Conscious Gamer - An Oxymoron?

Cat Statistics

2010-11-19T23:46:00.001-08:00

http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview/id/244443.html

Working on a new game now! Codename: "Free The Market"

2010-11-07T17:07:00.000-08:00

Now that Brain Seeds has wrapped up, we're going to be moving on to a new project. This time we wanted to make a console game so we're going with XNA to create an Xbox Live Indie game.

I'm still researching XNA engines, but so far TorqueX looks really attractive since it has lots of existing code framework and tools.

In terms of content we're going to be making "Free The Market", an "Anti Crony Capitalism" game where your character grows up making choices about how to combat the corruption in our corporatized state. Players will be able to evolve into Union Leaders, Corporate Whistle Blowers, Progressive Politicians and Stealth Assassin CEOs.

I'm really looking forward to working on this one since I love RPGs.

EPIC Brain Seeds Justification as a "Serious Game"

2010-10-11T22:24:00.000-07:00

lol after relaunching Brain Seeds and promoting it on some of the Linked In Groups, I found myself drawn into a discussion on how Brain Seeds should or should not be considered a "Serious Game". I think I did a fair job of justifying why Brain Seeds is a serious game.
Here's the entire thread

TIM

Brain Seeds has relaunched with new streamlined game play and new $15 prize emphasis.
http://www.gamersofaction.org/BrainSeeds.html or Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/pages/Gamers-of-Action/365084374751?ref=ts

Playing Brain Seeds is super simple!
Answer 15 randomly selected questions as fast and accurately as possible and the player with the highest score at the end of the week will win $15 cash.

Brain Seeds is unique because all the questions have been supplied by fellow players on social issues they want others to learn about.

Questions cover Women's Rights, LGBT, Immigration, Slavery, Progressive Media, Environment, Education, History and Civil Rights to name a few.

Educating yourself about social issues can be rewarding to both mind and wallet.

Brain Seeds - Seed, Inspire, Win!

PERSON 1

this is a questionnaire with a bit of student style graphics - not a game, so I wouldn't call it one.

TIM

I have to respectively disagree. At its core Brain Seeds is a competition between players to achieve a high score and win a prize. The competition method we chose just happens to be in a question and answer form.

I would agree that Brain Seeds would be a questionnaire if it had no scoring or competitive aspect and did not have a way for users to generate their own content. However since it does, calling it a "game" makes sense.

PERSON 1

You have a point - I guess I was expecting Brain Trainer - Dr Kawashima style

PERSON 2

Having just joined a group called Serious Games Group, I join PERSON 1's perspective. I understand a serious game to have learning objectives or goals (a point to playing the game other than winning), and to involve interaction, either with the game itself, with other players, or both, and to generate learning and insight in the process. It also requires the players to use what has transpired and what they learned earlier in the game later in the game, presumably to their advantage.

I see none of the above in a questionnaire. I would agree with Timothy that it is a competition, just not a serious game.

(My understanding, and assumption, is that this group is about serious games, which is a distinction from other types of games.)

TIM

I agree with your serious game definition and it is for those exact reasons that I consider Brain Seeds a serious game.

In terms of learning objectives and goals Brain Seeds was designed to expose and educate players about a wide variety of social issues such as Women's Rights, LGBT, Immigration, Slavery, Progressive Media, Environment, Education, History and Civil Rights to name a few. Brain Seeds is not a pop culture trivia game, so answering questions correctly requires players to actively search out the answer.

In terms of interaction, players interact both with the game and fellow players through the question submission process. Since players have the ability to submit new questions, they actively shape the game's content to fit the community's interest. If a player has strong feelings for or against an issue that was raised by a Brain Seeds question, they have the ability to submit their own question which can support or refute an existing question.

I agree that a simple "questionnaire" would not be considered a serious game because it lacks real user feedback and interaction and does not have a game goal besides completion.

However since Brain Seeds has player/game and player/player interactions and has a educational goal beyond a straight forward competition, I believe it is fair to call it both a "game" and a "serious game".

