings, big ones, in my humble blogger opinion, compared to what could have been done within A-Nets power.

Of course, the wonders of Roleplay also help remedy some of this, but only if you separate your RP character from what is presented as “your character” in every cut scene along the way.  But, that is the advantage of an MMORPG, we have some space to make a largely theme park game more of a sandbox game.  We have the freedom to pursue freedom where the game does not deliberately or intentionally offer it.

tl-dr

In the story of Guild Wars 2, the player is forced into a role that they have little defining power over.  While giving any freedom to the player means complication, expanding the player’s freedom is what great companies like ArenaNet do best… when they don’t miss the opportunity and fall annoyingly short.

p.s. Ask Jacob about the commando robes thing sometimes, it’s a fun story.  Mostly fun for me

Ding! You’ve Leveled Up! Please see your local librarian for training.

Before we dive in, I think a lot of you might assume where this might go; i.e. along the lines of BLIZZARD RUINED EVERYTHING QQQ MY DEAR SWEET AZEROTH CAUGHT THE PANDA BUG AND IT’S A TERMINAL ONE WAY SELL OUT TRIP TO CHINA WHY YOU NO LOVE ME BLIZZARD WHY.

Gosh, that felt probably a little too much like the actual emotion I have on this subject than it should have.. but then, that’s also sorta the point!  We care!  Like, a lot!  (you are a member of “we” if you, too, care)  And, frankly, Pandas aren’t really the reason we’re upset with Blizzard. Pandas are awesome animals and the Pandaren race, before this whole “let’s take them seriously” Blizzard shenanigans kicked off, were an alright concept.  Maybe from a distance.  To be handled with care.  Unlike what happened.

 

 

Now, this topic has already been beaten to death months ago around the internet, but while there has been plenty of ”Pandas suck!” or “Leave Pandas Alone!” talk, there wasn’t a lot saying why we freaking care!

Mists Of Pandaria is the fourth expansion to the World of Warcraft MMORPG, and Blizzard’s first experience in what could be real financial humility.. if we’re calling 9.1 million subscribers down from 13 million “humility” these days (hint: we are).   They’ve had to tuck their tail a bit about some other stuff before, but that’s all behind us, and nothing Big Brother Blizz ever did really hurt them much.  Until now.

And OK, to be fair, the meme above isn’t totally on mark because WoW is an old game, Guild Wars 2 is better anyway, mmos are finally progressing, blah blah blah, but look at the likes and dislikes for the announcement World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria Preview Trailer.

Something definitely caused some serious ire in the hands of WoW fans to click “dislike” so very very much.  That’s not a “I don’t care about WoW anymore” attitude you’re seeing reflected in 30,000 dislikes, that’s a public denouncement.

To understand what we’re seeing here, let’s back up.

The actual World of Warcraft, the fictional universe the game takes place in, is truly one of the largest fictional creations in history.  Blizzard has been building on this universe for decades, and building on it intensely.  Believe me, I spent a good part of my wow experience in charge of my guild’s Roleplay (directing the story of the guild), a single event could take a few hours to map together, because WoW is SO FREAKING HUGE (second biggest wiki for it in the world, just after wikipedia).  And it’s wonderful.

If there is one thing Blizzard did right with WoW, above all else perhaps, I would give it to the lore and worldbuilding put into the game.  There are countless characters that show up and disappear with unexpected plot twists, powerful emotional stories and relationships spanning different planets, mysteries only hinted at like the orgin of the Old Gods and the Titans, and tragic plotlines unfolded such as that of Arthas, the Lich King.  And every single one of them ties into the others in some way, ever carrying the epic tale of Azeroth forward.  Pardon my language here, but all together, it’s a mindfuck of lore.  Really really good lore (something I’ve written about before!).  And it’s that connectivity that makes it amazing.  It’s that sense of “too much to comprehend”, it’s having multiple perspectives from different factions, its feeling pride and pain for other characters (player and non-player alike), it’s all of that together and more that creates a sense of fictional realism.   

