Students presenting in SecondLife - one last time!

The students from qualitative research methods during the Spring 2010 semester presented the results of their project during public talks in Second Life on our school island. They talked about art, music, games, dance clubs, tinies, anonymity, relationships, brands, real world architecture, and pregnancy in Second Life.  We have about 12 sessions total with usually two students presenting at a time. So far, we have had nice crowds at the sessions and I didn't have to eject anyone. Thanks to everyone who came out to listen and ask questions.

Here are a few pictures

From the relationship talk, here's what the presenter sees:

From one of the sports presentations, a view of one of the students and the images she used to illustrate her talk. She's wearing clothes she got at a tennis club in SecondLife.

More pictures can be seen here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/kgregson/sets/72157623921898667/

End of the Semester - Post 1

IN the business of gaming class we had a play test session for our final. They had to turn in a short paper, but the focus was on games and donuts. One of the students in class - Mack Cameron - has developed a variety of board games in his spare time. So we play tested the Croquet game - actually based on croquet but with some very fun modifications - like being able to send the ball right at another player.  Lots of good violence and scheming was engaged in by all.

We also had a group playing Halo. We had hoped to play the Halo multiplayer beta but of course our wireless in the classroom wouldn't talk to the wireless receiver in the XBox. As the students said - what else is new.

Here are some pics of us having fun..ending up the semester as a pretty tight group that hopefully will do things together next year to make fun games.

More pics are here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/kgregson/sets/72157624046039808/

End of the semester reactions to SecondLife

The students int eh Games & Society class had to write a final paper with their reactions to being content creators and consumers in SecondLife, plus anything else they wanted to say about their experiences.

Overall, the reactions were pretty positive. Maybe they were just blowing smoke up my skirt (figuratively since I don't wear skirts in class) to get a better grade. But I'm going to take them on face value.

Here's what theyliked
avatar customization
building tools
socializing with people from around the world
ability to host events
ability to create stuff
people were nice to them
people came to their party
people came to their presntations at the end of the semester
haunted mansions at Halloween


Here's what they didn't like
slow servers and software that just acted up occasionally
building took a lot of time
no goals, not clear what to do
no leveling up
limited game play
no good tutorials at the beginning - bad newbie experiences

Some thought SL should focus on builders and developers. Some thought SL should focus more on gamers. Others realized SL's future for business presentations. But they thought about SL and compared it to other things they know. This is a great improvement over some past classes who couldn't get any handle on what SL was. So I'm happy.

In reality, most won't use it again unless they have another class with me in the spring semester. But a few will. I was excited that they all managed to build things, they all went shopping and spent lindens; and they all talked to other people in the virtual world.And they all have had the expeirence of being content creators in a world that values such creators. That was one of my goals. And I think we accomplished that and much more. I was happy with how the semester turned out in terms of SL use. I'd do it again.

LInk to the games from this weekend's 24 hour game jam

24 Hour Game Jam sponsored by the IC Game Developers Club
The grups had to make a multi-level game using this quote as a constraint - "If you follow all the rules, you miss most the fun". Both groups decided to use GameMaker, software from YoYo Games.

Paradoxical Irony
Team consisted of Ashley Alicea (art), Ryan Giglio (programming), Carson Kjep (programming), and William Sisskind (level design). They all worked on the basic idea and how to implement the constraint
http://www.yoyogames.com/games/show/102725

Here are a few screen shots. More are available on request.

Jimmy's Crusade - http://www.yoyogames.com/games/show/103624

Team consisted of Corey Jeffers, Chris Hendrickson, Jymmy Hayes, Greg Schulz, Jacob Gergh, Megan Crosen

 

They survived - 24 hours of game making is successfully over!

The two groups both finished their games right at 2pm, 24 hours after their start. Each game had levels, theme music, obstacles, a win condition. One group kind of lost their way and need to do some rethinking, but their game was playable. The other group kept their original goal simple and tuck with it - although they did rethink how to program it about 2AM.

Here are a couple of screen shots:

Paradoxical Irony

Jimmy's Crusade




THe students are fixing a couple of last minute bugs they found when they played them. THen they'll put the games up on the YoYoGames website. WHen that happens I will put the links up so you can play them too. They're also supposed to give me some art and screen shots and post mortems. I'll post them too.

Here are some pictures of the students playing each others games. Everybody was offering advice on strategy and cheering as level after level was completed.

