Kloonigames brings you “Programming Hero”

Petri Purho has released the latest in his line of experimental games over at Kloonigames.  Hero Programmer Quest is a coders take on the Guitar Hero games; in Petri’s own words:

“You’re a programmer at NVIDIA. You’ve just released a graphics card driver that is killing computers all over the world. In order to save the world from a death by exploding computers you have to fix bugs in your code as fast as you can. It’s the game that puts the dead in deadline.”

As a real beginner when it comes to coding (my extremely patient friend Mitch has been attempting to teach me C++) I’ve only managed to get through the first 3 stages. I think the game definitely has potential as a learning tool though and could be a good way to help teach syntax through spotting the errors. I’d like to see the game with a beginner mode , that allowed noobs like me to read through the code and find the errors without the countdown.

UK tax breaks for games

MCV, Develop and Edge have all posted about the tax breaks announced in yesterdays Budget, an announcement that both affects the UK industry as a whole and myself personally as TIGA estimate the announcement will “increase and safeguard £457 million in new development expenditure that would be otherwise lost.” while creating an approximated 3550 graduate level jobs. I’d like to think that at least one of those will have my name on it

It’s about time that this happened though the timing might be a bit surprising with the current financial climate. If we are to stay competitive with places such as Canada which saw a migration of dev companies to Ontario after the introduction of their generous tax breaks for developers this needed to happen and we have TIGA to thank for championing it. Hopefully this will engender more commitment from existing publishers and developers in UK talent and fingers crossed reignite the entrepreneurial spirit the UK games industry was once famous for.

SpyParty

I’ve just read the article over at Kotaku about SpyParty (read it here), a game which sees spies try to carry out their secret missions under the nose of a watching sniper who has to identify and eliminate them among a crowded room. The only problem is the sniper doesn’t know who’s the spy. In most games this probably wouldn’t be an issue, you could just hose the crowd and scratch it up to collateral damage, but in SpyParty you only get one shot so you’ve got to make it count. I love this element of it, having to take your time and make  you’ve got the right person before you fire, watching the crowd to try and pick out spy player’s character and take them out before they complete their mission, having to second guess both the game and the other player. The designer wants to have these parties take place across multiple rooms with multiple players on either side, presumably with the snipers each being allocated a single target to identify and kill at the beginning of the round.

As the title of the Kotaku article says this is a smart game, in my opinion a bloody genius one and it’s just a shame it’s at least 2 years off.

You can follow the development of SpyParty here

Trials HD – XBLA

I’ve just gotten hold of a copy of Trials HD from RedsLynx on XBLA. I’ve got to say I’m really impressed. The general premise of the game is that you control a motorbike trials bike rider who has to navigate progressively more difficult and over the top courses.

So far I’ve stayed within the Trials Race mode, though there is a second Skill mode as well. Completing Race courses you unlock new difficulty levels, new bikes and new Skill levels. The courses are essentially glorified 2.5d platformer puzzles, though well thought out and often requiring repeat play in order to achieve the gold medals on offer. Which brings me to one of the things I really enjoy about the game – it’s fun to fail.

The idea of failing being fun is something that seems counter-intuitive but the game’s use of 3d physics enabled models on a 2d plane  means that when you crash (and you WILL crash) your rider flies off in some pretty funny ways, and more importantly never the same way twice. This combined with the strategically placed explosive barrels, fire pits and panes of glass lead to repeating levels dozens of times in search of the gold without the usual frustration that tends to go with repeat performance.  Speaking of repeat performance, should you not be so worried about getting the gold medal and are happy with just getting to the end of the course, there are plenty of checkpoints along the length of each course, 500 restarts are available at the press of the B button (though the clock keeps ticking) with no waiting time as reloads and resets are instantaneous.

The last feature that I’ve noticed that’s a nice touch is the meter at the top of the screen letting you see where you stand within a race against your friends best run-through adding to the potential life of the game as you try to shave off precious hundreths of a second to beat your mates.

I’ll post more up here when I’ve tried the other modes in the game but this game is incredibly fun and ridiculously addictive.

Dare to be Digital

Apologies for not keeping this more up to date but since my last post most of my time has been taken up with the preparation for and subsequent entry in Dare to be Digital. For those of you who don’t know (and if you don’t you should pay attention www.daretobedigital.co.uk ) Dare is a 10 week long competition bringing 14 teams from around the world together to develop thier game concepts into working prototypes. The competition is mentored by people from companies such as Realtime Worlds, Denki, Rare, Sony, Sega and Blitz and hosted by the University of Abertay in Dundee.