After all that, I guess it really goes without saying, we the players become emotionally attached.  So what the hell happened?

 

 

Specifically, something called “Worldbreaking” (it would seem Deathwing had his way after all!) <–that’s a lore joke folks.  You see, before MoP (Mists of Pandaria) was announced, there was tons of speculation about what the next chapter of Azeroth would be.  Would we chase after the Burning Legion again?  After all, we only banished their ruler in the Burning Crusade expansion.  Would we uncover the real mystery of the Titans?  After all, we only glimpsed their power in the Wrath of the Lich King expansion.  Would we see the Horde and Alliance succumb to infighting?  After all, the Undead, Dwarves, Trolls, and others come to think of it.. all of them crossed boundaries and dabbled in backstabbery in this last expansion, and we saw many the leader’s stories developed to show their “human sides” consequently.  Or maybe we would explore the Emerald Dream, an alternate universe we’ve known about that’s been central to WoW since the beginning, but a place we’ve never been able to set foot in!  After all, we just stopped Deathwing from breaking the whole world, now would be a perfect time to check on the Dream since it’s supposed to be our back up!  OR-

Wait.

Wait, what?

There’s… a continent on this planet.. we’ve never heard of… at all for the past hundred thousand years..  full of drunk panda monks?  Wasn’t that the race Blizzard used for an April fool’s joke once?  And.. part of said continent is a giant floating turtle.. and wait wait, this peaceful race of pandas.. can join the Horde OR Alliance.. and will thus kill their own kind.. because they need to unite with the other races to.. heal the world.  Even though the other races have turned to all out war.

MoP is literally the great awkward turtle of WoW lore.  And THAT’S why we’re upset.

This universe we’ve become emotionally invested into, whether it was simply “FOR THE [insert chosen faction here]” loyalty most WoW players feel, or a much deeper connection to the grand story of Azeroth, has been rudely pushed aside, and gone south.. to Pandaria (it’s South on the map..)<– More lore jokes!

Note, while we’re here, Guild Wars 2 has it’s own Polar Bear race, and the Devs have even written about the race in depth, because ArenaNet is proving it rocks at worldbuilding (more on this in future posts).  And you know what? The Kodan race is totally badass, no one has a problem with them, and I fully anticipate the Kodan to be a playable race down the road (along wih the Tengu). For a game like WoW, a race of Drunken Panda Monks could totally fly high and proud (we have space goats after all) if they had simply been introduced and implemented differently (not as an April Fool’s joke for one!), as an integrated part of the overarching story that is World of Warcraft.

tl-dr

Powerful worldbuilding is about creating complex connections and relationships in a fictional world.  The player becomes part of those connections, becomes emotionally invested in them, and when those  connections are, well, ignored.. we get upset.  ”Upset” is also an understatement.

p.s.  Watch This

Ding! You’ve Leveled Up! Please see your local librarian for training.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License 

Game Design.

The act of designing games.

…Designing good games.

it can feel kinda like this:

 

 

How on earth would I know?  Well, I started doing it!  And believe me, the opportunity I have right now makes me giggle more than I used to giggle getting new Thomas the Tank Engine toys.  Awesome work, awesome people; awesomeness achievement unlocked.  So today I’m gonna share a bit of what I’ve learned so far.

I actually can’t share a ton of detailed info here since the game in question is an unreleased product and all, but what I can tell you is that I am currently working on the U.S. Department of Energy’s Gaming Project.  Basically, we’re building a mobile app game to exemplify the real life role of the DOE in a fun, engaging way so people understand their government a bit better. Bolster STEM fields. You know, serious games stuff.  Except we’re trying really hard to also make the game fun.  And we’re doing it with a really really really low budget.  Like, revolutionary low as far as building a decent game goes.  That’s about all I can tell you about the project itself right now, believe me, there will be updates down the road!