 

 

A reporter covered the event so if a story appears I'll link to it.I think everyone had a great time. We're all excited about going to the Global Game Jam in January 2010. THey learned to work together and draw on each other's talents.

A very successful first time event. Here's hoping for many more!

The Game Jam is Still Going

6:30 aM - Sunday morning and the groups are doing good work. They have plans on the chalk boards and tasks are actually crossed out. Whew. One group has a (hand drawn and awesome looking) dinosaur skeleton in their background and it's called Jimmy's Crusade. The other group has a game name now - Pardoxical Irony.

The rooms look lived in - there are pillow and cups and RedBull cans and chip bags laying around. We even have one person asleep! (well - there were 2 but i got up a couple of minutes ago)

And here are people hard at work.

 

Sunday Noon - people are dragging. Turns out overnight both groups scrapped a lot of their code and came at their ideas in different ways. For one group it seems to be working out (Paradoxical Irony). The other group is having some issues. But nobody's throwing chairs or cussing more than normal. Jimmy's Crusade is pretty sure they lost the fun somewhere. We'll see here in 90 minutes. The art guys are cranking out some interesting assets - dinosaur and lunchboxes, water and animated fire. Here are some pictures from noonish.

24 HOUR GAME JAM IS ON!

From 2pm Saturday to 2pm Sunday, people are cranking out videogames at Ithaca College in a 24 Hour Game Jam sponsored by our IC Game Developers Club. 2 groups, 2 games. It's fun in and of itself. But it's also a warm up for the Global Game Jam in January that we hope to send a big group to.

They have to use this quote somehow in the game - If you follow all the rules, you miss the fun. It might be inspiration, might become a line of dialogue...it's up to the students.

Group 1 - Carson Kjep, Ryan Giglio, William Sisskind, Ashley Alicea
Group 2 - Chris  "The Guitar Hero" Hendrickson, Jymmy "Skwee-G" Hayes, Corey "Ronin-Rampant" Jeffers, Jacob "still thinking of a nickname" Gergh, Megan "Red" Crosen

We have the major food groups - salt, sugar, and soda. We'll be adding protein I"m sure (do goldfish crackers count as protein?) And coffee - probably lots of coffee.

I'll add pictures here and updates on their progress. If you're on campus, come check us out in Williams 218 and 219. If you're off campus, leave comments here and give us some encouragement. Saturday's pictures and updates are in this post. Sunday's pics and updates are in the next post - http://profkim.blogspot.com/2009/11/game-jam-is-still-going.html

 

 Supper break about 7 - pizza (the other basic food group). We watched some music videos for a mental break.

10pm - 8 hours in. The teams have levels being planned, characters being sketched and animated, and game mechanics being hashed out. Everybody is looking pretty energetic except our student in Italy who's off fora couple of hours of sleep since it's really really late there already - that's him in the skype box on the computer screen.

MIdnight - well - 1AM - everybody is still pretty much moving and working. We had to take a break for a Bombers party sub from Rogans. They deliver at 12:30. Very weird sammich too - philly cheesesteak and breaded boneless buffalo chicken strips. Now they've opened up the Red Bull. Ewww! That's all I have to say about that.


The art "departments" are cranking out sprites and backgrounds. The level designers are trying to come up with cool levels (these games have to have at least 3 levels). The programmers are trying to make GameMaker do what they want and that involves (as most programming does) a lot of cussing.

 