My team and I (Inertia Interactive, have a look here ), submitted a design of mine which at the time was called Bungee Ball and over the course of the competition evolved (as all designs do) into Ballistic.

Ballistic is a cartoony combination of minigolf and pinball where the goals are to get to the end of the course in as few shots as possible with as high a score as you can.

As team leader and designer the experience has been incredibly rewarding, getting me to really think about what goes into the design of a game, the player experience and how to collaborate with a team of motivated and talented people in order to make it happen.

I could go into further detail about what the game is about, but instead have a look at the short video linked below:

Outnumbered

This is the presentation from the Games Based Learning Conference 2009 given by Dr Jacob Habgood. He spoke about integrating learning content into games and was by far the most interesting speaker from my perspective.

Interesting figures for the games market

Game Based Learning Conference 2009

Thursday 19^th March

 

Professor Maja Pivec, University of Applied Sciences – FH Joanneum, Graz, Austria

 

The first talk was by Maja Pivec from the University of Applied Sciences in Austria who works with ISFE and European Schoolnet who conducted a literature review of 130 reports on game based learning (GBL). It was noticed that the majority had not undertaken a vigourous methodology when conducting their research. It was however found that GBL:

 

·         can be used to lead and direct learning

·         offer a more relaxed, less peer pressured environment 

·         is widely viewed as a safe and creative environment for learning

 

Pivec put forward that it was necessary for teachers to take advantage of these tools but that most teachers currently do not use them due to limitations in resources and ability.

 

65% of teachers asked were interested in using games in the classroom but lacked not just the technology but assistance and training to implement them.

 

Pivec believes that as games development is an expensive undertaking that most developers will not undertake GBL, and teachers will therefore have to adapt off the shelf games to suit the purpose.

 

Within the field of GBL the teacher becomes a facilitator, but there is a problem in that most teachers are not gamers and even if they are, they do not know how to integrate the use of games within the classroom.

 

This would indicate the need for staff with the knowledge of games based learning that can support, train and create resources for teachers who wish to incorporate games into education.

 

Further reading can be found at www.Engagelearning.eu

 

The literature review can be found here: http://isfe-eu.org/index.phpPHPSESSID=u4jalp5rp1ig41rs1fvsbu6o84&oidit=T001:w7ol0v3qaghqd4ccxic50wc9x

 

Dawn Hallybone, London Borough of Redbridge
Steve Bunce, Northumberland County Council
Vicky MacKenzie, Teacher, Lairdsland Primary, East Dunbartonshire
Kim Applin, Learning & Teaching Scotland
Anna Rossvoll, Aberdeenshire Council

 

The talks from these delegates focused on the use of games within the primary education sector primarily using the Nintendo Wii and DS platforms as a core on which to hang subject based activities such as using Dr Kawashima’s Brain Training to develop mental maths abilities, using Cooking Mama to teach cooking skills that are then applied to make food to be sold for an Enterprise unit, and using Guitar Hero as the basis of creative writing.

 

These talks seemed more focused on learning using games rather that games based learning.  The games were used in the same way a text might have been used ten years ago, without bringing the interactivity of the medium into play. While completely applicable to the KS1, KS2, and possibly even KS3 of the national curriculum, this would be of no with more mature students.

 

What was interesting however was how these were used to encourage and develop collaborative learning. Students had to work in groups to create communal pieces of work such as “diving logs” of their time playing Endless Ocean.

 

Friday 20^th March 2009

 

Tom Watson MP

 

Mr Watson wanted to lend his support to the games industry and become the voice for the industry in Parliament. When talking about the use of games in school he commented “What we call technology, they call life” and that children today “work, think and play differently than their parents” and that as a result we require a “21^st century education system for 21^st century needs”.

 

Nolan Bushnell – Co-founder of Atari

 

Nolan Bushnell, widely recognised as founder of the video games industry and founder of Atari, proposed a new way of teaching, which he calls the SNAP Education System.

 

He commented that “ignorance and apathy are the enemies”, that the classroom no longer works and that there is more competition for the attention of students today. He made the comparison that if a TV show wanted to reduce its ratings to 0 it would “put on a talking head”, inferring that this is what is essentially happening within the education system. He asked how you compete with media that have such higher production values.