Back to game design.  Before the DOE game I had a bit of experience with building games from scratch a la homemade board games I used to make with my brother and, you know, reading about it and that sort of abstract stuff.  Turns out, the old homemade stuff is King after all (this is the part where Scott pops his head into my post nodding vigorously; the man knows his tabletop gaming).  When I first started diving into this game design stuff, I wanted to be all techy, lay out my levels with mouse firmly grasped in my right hand, left hand poised over my keypad, iPad in lap, and a clear desk cluttered only by my cat’s fuzzy arse for the full evil genius effect.  I’m literally looking around my desk right now, and it’s sprawling with jotted notes, printed notes, printed notes with jotted notes, pencils, paper, one of those horrible/wonderful little energy drink-dropper things… the only thing that WAS anticipated is the cat, and she’s really only here for my computer’s hot air vent anyway.

What happened?!

Turns out designing levels with anything BUT pencil and paper, at least initially, is a quick way to get the old bookshelf treatment demonstrated in the above gif.  Before I fell humbly back to basics, however, I tried just about everything to layout my designs, and subsequently went through my options faster than Star Wars: The Old Republic could turn it’s Jabba sized rear around and go free to play (in actuality this took almost a year I guess, and I went through my options in a matter of days. Still, the imagery of Jabba The Hutt hauling ass in any direction is an enjoyable one… /end derail).

Now, when I say I tried “everything else”, I basically went tomb raiding to find potential ways of making my job easier via the miracle of technology.  My favorite program uncovered was an RPG map builder called autoREALM, which essentially let me lay out my levels with a nice Lord of the Rings feel, and while the dragon-tipped mountains were fun, maybe not so much in line with the whole modern energy problem solving theme.  From there I passed through the forests of Google Sketch-Up, the bold mountains of Paint.net, a quick skirmish trying to directly use Unity with me the total loser, poked about the rest of the internet and ended up on plain old windows paint.  And let me tell you, crop half a level layout the wrong way and realizing it causes a massive flaw in your design down the road; OMFG NOT FUN.

Pencil and paper friends, the miracle of the eraser.

And really, I should have known better.  Back when I went to that Games for Change thing, Nick Fortugno (co-founder of playmatics) did a hands on workshop on game design using nothing more than construction paper and crayons.  It was almost a part of the conference I missed, but it was sage advice, friends.  Sage advice I didn’t even realize was sage advice.  In the workshop we were split into random groups, given our play-time “design tools”, and told to make a game.  Dumb.  Also brilliant.

My table was at first extremely hesitant to jump in, and things were socially awkward for a few minutes while we twirled crayons in anxious hope for some direction.  None came.  I tossed an idea out to the table, and thus “Planet Blargonoid” was born; a game that teaches kids about the pros and cons to democracy by plopping them in a space colony in Planet Blargonoid and letting the kiddies have at it for power.  I’m kicking myself for not being able to find the design layout we scribbled (and I do mean scribbled) down on our sheet of construction paper, but the game essentially worked by bringing up issues in the colony, and students running for power and convincing others to vote for their solutions.  Any solution was viable so long as it had support and the resources to pull it off; open roleplaying if you will.  We made a game from crayons and paper, because game design at it’s core, as Nick said, is basic drawable concepts, and at first they will almost always fail horribly.  You NEED an eraser.  Or fresh crayons, whatever works.

And really, I think that might be the theme of game design, at least the initial part of it: whatever works.  Games, even simple ones, are complex under the hood.  Like, I’m doing math for this work, I swore I’d never touch math again after High School!!!! (although, strangely, when I’m doing math for something I enjoy, it’s totally awesome… what’s that? Gamify school my brain whispers?).  The important thing is doing, not even doing right at first, just getting ideas out, jotting and noting and testing and occasional cat-pettingly reflecting and then doing it all again until it IS getting done right.

tl-dr

When making a game from the ground up; balancing, tweaking, and finding out when things work horribly wrong and go bookshelf crazy on you, a whatever works attitude is necessary .  The tech can come later, but first thing is getting it down on paper.  Scribbling is bonus points.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License

Today we’re gonna take another trip on the fanboy interstate, and like before, GuildMag will be driving with their fourth Blog Carnival!  ”Five years of waiting for Guild Wars 2” is the topic at hand… five years is a little over one fourth of my existence.