Admittedly Brain Seeds is not a conventional "serious game" because it would not fit into an education curriculum or military training program because its content is dynamic and driven by the player community. However if you give it a try and allow it time to grow a community, I think you'll see Brain Seeds true potential as a serious game.

PERSON 3

I think this is a really interesting debate - the potential for crowdsourced learing is an exciting area. One key question for me, as with any user generated content, is trust; even with user ratings of questions and quizzes and challenges or updates to questions, is there any validation that the content is accurate? If the game aims to inform and educate as well as entertain, I'd suggest it needs some editorial oversight. Do you have moderation or checks in place to ensure that content isn't driven by people with extreme or ill-informed views?

TIM

Thanks for the feedback and question.

Preventing inappropriate and questionable content was one of our primary concerns as well.

All question submissions must first be approved by one of our Brain Seeds moderators before the question makes it into the game. In order to help the moderator determine the validity of the question, players must provide at least one source link which the moderator verifies as a legitimate source. If the source is not reputable, the question will be rejected and the submitter will be notified and given a chance to fix the question if possible.

If we find that a player is intentionally submitting inappropriate questions, we will ban their account and disqualify them from winning any prizes.

Although the moderation process will not be 100% effective because it relies on the moderator's discretion and judgement, we thought it would be the best way of keeping the game content accurate.

PERSON 2

Timothy, who funds the prizes? Where does the money come from? Specifically, by name, if you would.

Thank you.

TIM

Thanks for your interest in Brain Seeds and our prize model.

The $15 weekly prize is paid out of our own organizational funds and the raffle prizes are provided by local community donors. Previous donors have included AB Games Inc (local board game maker) and Plan C Group (Asian American Lifestyle company).

We are always looking for prize donations Bill. Would you be interested in donating any items for our weekly raffle prize, games, books, DVDs or apparel?

Thanks,
Tim

PERSON 2

Timothy asks if I am willing to donate a prize.

No, thank you.

Would you comment on this review?

http://playthisthing.com/brain-seeds

I post it here not to be mean spirited but specifically to ask about the ability to read all the questions, write down the correct answers, then play the game for $15. In the context of serious games, could you comment on how that makes Brain Seeds a serious game?

TIM

I'm glad that you brought up the Play This Thing! review because it was one of the major reasons why we made some significant changes to Brain Seeds and subsequently relaunched about two weeks ago.

In terms of the review itself here are my main criticisms.

1) The reviewer clearly discloses his bias against 1) Quiz Games, 2) Social Activist and 3) User Generated Content in the first sentence so it's fair to say the review was never meant to be objective and as such I find it less credible.

2) The reviewer only offers up one example question which he personally finds uninteresting and insinuates that the rest of the questions are going to be similar. Since he is already biased against social justice and "political" topics, he might find many of the questions dry, but that does not necessarily mean that other neutral or progressive players will not stumble upon interesting issues or facts that they might not have been exposed to otherwise. We understand that the game will not have universal appeal, but we also know that it will not be universally unappealing to all players.

3) The reviewer mentions that the "competitive aspect of the game [is] irrelevant" because the competition will ultimately boil down to who has the fastest internet connection which is not true. All of the questions are preloaded before the competitive quiz starts so the quality of your net connection will have little impact on your score. To discredit the entire competitive aspect of the game merely because it takes place over the internet is unfair and a gross exaggeration because it assumes there is no skill in actually learning and quickly recalling the answers.

4) Based on the way the review was written, the reviewer, like many others both inside and outside the game industry, seems to believe that creating social change through games is an all or nothing proposition. Either your game creates some major impactful change in the player or your game has no effect what so ever. We believe the truth lies somewhere in between those two extremes. We understand that Brain Seeds is not going turn players into social activist alone. However we do believe that by exposing players to new facts and social issues and making their retention beneficial, players will take away something from playing even if it's the fact that there are estimated to be 27 million men, women and children enslaved today.
In terms of your original question, one of the major changes we made to Brain Seeds was to randomize the question selection during both the Free Play(answer all the questions you want) and Prize(answer 15 questions for official score) Games.