 

Bushnell then went on to observe that within the traditional classroom setting the delivery is in a one to many format with the majority of the class being either lost or bored, and that the majority of time in the classroom is spent on discipline.

 

He then proposed the abolition of the classroom and to instead have subject specialists be available from a “mission control” style hub on an open source platform via the internet that the students can access as and when they need to.

 

He argues that this methods of teaching would allow the focus to be on the individual. The self-esteem of the student can be increased through the differentiation of the taught materials. He argues that this system would allow students to excel in spite of any external factors in their lives.

 

The computer can act as a catch all for all subjects including music and art, with Dance Dance Revolution teaching coordination and Guitar Hero being likened to three chord songs. The computer can be used to reduce the barrier to the creative process that comes from the lack of expertise in the artistic techniques.

 

Within the system he sees students writing a short amount, every hour with the correction of this text received within ten minutes and being outsourced to non-teaching staff to optimise the time spent by teachers actually teaching.

 

He then went on to talk about the compulsory introduction of exercise into the program, with a period of 20 minutes at 80%-90% of the student’s maximum heart rate. This would encourage neurogenesis, the development of new neurons within the brain.

 

Game based learning within this would allow for greater integration for those students for whom English is not their first language, with language selection options. Bushnell puts forward that it will also give a system of establishing pre-conditioned knowledge – a so called “mind inventory” that can be built upon with further modularly delivered units.

 

A abridged copy of the talk can be found here: http://newlearning.blip.tv/file/1905445/

 

Graeme Duncan – Chief Executive, Caspian Learning

 

Founded in 2002 Caspian Learning specialises in games and simulations for the commercial, military and education sectors.

 

Focusing bespoke solutions, they have produced “Rome in Danger”, an educational game based on Roman history, which has scored 98% in engagement as scored by 300 trial students.

 

They argue that engagement is only one factor that can be measured in ensuring the product is effective and that safe failure can also be a factor. This was then illustrated using an army simulation of a vehicle checkpoint, allowing officers to apply prior knowledge in context and get immediate, audio-visual feedback on the decisions they make.

 

He then went on to discuss the application of “Web 3.0” technologies in the application of games based learning, with the application of 3d technologies via online, casual and social games. The platform will be able to facilitate learning via the internet.

 

Within the “media savvy” generation, people are demanding more digitally demanding within the work setting. These can make learning more immersive, more contextual, give the ability for safe failure, critical thinking and immediate feedback.

 

Duncan also predicted the move of GBL over to the internet and its introduction into social media networks and casual games sites such as Facebook and Playfish.

 

Dr Jacob Habgood – Head of Serious Games, Sumo Digital

 

Dr Jacob Habgood describes previous edutainment games as “chocolate covered broccoli”; the game is the chocolate, the broccoli the education, children eat the chocolate and leave the broccoli. The learning content is extrinsic to the game, tacked onto an existing game rather than being a part of it.

 

Habgood suggests making the learning content more intrinsic and illustrates this with his PhD game, Zombie Division which he used to empirically prove that intrinsic games are more motivating as measured by the amount of time spent playing and the knowledge gained buy the students using a pre-post-delay test method.

 

He has since developed a WiiWare title called Outnumbered that teaches maths that further illustrates the intrinsic integration of learning content. He argues you don’t have to make maths fun, it is merely a medium to work with.

 

The game covers the relations and connections between addition, subtraction, multiplication and division and integrates the learning content into the core mechanics of the game.

 

The game has players trying to protect their tower from monsters with numbers above their heads that scroll in from the left side of the screen. Players must hang the numbered goo on the monsters to reduce their number to 0. Should the player subtract too far and fall below 0 then the goo falls off and they must start again. The player can also grow their own monsters to defend their tower, using the addition of numbered goo to grow them to a numerical size that is able to defeat the attackers. Magic is then introduced to introduce multiplication and division.

 

The difficulty of the game is then controlled using a cognitive model to track the application of the key concepts and differentiate the player experience.

 

Sean Dromgoole – CEO, Some Research / Gamevision

 

Dromgoole discussed some of the research figures surrounding the games market as found in autumn 2008.