So…

yeaaaaaaahhh.

Naturally I jumped on this opportunity to talk about the greatest game to ever saunter towards existence (you know, cuz it’s not actually released yet and all), but five years ago I was a 7th grader battling my way through the great awkward hell known as middle school.  I wasn’t one of the people who saw the press release from ArenaNet announcing GW2 minutes after it happened singing hallelujah, I wasn’t one of the people that caught sight of it in the corner of their eye on some video game news site.  I wasn’t even a semi-logical functioning adult yet!

(note: the above pic is also why I’m NOT doing the tl-dr artistic redesign (pst pst we still need someone! Email us! Help us!))

I had no clue Guild Wars 2 existed five years back.  Or the original Guild Wars.  Or World of Warcraft.  I think I played Game Cube stuff mostly…

Point is, we’re gonna have to fast forward here a bit if we actually want to talk about Guild Wars 2.  Except that’s exactly what they expect me to do!  (“They” is Jacob, resident slaver around here) So let’s talk about why nearly five years of Guild Wars 2 ignorance makes GW2 even more beautiful.

So where exactly was I five years ago?  My friend MDSRocker (his gamer name) who went to school with me way back when (btw go read his blog, it’s pretty great), reminded me that I was, um, trying to create a “holiday” at the time.  Specifically an “Innocent Victims of War Memorial Day” or “IVM Day” for short. Evidently, I wasn’t exactly a cut and paste kinda kid.  I gave speeches, pinned up flyers, and sent the whole package off to the United Nations with some 300 signatures gathered by my little team and I (here’s the online petition I created from way back when).  Annnnnnnd the UN sent back a thank you note.  It was more than a little discouraging, and when the school year ended momentum for the whole thing kinda fell apart.

Well, subsequently, I got pretty darn depressed.  I know I know, blogging about emotions is so 2011!  But really, the simple fact was I tried really hard to do something I believed in, and I fell short.  13 year old me learned a hard truth; the world isn’t on anyone’s side, and sometimes we still fail no matter how good our intentions.  Two long years later, however, it was World of Warcraft that got me back on my feet.  Two years of banging my head against a wall trying to convince myself to keep trying, but not actually feeling like trying to do anything at all; two years of feeling stuck.  It was WoW that made me resilient, made me finally feel like trying again, and if you don’t believe me go watch this recent TEDTalk by Jane McGonigal.  This is also where I give another big sappy love-you-thank-you to my guild since it was them as much as anything that helped me

That brings us up to about a year and a half ago when everything took another exciting turn; I began to honestly question if I was gay.  I also started to get excited about Guild Wars 2.  Course, they had nothing to do with each other, but they will!  …sorta.. just keep reading.

At this point I was working in the U.S. Congress as a page and had said farewell to WoW, and I believed my future was probably directed down the political path (read this post to see how that plan has changed).  But, frankly, I was desperately trying to convince myself I didn’t have feelings for guys that I was “supposed” to have for girls, how could I aspire to anything great as a gay man (ridiculous I know now), and it just wasn’t at all who I wanted to be, or even who my family wanted me to be.  To derail a bit here, my parents have done an incredible job overcoming that hurtle with me, it was a bit messy at times, yet ultimately, it was another lesson in resilience for all of us.

Allowing myself to accept my sexuality was a matter of understanding that I don’t have to be like anyone else.  Period.  All my life I’ve watched movies and played games where male protagonists and heroes were off trying to save some girl, or fighting alongside some girl, or girls girls girls girls.  Ridiculous as it may seem, Kurt Hummel, the gay kid played by Chris Colffer in Glee (A show that is now truly a foray into painful screenwriting fallen from it’s glory days) was one of the first anythings to make me feel ok for how I felt, because of how widely beloved the character became, how accepted.