Players certainly have the ability to write down the correct answer to each question before taking the Prize Game. However since there are over 300 possible questions so far and the number will only go up, players who want to write down the correct answers and compile an "Answer Guide" will have their work cut out for them. "Answer Guide" players will also have an extremely hard time scoring competitively because it will take them longer to find the answer in the 300+ question guide than it would be to actually learn the right answer and recall it from memory. To score competitively, players will have to become proficient at looking through the question's source link to find the correct answer, similar to a website scavenger hunt. To become one of the top scorers though, players will have to become familar with a large portion of the question set so they don't have to look at the source link because they've already learned the answer.

If a player goes through the trouble of creating an Answer Guide and they've just been exposed to 300+ questions, there's a good chance that they actually learned something during the process.

If a player decides that the best way to win is to quickly search through each question's source link andy they've just read through 15 different websites, there's a good chance they've learned something.

If a player decides that the best way to win is to learn the answer to as many questions as possible, then there's a good chance that they have learned something.

Admittedly, it is hard to accurately quantify how much each player will actually learn by playing Brain Seeds, but we do believe that competitively playing Brain Seeds will yield a net educational benefit for players.

Please let me know if you have more questions about Brain Seeds because it is a good way of discussing the game design concepts that aren't initially obvious.

I please ask though that you try playing Brain Seeds. Based on your previous questions, it seems that you have already made a judgement about the game's validity as a "serious game" without trying it first.

Thanks,
Tim

Brain Seeds 2.0

2010-05-03T22:47:00.000-07:00

Although Brain Seeds has only been live for a month we've already come up with a bunch of new changes for Brain Seeds 2.0 to make the game more accessible and more enticing to the normal gamer.

We basically took a beating in terms of gamer retention so we know we're doing something wrong. It's bad when you have 46 people play the game in the first week and no one comes back to play the game again.

So here's the list of improvements we want to make to the game more palatable to the general public.

Practice Mode and Competitive Mode are being removed and replaced with Prize Mode
Prize Mode will consist of 15 randomly selected questions - This will shift the game play to be a more frantic scavenger hunt for the correct answer by following the answer links.
The player with the highest score at the end of the week will win $15 for themselves - We believe this is important in attracting a larger audience, one that probably wouldn't play the game otherwise.
If we don't have any sponsored gifts to give out for the Community Prize, players will be able to donate $15 to a charity of their choice.
All players will be able to take the Prize Game once for free, but all subsequent games played require the player to submit a question.
During gameplay the player's score is shown along side the scores of the top 7 scores for that week.
On the score screen we'll tell the player their score and ranking among all the games played so far - i.e You are ranked 9th out of 230
All question submissions will allow the player to immediately play Prize Mode again. However any "bad" question submission will disqualify the player for the entire week.
Questions submitted must fit into one of our preselected categories - By controlling which question categories we offer, we can control what type of questions get submitted which allows us to subtly guide the game direction and content.

Brain Seeds has finally launched!

2010-04-05T23:35:00.001-07:00

After a couple years of development and a team that grew from 1 to 8, I'm incredibly proud to say that Brain Seeds has finally launched.

Here's the official blurbed I've been sending around.

Our videogame nonprofit Gamers of Action recently launched Brain Seeds, a community based online trivia game that has all of its questions supplied by players themselves.

Brain Seeds is a community-content-driven weekly quiz that allows players to educate others about issues that they are passionate about.

Since all the questions in the weekly quizzes are supplied by fellow players, Brain Seeds plants "seeds" of information in the hopes that those seeds will grow to (1) motivate quiz-takers to learn more about a particular topic and (2) help players develop an interest in creating positive social change.

To play Brain Seeds and get more information, check out

http://www.gamersofaction.org/wordpress/brain-seeds

If you know anyone who might be interested in playing, please forward on this message because we really want to make Brain Seeds a real community driven game.

Thanks,

Tim

Founded in 2008, Gamers of Actions is a Los Angeles-based non-profit game development group dedicated to creating and finding gaming opportunities that can bring about positive social change.

Brain Seeds Website – www.gamersofaction.org/BrainSeeds.html

Gamers of Action Website – www.gamersofaction.org

For more information, please contact us at info@gamersofaction.org

Ninjacational - Bad ass name for our future game company!