 

There are 55.3 million people in the UK aged 6+ of which 16.7 million are active gamers (active defined as bought or played a game in the last year). Within this the major platforms are the Sony PSP (2 million), Sony Playstation 3 (2 million), Microsoft Xbox 360 (2.3 million), PC (3.9 million), Nintendo DS (5.8 million) and the Nintendo Wii (6.1 million).

 

Looking at gender balance, the PS3 and 360 markets were 75% male, while the Wii was virtually gender neutral.

 

It was also noted that the majority of play takes place offline, with women preferring to play offline with other people.

 

Dromgoole then impressed that the nature of a good game is good gameplay, before breaking this down into its component parts:

 

·         understanding a given environment

·         teaching skills that can be used in the environment

·         testing those skills

·         completing of tasks

·         rewarding the player

·         progressing to the next stage

 

He then observed that this is incredibly similar to the teaching methods used in school.

 

He also mentioned research conducted by the developers of EVE Online, into the maximum size of an effectively communicating group on the internet, which was indicated as standing at 180 people.

 

Summary

 

Though there did seem to be a heavy focus on off the shelf games used in schools, there were some core concepts that reinforced the work we are doing with the Phoenix ARG.

 

Pivec’s discussion on GBL and how it can lead and direct learning with the teacher as facilitator mirrors the intentions of our project though I however disagree with the her perceived cost of producing games. The PC market, Wiiware or Xbox Live Arcade have far less development costs associated with them, predominantly due to the lower technical demands and digital distribution methods that are associated with the platforms.

 

The primary education talks, while aimed more at learning using games, did raise the point of games being a facilitator for collaborative working, another aspect of our game.

 

Watson’s quote of “we require a “21^st century education system for 21^st century needs” resonates with our aims and while Bushnell’s concepts are radical to say the least he also made some valid points about the amount of time spent on classroom disruptions and that GBL can be used to enable student differentiation.

 

Games as a means of “safe failure” as mentioned by Duncan was something that we are wanting to develop on within our ARG, the nature of simulation aspect allowing them to respond to challenges within a turnaround company without having the serious consequences that would result from poor judgement. I also concurred with his appraisal (though obviously biased by his company’s position) that games and game based learning will make greater use of the vast resource that is the internet.

 

Dr. Habgood’s talk on intrinsic integration was by far the most beneficial talk of the conference. His work on integrating the learning content into the game will be of great benefit in creating the ARG, as well as for my dissertation. It really impressed on me the necessity to avoid the “chocolate covered broccoli” approach that defined the edutainment era of the early 1990s.

 

Dromgoole’s talk on the facts and figures surrounding the UK games industry was useful as much from a personal standpoint as for designing the ARG. It is quite rare to get definitive figures from the games industry and so to hear from someone who analyses data for all the major industry publishers was very enlightening.

 

While the talks were interesting I also had the opportunity to network with conference delegates over the course of the two days, meeting people from TruSim, Sumo Digital and Ideonic all game developers looking into creating serious games. Talking with these people helped me to get an idea of where developers are looking when it comes markets for GBL and the process they use when creating game based learning.

 

Halo Wars – Single Player Hands On

I bought Halo Wars on Friday. More specifically the limited edition version. I’ve got to say that compared to a lot of so called special/limited editions I was quite impressed.

Included were:

• a rubbery/plastic crew patch for the Spirit of Fire (the command ship in the game)
• a hard back Halo Wars: Genesis graphic novel which helps to set the scene for the game
• six “leader cards” which to be honest I’m only just looking at but seem to be A5 cards with pictures and stats on units and characters from the game
• a card with codes for 3 new Halo 3 maps 9which I’ve yet to try) a honour guard version of the Wraith for use in the multiplayer aspect of the game, and a 48 hour gold trial membership for Xbox Live (which will be making it’s way to my other half in due course)
• metal game case embossed with “Halo Wars” and showing some Spartans on one side and the Arbiter on the other. Definately the best looking case Ive seen for a Xbox 360 game

The game takes place 20 years before the first Halo game, not long after first contact with The Covenant and follows the crew of the Spirit of Fire as it attempts to take back the planet “Harvest” from the alien hoards. Without giving away too much, they discover that The Covenant are after something on the planet and set out to prevent them.

So how does it play I hear you ask? Surprisingly well. I had by reservations about RTS games on the 360 compounded by the lacklustre experience I had with Command & Conquer 3: Red Alert but this game is a whole other animal and has in my mind proven that the genre can work on the console if done correctly.