I’ve talked before about the importance of sexual diversity in games, but here it is again: if gay is ever going to be normal, not better, not worse, but truly normal, we need it to exist in media as normal.  Media inspires and propagates ideas for better or worse.  When I heard that the GW2 race of Sylvari have no judgement on sexuality, that they simply love whomever they love, and that ArenaNet deliberately didn’t try to prop up the issue and kept it normal, I fell in love with the game and the company making it.  An entire society that puts less emphasis on sexuality than they do hair color, to be explored in a world filled with millions of real people; that’s some powerful stuff.

It hasn’t even been a full year since I really came out, so it feels kinda strange reflecting on it, along with all the other stuff I talked about.  But here I am, all “grown up”-ish, right next to Guild Wars 2.  My life is really incredible at this point, and I’m wildly thankful for all parts of it, and everything yet to come.  I haven’t really talked a whole lot about all the parts that make GW2 great here, but I don’t think that’s the point.  More and more about GW2 has been revealed over the last few years, and really I feel kinda similar about myself. Sure it’s kinda silly, but that’s what “Five Years of Waiting For Guild Wars 2″ has been for me; learning more about who “me” is too.

tl-dr

I know first hand the power of video games, MMOs in particular for me, and we’re about to witness the next great step in MMO history to be released later this month.  I’m ready to set foot in an epic world full of epic people again, and grow even more as a person with it.

Ding! You’ve Leveled Up! Please see your local librarian for training.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License

Last week we had James Portnow from the Extra Credits team (also CEO of Rainmaker Games) answer some questions for us, but, because he actually answered them thoughtfully and constructively (who knew right?!), we split the Q&A into two parts, and today we present the second half!  Here’s a link to the first half if you missed it, with topics such as gamified education and thoughts on the games industry.  So without further ado, sit back, take a breather from fanboying (or fangirling) over the last Guild Wars 2 beta weekend, and enjoy a little more Extra Credity goodness!

 

Q:  How about gamifying government? Voting, in terms of game design, is a pretty poor incentive, as demonstrated by the poor U.S. voter turnout. Do you think game concepts could be applied to even the most central parts of our society, such as the workings of democracy?

A:  Eh, I really shouldn’t comment here. I feel as though the incentive structure and the engagement curve on modern politics has been purposely manipulated to make certain groups of people feel disenfranchised. I know it’s a little bit of my conspiranoia but I really do feel as though I can see how modern politics (especially through some of the modern news casting) has taken the engaging sections of politics and intentionally flipped the engagement curve for specific subsets of people through messaging.

If you live in the US your thought should be “I get to help make decisions for the most powerful, most influential country in the world”, that’s awesome and exciting – and it’s what you’re actually doing – but for many people it’s come to be “my vote doesn’t matter”, even though that’s scientifically, demonstrably, not true.

Q:  Here’s a challenge question: what is your favorite and most beloved game narrative? Why did that one win out?

A:  If you have a favorite game narrative you haven’t played enough games ; )

Q:  On a related note, writing the narrative to a game is very different from writing a regular script or story, but can be equally touching or provoking. How long do you think it will be before games will be critically acclaimed for their depth and meaning on the same level as great literature or film?

A:  I think we’ll be a little behind graphic novels. Pop culture is starting to accept the validity of sequential art as a medium I’m not sure we’ll be that far off (if I had to take a safe wager I’d say within the decade).

Q:  On the story train of thought: do you think we’ll ever see a big return of deep central characters and character development in the industry from Japanese RPG developers? Or is the role of creating powerful characters and central story at risk compared to Western RPG popularity? Could we see a new genre of story driven games delivered in more modern ways than most current JRPGs offer?

A:  Alright, here I’m going to sound like a git, but there is simply no way that you’re going to argue to me that the RPG with a strong centralized story is a thing of the past: the real problem is simply that of late (with some notable exceptions) Japanese developers have just been missing the mark. Or, I’ll be more blunt: they’ve been being terrible at the narrative part of a narrative driven genre. This in no way means that the genre has a failing, only that people haven’t been executing on it well.