2010-02-13T09:19:00.001-08:00

Just soak in all the corny goodness of Ninjacational - Ninja + Educational. Basically a name for the type of games we want to make. Both fun and deceptively educational. Maybe the tagline could be "Did I just learn something?" or "You just got Ninjacaded!"

Brain Seeds just launched on Kickstarter.com

2009-12-03T20:01:00.001-08:00

BIG NEWS!

We just launched our Brain Seeds project Kickstarter.com and now we have to start asking for donations and backers.

If you would like to support use with Brain Seeds you can donate through Kickstarter at

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/964679488/brain-seeds-seed-learn-win

We're shooting to raise $1000 by February 20th and I'm confident we can do it.

Brain Seeds Screen Shots

2009-10-18T01:13:00.000-07:00

Here's some Brain Seeds screen shots to feast your eyes on

Brain Seeds is alive and kicking (at least in alpha-ish form)

2009-10-17T20:42:00.000-07:00

Quite a while since I've posted, but quite a bit happened this past half a year.

Here's a short recap of the awesome-ness that is Gamers of Action and Brain Seeds

1) Started the project using Flash and created an ugly artless prototype that functioned.

2) Hired two awesome art/animation interns that worked with Kat, David, Sophia and I to get the game all arted up and looking good. They did an amazing job over the 2.5 month summer internship.

3) David made some cool music for the game and is still working on some more cool stuff so we can add more variety.

4) Integrated all the art/animation/music into the game and added more functionality that users usually take for granted like emailing lost passwords, emailing prize notifications, tool tips and dynamic sponsor information loading.

5) The game is now ready to be tested on a much larger scale so I can find out how our web server turned game server actually holds up. I'm hoping we don't loss too many PHP requests because if we do I might have to migrate everything over to a dedicated game server which is going to be quite costly.

Now after all that technical hype you can now check out the alpha-ish version of the game at

http://www.gamersofaction.org/Games/BrainSeeds/BrainSeeds.html

If you're reading this post and would be like to be part of the beta test please let me know at tim@gamersofaction.org or join our Gamers of Action facebook group.

Shit like this makes me really sad

2009-05-28T23:15:00.000-07:00

Reading this article about how Obama and his administration are now backing out of releasing the latest batch of Abu Ghraib and other US detainee prisons torture photos, makes me really sad. To think that our country has sunk to such disgusting and evil acts in OUR name. Those photos really need to be released so the truth has a chance to come out and the perpetrators are brought to justice, both those who commited the torture and those who ordered them.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/5395830/Abu-Ghraib-abuse-photos-show-rape.html

As a gamer developer, my first instinct would be to make a game (not even sure that's the right word to use anymore) about this, but I'm not sure the general public would be ready for something like that which is extremely sad.

Games are not being used to their full potential as a medium for education and critical thinking and honest reflection. In my mind, if you can write a book about it or make a movie about it, there is no reason a game could not be made about it.

Brains Seeds For the Win

2009-05-28T23:05:00.001-07:00

After some friend polling and some more discussion we've finally decided to use Brain Seeds for the game.

O yeah!!! I finally got a name that I can consistently use in my game code :)

The game tech is about 80% done at this point so we're actually interviewing interns in a couple weeks for the Flash artist position. It's time to make our game look cool cuz right now it's totally programmer art-ed up which looks like crap.

I'm hoping the interviews go well and we'll have an artist on the team by mid June. It's pretty weird having people take our little venture seriously because in my mind it always seems like just my pet project, but I'm happy that it's finally growing into something more serious yet more useful and concrete as well.

Factoids?

2009-04-14T23:38:00.000-07:00

It looks like we're finally close to having a actual game title for our community quiz.

Right now the currently reigning title is Factoids and the second favorite is Brain Seeds.

Both are cool names in my opinion, each with it's own strengths. Factoids has a catchy name that embodies the gameplay, while Brain Seeds has a more academic(some might say nerdy), yet educational vibe similar to the Brain Age series.

Once we finalize the name we'll be choosing an art direction which will be important going forward as we unveil the game and start recruiting community members.