Facebook games - a student newscast

Another group created a newscast about facebook games



Here are their show notes
Show Notes for Facebook Games!
Group Members:
 Sarah Lounsbury
 Colleen Muldowney
 Dave Zhao
Introduction (Approximately a minute long – gives the audience a general idea of what topic we will be discussing) (News Anchors: Colleen and Sarah)
“According to Nielsen NewView numbers for September, people spent an average of 5 hours and 46 minutes on Facebook. That is three times the amount spent on Google!”
Recently, gaming on social networks has become a very popular activity for the young and old alike.
Currently, Farmville is the top ranked game (with the most players) on Facebook. The top games in order of ranking are: Farmville, Mafia Wars, Farmtown, Pet Society, YoVille, TexasHoldEmPoker, Restaurant City, Mind Jolt Games, Farkle, and Bejeweled Blitz.
Farmville has 51.5 million users; Mafia Wars has approximate 22 million users; Farmtown has approximately 19 million users.
To attempt and get an idea of what all this hype was about, we created a blog and asked current Farmville players three questions: What they like about this game? How did they get involved in this game? What is their present level?
We will now cut over to Dave Zhao at the news desk to tell you a little background information on the Facebook game, Farmville.
Facebook Games: Background of Farmville (News Anchor: Dave)
Facebook has become one of the most popular social networking sites to date. And with the popularity, comes an innumerable amount of games. Millions of users log on in order to play these highly addictive games. One of the current most popular games happens to be made by a company known as Zynga. Zynga, founded by Mark Pincus, is the known creator of games such as Farmville. Farmville, a role-playing farm simulator, allows players to take to the fields and manage crops, livestock, and other farm related tasks. Gamers receive experience and wealth through successfully harvesting their crops, and over time, increase their overall experience level. As they increase in levels, players unlock a greater range of crops, livestock, and many other farm materials. Such simulators however, employ time-based systems. For instance, Farmers must wait anywhere from hours to days in order for their crops to be harvested correctly. This common “real-time” quality of Facebook games compels players to take a break, leaving players wanting more. Now I’m going to send it back over to Sarah who will discuss some of the first-hand accounts of Farmville users.


Opinions from real Farmville players off the forum we started (New Anchor Voice: Sarah) (Pictures of our neighbors farm’s on Facebook will scroll on the screen while Sarah reads some comments)
Hoosiermama63 – “Very cool project you've decided on! I'm currently level 34 and still enjoying every minute of my time spent playing this game. I got started playing when one of my FB friends sent me an invite, and became addicted quickly! My farm is my Happy Place. I love the quiet time I spend on here just doing my planting/harvesting/plowing. I enjoy getting ideas from other farmers on this forum and incorporating them in my version, on my farm. This is my little space on the web, away from the sometimes loud, oftentimes distracting hustle and bustle of everyday living.”
KeyboardWarrior – “Yea.. considering IPod takes 3 years to have a market share of 50million.. Facebook took 2 years. Farmville? In just about 3 months.”
BigMonster – (Reponding the question: What is your current level?) “35, and is the king in my office of 800 co workers, about 20% play the game and I love to brag about my achievements with co workers.”
Aiona – “it's also remarkably social. i have met tons of really cool people from all over the world through this game. i LOVE that. i also find myself keeping in better contact with my real life friends and family because of the time i spend on facebook playing farmville.”
Miss Molly – “I started playing several months ago. This is the first and only game I play. I am level 38. Reason I love it: No shooting and killing. Meet new friends and neighbors all over the world. I was introduced to the game by my children.”
Conclusion (Back to Sarah and Colleen)
We are about out of time but we thank you for tuning in. If you would like to read more comments from Farmville players please visit the link on your screen! (HYPERLINK "http://forums.zynga.com/showthread.php?t=223377"http://forums.zynga.com/showthread.php?t=223377) Have a good night.
Material that we researched but got cut out of the actual video footage:
Facebook has become one of the most popular social networking sites to date. And with the popularity, comes an innumerable amount of games. Millions of users log on in order to play these highly addictive games. Two of the current most popular games happen to be made by a company known as Zynga. Zynga, founded by Mark Pincus, is the known creator of games such as Farmville and Mafia Wars games. Farmville, a role-playing farm simulator, allows players to take to the fields and manage crops, livestock, and other farm related tasks. Gamers receive experience and wealth through successfully harvesting their crops, and over time, increase their overall experience level. As they increase in levels, players unlock a greater range of crops, livestock, and many other farm materials. Similarly, Mafia Wars parallels the life of a mobster, as players complete tasks such as robbing a warehouse and mugging. Mobsters gain levels by completing these, and other tasks, while also being able to battle other players. Weapons and getaway vehicles are among a few of the many items players can purchase as they progress through the game. Both of these simulators however, employ time-based systems. For instance, Farmers must wait anywhere from hours to days in order for their crops to be harvested correctly. Likewise, in order to complete jobs, mobsters in Mafia Wars must meet the required energy amount. Players recover energy gradually with time. This common “real-time” quality of Facebook games compels players to take a break, leaving players wanting more.
Some Facebook games come from board game type games (Simon, Uno)
Some games take off of the other games like Super Paper Pong, Crazy Taxi, and Snake
There are Facebook game groups
The games are FREE!
The games are very social and you can challenge your friends/family
Some of them encourage you to add news friends
Some will give you frequent updates and ask you come back and play the game again
The games try to put “advertisements and achievements” on your wall
Some of the games, like Farmville, even involve real money!
References:
HYPERLINK "http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/11/arts/television/11facebook.html"http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/11/arts/television/11facebook.html
HYPERLINK "http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=25521"http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=25521
HYPERLINK "http://www.urlesque.com/2009/10/02/7-addictive-facebook-games/"http://www.urlesque.com/2009/10/02/7-addictive-facebook-games/
HYPERLINK "http://www.zynga.com/about/"http://www.zynga.com/about/
HYPERLINK "http://forums.zynga.com/showthread.php?t=223377"http://forums.zynga.com/showthread.php?t=223377  This is a post that we created for this project. If you read the first comment it will explain what information we asked players for.
HYPERLINK "http://www.facebook.com"http://www.facebook.com