In some ways it is akin to the Japanese anime industry. When the anime industry finally got to the point where they had the budgets the training and the technology to tell the stories they wanted to tell they were able to deliver some remarkable works, and those works were even considered mainstream; unfortunately after those works became hugely successful they were then seen as templates rather than freestanding works and so the superficial elements were copied over and over without any real understanding of the soul of the work.

That coupled with a move away from investing in narrative to an investment in high end graphics has kept the JRPG industry (in general, again with clear exceptions) from delivering the level of narrative the genre demands.

Q:  What are your thoughts on what distinguishes “casual gamers” from “hardcore gamers”? What about “casual games” v.s. “hardcore games”?

Opinion.

Q: Finally, is there any significance to your goatee? It’s a pretty awesome one.

A:  Bwahahaha…When I bite my lower lip I can make it look like a porcupine…which my nieces love.

 

There you have it!  Again, big thanks from all of us at tl-dr to James for giving us his time.  Although I will note he didn’t really answer the last question, which can only mean there’s a huge conspiracy surrounding Mr. Portnow’s facial hair.   Also, Jacob is gonna kill me for not getting an elaboration on the hardcore question, though thankfully, Diane and I are forming an Anti-abuse tl-dr union for just such dangers.  Say no to blogger abuse!

Now go watch some Extra Credits!

Alright gang, today we have something special!  James Portnow from the Extra Credits team agreed to answer some questions for us, and answer them he did!  In fact, the answers were so awesome, this is going to have to be two parts, so come back next week when we dissect James’s brain even more.  If you don’t know about Extra Credits, check them out, they do an amazing job examining everything ever to do with games.  James himself is also the CEO of Rainmaker Games, a consulting firm that keeps it’s clients games on track and not heading to “wow-this-causes-me-physical-harm-when-I-play-it” town, and he’s had some impressive clients to boot!  I met James briefly at PAXEast, and he is a sincerely cool guy, so without further ado, let the inquisition begin!

 

Q:  What’s your biggest issue with the game industry right now? What do you think the industry is doing really well?

A:  The biggest issue with “the games industry” is that we still view the AAA industry as “the games industry” when it holds less than 50% market share. And the biggest problem with the AAA industry (and thus “the games industry”) is that we’ve chosen to compete in an ever higher budget, and thus lower risk, category: graphics. If this trend doesn’t stop, the AAA industry will simply end up being a tiny handful of companies releasing half a dozen samey blockbuster titles every year.

As to what we are doing well? We’re breaking down the barriers of what a game is and we’re creating new methods of distribution so that the barrier to making a game is substantially lower than when I started in this industry. This has lead to a phenomenal increase in innovation over the last few years…now if we could just see that innovation trickle up towards the AAA more often we’d really be in good shape.

Q:  With “augmented reality” technology just around the corner, what’s your vision for how things like Google Glass might shape the future of gaming? How excited should we be, and how worried?

A:  It’ll bring gaming to the ‘real world’ and allow an environment where your game life and your real world life aren’t really separate things. This is exciting but terrifying. It offers incredible new possibilities for design but horrible new prospects for advertisements and subtle, exploitive monetization.

Q:  We’re curious about how you distinguish good gamification from bad gamification, and how exactly do we go about drawing that line as gamification ideas continue to pop up!

A:  Good gamification goes beyond badges and points. These systems are just a Skinner Box, they focus solely on extrinsic rewards. Good gamificaiton focuses on the intrinsic value of the real world activity it is trying to gamify.

Q:  We’ve seen Valve’s “Teach with Portals” program starting up, do you think other big names in the game industry will see value in crossing from making entertainment products, to making games that have a more powerful effect on reality? There is a lot of risk in trying to design games that could have powerful effects, and so many games fall flat because they overestimate their ability, how can we make these games happen successfully?