The tutorial system leads you in nicely and is followed by a series of missions that tie in with the underlying narrative far better than it’s competitors. The controls have been designed with the controller in mind, rather than as an afterthought and are surprisingly intuitive. Selections are made with the A button, all actions are controlled by the X button, B for undo and Y controls the special abilities of units. The selection crosshair stays dead centre of the screen with players moving the world around it rather than the crosshair around the world. While this would be incredibly frustrating on a PC game, here it helps you to keep an eye on what is going on around you.

To help when things get frantic, the d pad has been turned over to helping you navigate the map, making if easy to get to where you need to be almost instantly. Pressing left allows you to scroll through all your bases, a definite boon in later levels. Right takes you to the last alert location, handy when your units come under fire. Down lets you scroll through your unit groups around the map allowing for attacks on multiple fronts and up allows access the Spirit of Fire menu

Your entire force or just those on the screen can be selected with the left or right shoulder buttons respectively. Want to select a group of units yourself? Hold down the A button and a radius appears around the crosshair, allowing you to paint the units you want to select.

The balance feels just about right in the single player game, with an overtly mentioned paper-scissors-stone mechanic. It takes no time at all to figure out what units to use in any given situation. The units themselves are on the whole familiar, with a few new additions to Halo canon. The Cyclops proving essential in some missions with it’s ability to repair vehicles and buildings. The star of the show is however is still the Spartan. There is something incredibly satisfying about sending it to capture an enemy Wraith and then turning it on the enemy. 

As far as the Covenant units go, it’s the usual suspects, Elites, Brutes, Grunts, Hunters… there are a couple of new vehicles though, the Vampire, an aerial unit with a giant needler that can drain enemy units’ health and the Locust, an building destroying unit with a plasma cannon. 

The story element of the game is conveyed both through in game radio chatter and by FMVs inbetween levels. It sits well within the world created by the previous three games. The videos are some of the most stunning I have seen in recent times, no wonder when they were provided by Blur Studio whose work never ceases to amaze me.

It truely is a shame that this is Ensemble’s last game but they have most certainly gone out with a bang, doing for consoles what a lot of people thought impossible – making a good, if not great RTS on a console.

Monkey & Fable 2

Well like all my previous blog attempts, it seems that I’ve gotten a little lax with actually writing anything. That said I’m not really sure who’s reading this lol Leave a comment and let me know

Anyway since my last post I went to see Monkey: Journey To The West with Jade, my other half, and it was a pretty good show all in all. The story had really been trimmed back (so Jade told me) but visually the set design, costumes and use of animation were really well thought out and gave a modern twist to an ancient Chinese story. Daman Albarn’s music was fantastic, taking aspects of traditional Chinese music and modernising it with a Gorrillaz tilt. The venue was pretty tiny, only a few hundered people in a specially designed tent around the back of the O2. The seats were fantastic, five rows back and in the centre. It’s a shame they’d used those tiered plastic events seats though, both Jade and I were aching come the end of the show. On a random side note we had Andy Serkis sat in front of us who in case you’re interested is meant to be in the new Tintin movie or so thought we overhead.

In games I’ve just been ploughing on through with Fable 2, I’ve decided to leave Fallout 3 for the moment as I see that becoming far more involving than I currently have time for. With Fable 2, I had the chance to play co-op with a friend the other night and I found it really frustrating that it removed the ability to control the camera. When you’re playing across Xbox Live and are using different screens, why restrict the player’s view like that. I’m fully aware that I’m playing with a friend, I don’t need you to keep him on my screen all the time, it restricts both of us too much. I understand that the designers don’t want the second player wandering off too far but surely there had to be a better way of achieving this, especially when the invisible wall imposed on the players doesn’t match the edges of the screen.

Other than that though I’m finding the game pretty fun, though money has now lost all meaning to me. I’m playing though as a good character, so initially earning money was probably harder than if I’d been evil but now I’ve got a decent property portfolio under my belt when I boot up the game every evening I’ve got more money than I know what to do with and as a result if I can see it, I’m pretty much always able to buy it. Perhaps some sort of negotiation system on properties would have added a more challenging aspect to getting to this stage. What if the owners didn’t want to sell?

Anyway that’s the jist for me at the moment. Later.