Just a thought

Image via Wikipedia

I think I"m going to have the freshmen game students create a Halloween event in SecondLife - dress up a section of the island and host a dance party or something. They have to wear costumes, decorate the space, invite people, be hosts. They could go shopping for the decorations and avies. Make notecards to hand out. Might be fun and good skills. I"ll have to think about that a bit. Unfortunately Halloween is on a Saturday - but we could do it a bit early I think. People in SecondLife never need too much of a push to celebrate.

I have to see if they know any people outside class. Tho maybe we just do the dance during our class - 30 avies all dancing at once = lag lag lag. Still could be fun

It's VideoGame Expo Time again.

Not as exciting as the Game Developer Conference or E3 but...a heck of a lot closer and more affordable. And still pretty exciting in its own right.

Videogame Expo: http://vgxpo.com in Philadelphia October 9-11

I went last year with 3 students - here's a link to a post from there and some photos I took  . Going again this year with some students to check out the classic arcade games and retro videogame section and the career seminars. They may take part in some tournaments too, and hopefully, meet some other game development students.  At least one group will be videotaping tings at the expo for a project; if they like how it turns out, I"ll include a link to their project in a future post.

Last year there was a little bit of anime and a room with a giant multiplayer DDR set up - multiplayer as in 30 or 40 people at a time. It was a hoot.

Game Testing

Image by kgregson via Flickr

I have 10 groups in my Critical Analysis of Games class (26 students). Each group had to create a game using the Icehouse pyramid game system. They could add anything else they wanted - boards, cards, dice, spinners. The games had to be playable within 10-40 minutes. I didn't want any 1 minute throw the pyramid (like 56 card pick up) games.

We tested the games today with other students from class, volunteers from my Qualitative Research class, the chair of the TV-Radio department, and several of the administrative staff from the 3rd floor. It was kind of organized chaos - 10 tables with games spread out, people milling around - some playing, some taking notes and observing.

The goal of the play testing was to get feedback from people who hadn't seen the games before. We needed to know if the rules made sense and, maybe more importantly, was the game fun to play. A secondary goal was to let people in the class see other people's games - kind of set up a little competition to improve the games.

A full set of pictures is on flickr - I am not a photographer but you get the idea - lots of people, lots of tables, lots of games, small room - ha ha. - click here to see the set

Image by kgregson via Flickr

I think we met the goals. Most groups had notes. A couple of groups discovered problems with their rules or winning conditions; they made some changes on the fly and adjusted their documentation.

We may test again on Monday if I can find some other people to come in, depending on the feedback I get Wednesday in class. They will turn the game in on the Friday before spring break. I also want them to put the rules and game documentation online and encourage others to play.

Students in Critical Analysis of Games Blog About Games

Image via Wikipedia

The students in my Critical Analysis of Games class this semester are blogging (I teach at Ithaca College and we're just starting up a new major in Game Design and Immersive Media). They have to apply the game design topics we're discussing in class to one or two games all semester. The goal is to get a really deep understanding of their game and show that they can apply the concepts in class to real world games.

They got to pick the game they wanted to analyze. Here are some of the games being studied this semester - Portal, Star Oceans 2, Psychonauts, Turok, Okami, Conkers Bad Fur Day, and Ace Attorney: Apollo Justice.

Here's a link to a list of their blogs - http://kimgregson.com/mambo/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=118&Itemid=39

A second reason for the blogs is to help them establish a professional presence. I hopt that they will keep blogging as they go through the program. They'd love some comments on their blogs if you have time to take a look.

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