A:  Well, unfortunately a lot of it depends on how profitable the Teach with Portals initiative is, but assuming it’s a success for Valve, then yes, we’ll see other entrants into that category. There is of course a lot of danger here as we can’t have the same level of haphazard disregard that we sometimes show in entertainment games (such as the “the threat of rape will make you want to ‘protect’ Lara Croft” statement recently issued) can’t be show in educational products. To make these successful we really need to cross the gap and extend the olive branch to professional educators, getting them on board and advising us on how to really build out educational content. We know how to entertain, but I think it would be hubris to think that we’re better at educating than people who have years of experience and a deep tradition of thinking about how to do so.

Q:  You’ve talked a lot about “gamifying education”, if such a thing could be achieved, what role would teachers play, and what role would game designers play?

A:  The teacher would be the DM, the designer would write the module (and any of you who play D&D know how much any DM worth their salt can [does] change, alter, and personalize any module given to be something radically different from the original creation).

Q:  Continuing on the education route, for current top tier courses like the APs (Advanced Placement) that teach to a standardized test, how difficult would it be to implement smart gamification that would give students more academic freedom? Could standardized testing and gamification live in harmony?

A:  So… I have only one comment on assessment. Right now assessment is binary: you fill out a sheet of paper, you hand it in, and a few weeks later you get it back to find out whether you were right or wrong. This isn’t how the world works. This isn’t a 21st century approach. Today most employers (especially for anything we’d consider a job that provides a ‘middle class’ wage) don’t care if you get things right on the first try, rather they care about how quickly you can come to an excellent solution. Most company’s put higher value on the person who can do something in an hour, having to test and iterate on it a few times in that hour (i.e. being wrong the first time or two) than the guy who can get the same job done in a day and get it right on the first try (this of course comes with the caveate that the person who is iterating is aware that they might be wrong and is checking their work rather than just handing it off to do damage down the chain…but that’s going to be true of decent employee [i.e. the type of people we want our schools to produce]). Games give immediate feedback, they could be an incredible tool in making the transition from binary testing to efficiency testing. Let’s hope we see it.

 

That wraps up part one of our Q&A with James, huge thanks to him for giving us his time!  Next Tuesday the epicness will continue with part two!  

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License

Gosh, so much to talk about, like, I actually don’t know where to start with this one, I let too much happen without writing about it!

This.  This is why I have been sparse on the doing of the blogging.

 

 

But now it’s time to get back into CHANGE THE WORLD MODE… or something.  A happy medium of ice cream and world changing would be ideal.

But no really, if there is a single place that makes it seem like changing the world with games is possible, it’s the Games For Change festival.  The USAID workshop I got to attend just adds to the “yes we really can!” flavor.

Games. I honestly believe this is the word of the future, it’s not just an idealistic “oh yes, that would be nice, ain’t gonna happen doh!”  kinda thing at all.  Organizations and companies alike are starting, more than ever, to turn their eyes to games with honest interest and curiosity.  Not just, y’know, all too familiar disapproval or dismissive “gamesLOLWUT?”  Still, not everyone – not nearly everyone – is like us. It’s easy to believe the entire world is as hyped about Games For Change when you’re surrounded by other gung-ho “yes we can!”-ers, and that’s not the reality, but there is plenty of good news for the.. movement?  Is that what this is?

Hold up, tangent time.

In a way, yes, this is a social movement, since the motivation behind “Games for Change” isn’t strictly business oriented (more on that in a sec), there is a clear energy and drive to make Reality Changing Games with the intent of improving society.  The Games For Change conference uses this description by Laura Pincus to boot:

The place where people who are best at making games meet the world experts in social change

But at the same time.. people get paid to make successful games, and no doubt about it, everyone at G4C wants to make successful games.  That’s the danger we have to be weary of; carefully navigating the line between “Let’s make the world better!” and “MMMMM money, I smellz it!”.  In a way, there is an irony that RCGs are being taken more seriously since there is a potential monetary reward, while the core of the “movement” has more intrinsic, altruistic desires.  It’s like, a reward was placed on something in the real world, and now people want to do it, that’s not an unfamiliar concept at all or anything.. This isn’t bad at all per se; the fact that there IS so much growing interest is a sign the movement will be successful; we just have to be careful with it.

This movementy thing can do great things, and already is!  So.. what’s next?

Jane McGonigal has said a lot of awesome stuff, such as her belief that there will be a future in which “games once again are explicitly designed to improve quality of life, to prevent suffering, and to create real, widespread happiness”, which I am totally all for, but here’s a quick plug from her keynote at G4C:

Games can turn apathy into action.  Now how do we measure that action?

And Jim Gee said:

Don’t invest in anything that isn’t problem solving, all you get is a bunch of smart people doing dumb things!

Why do I pick these two quotes from the festival in particular?  Because together they say something even more powerful:

*Note: It might have actually been Volatiar who coined this one, but there aren’t so many pics of Volatair giving the thumbs up..

RCGs DO have huge power, and huge potential (I want to start going more in depth with some of these games, but that’s for another post(s)!).  There is a responsibility to understand the power these games have, a responsibility to use that power for good! And let me say, everyone I met at G4C (from which I took home some 60+ business cards x_x ) was unique, forward thinking, and most importantly, cautious with terms like “gamification” and constructively critical about RCGs.  This movementy thing is, I believe, in the best of hands right now.  Perhaps the winning mantra of successful games is “Do it right, or don’t do it at all”, and I heard and saw a lot of that mindset at G4C.

One of my biggest gripes about the conference, however, was the lack of youth and student representation.  Many of these games are targeted at people my age or younger.  Ultimately, we’re the ones who will control how successful and effective many of these games end up, so there needs to be a youth voice in this movement.  I have some plans for this, and we’ll get back to that in a later post  Even the federal government is looking at games seriously by creating a Federal Games Guild based from the White House!  My young brothers and sisters out there, it’s time to get engaged here.

USAID Democracy, Human Rights, and Governance

So.  This was so freaking cool I don’t even.  I met Maryanne Yerkes at G4C, she’s the Senior Civil Society Advisor at the US Agency for International Development, and her partner in crime, Democracy Specialist Dr. Carol Sahley.  Next thing I knew, I was invited to be a part of a discussion at the USAID DRG workshop in DC the following week.  Just walking in the front doors of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace where the event was held felt like it was against every rule of being 18, and it was so so cool.  Did I mention it was cool?

The discussion I got to participate in specifically was on Youth Engagement, and how to make it, well, work better.  Huge props to the awesome work they’re doing with youth in foreign countries, and at home!  I was by far the least educated one present; yet, when I had the opportunity to talk about the potential of online tools, including games, to deliver a sense of agency and purpose to youth in countries facing “DRG” issues, these people listened.

The government listened to an 18 year old kid with a bad Bieber complex talk, albeit briefly, about how video games could help the world.

What’s more, these people are on the ball, they know the power of social media, and they aren’t about to miss the next big wave of modern media power.  The discussion wasn’t nearly long enough, but if I could, I’d thank every person in that room for the openness and forward thinking I got to witness and engage in.

Was it enough? Not nearly. But.  It’s something, it’s a very promising, lovable, gamtastic and social changy thing.  And that thing is on the move.

On a personal note, I’m going to be an incoming freshman at the University of Maryland College Park in the fall.  Now, for a long time I saw my future lying primarily in politics, since that was the best way I believed I could make a positive change.  That hasn’t entirely changed, since my interest in gamification/RCGs in the first place was to improve our democratic process.  However, I’ve come to believe games and the Internet have the potential to bring the changes this world needs better than any politician might hope to, to which end I’ll be dropping my Government and Politics intended major, and instead make my own in Democratic Globalization & Modern Multimedia Engagement.  Games can change the future of this planet, and I wholeheartedly intend to be a part of that change.  And if I do end up a politician anyway, well, at least I’ll have some real skills on me as well ;p

tl-dr

This movement to make the world better through games is happening in a very real and growing way.  I believe that it is in good hands, and the amount of care with which it’s being handled is encouraging.  We have to keep guiding it as carefully as we can, but all signs point to “Yes, we really can!”

Ding! You’ve leveled up! Please see your local librarian for training.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License