On the tech side of things, things are progressing nicely. I didn't realize how much database and php programming would be required to keep track of all the player data. I've got a good handle on it now so I'm just finalizing a lot of the little database requirements that pop up when I'm implementing some new feature.

What I really need to lock down is the actual size of the game screen because right now its 800x600 but I'm running out of screen real estate especially when images and movies are used.

I'll have to figure out something...

O yeah I've been following the upcoming game Six Days In Fallejah because I'm thinking that my future company would want to do something similar except less American centric. I think putting the player in the shoes of an Iraqi citzen during the battle would be a compelling way of showing the audience what it feels like to be a helpless citizen caught between two forces who have been instructed to conduct the battle assuming you the normal citizen is acceptable collateral damage.

Still lacking a title, but at least the tech is grinding forward.

2009-03-22T14:42:00.000-07:00

The game is coming along nicely on the tech front. Over the past couple of months I've implemented the database connection using PHP and Flash, created the user database, created screen for users to create accounts and submit factoids and implemented sound and image support for the flash cards. I've still got to learn more about PHP to get the automated email system working properly, but I'll wait till my PHP book comes in since reliable PHP tutorials and references on the net are hard to find.

Of course everything looks like crap since there is zero art, but hey that's all stuff that can be created later by someone who has more art style and skill than I.

Also got a G1 (Google Phone) this week so after this project perhaps I'll tackle an Android app, maybe even port Keyalaga over since the G1 has a keyboard.

Juicy Updates Cometh

2009-02-21T18:15:00.000-08:00

I've got some juicy history that I need to chronicle here because I have some updates regarding both Gamers Of Action and the Community Flash Card project.

First off, I'd like to thank David and Sophia for joining the Gamers Of Action cause and working with Kat and I on Gamers Of Action and the Community Flash Card project. I know their game, sociology, non-profit and critical thinking skills will definitely be huge asset and will definitely be tapped (you've been forewarned ^_^ ).

In terms of game progress, I've created the basic gameplay and flow and just hooked up the game to the GamerOfAction database so we have some user authentication. A lot more still has to be done in terms of further database stat tracking, but I don't anticipate that will be too hard since I've already got the connection established. David has volunteered to help with the art asset generation because I suck at that kinda stuff, hurray for programmer art! I figure that while David is learning Flash CS4, I can continue working on the nuts and bolts of the game so once he's done I can just integrate the art and we'll be good to go.

Things are progressing nicely, although we still need to come up with a real name. I'm leaning toward either Wiki-Flash or Wiki-Flashcards, since the "Wiki" word already has the web 2.0/community connotation and seems like a good fit to the spirit of our game.

Still need a title, damn I didn't think it would be this hard

2009-01-26T22:40:00.000-08:00

So as the title suggests, we're still trying to figure out a good title for the Community Flash Card game project. The game tech itself is proceeding very nicely, I've got the majority of the game engine tech working already, but I still need to look into the database integration to handle user logins, but I digress.

So here's some of the ideas that Kat and I came up with, but none of them seem to have that special something. Ultimately the name needs to convey a few things, 1) that the game is a flash card/quiz game, 2) that the game is aimed at socially conscious players and 3) that the game involves a community aspect because fellow players provide the questions.

Here's some of the rejects (that maybe become the real title if we can't come up with something better ~_~)
1) Community Flash Cards
2) Flash Card Nation
3) Flash Card Community
4) Com-U-Flash
5) Wiki-Flash
6) Flash Card Society
7) Flash Card Colony

Top Secret Totally Revolutionary Socially Conscious Game Project FTW

2009-01-17T22:01:00.000-08:00

So I've finally figured out what I'm going to do for my Top Secret Totally Revolutionary Socially Conscious (TSTRSC) game.

Are you ready to have your mind freaking blown?

Drum roll please.....................................................

Community Flash Cards with weekly prizes (actual title pending)

Here's the high level concept
A new "pack" of 40 Flash cards are released every week and players attempt to memorize as many questions and answers as they can. At the end of the week, 20 questions are randomly selected from the pack of the weeks Flash cards and players play a trivia game. The player that is able to answer the most questions correctly in the fastest time will win a prize, hopefully donated by sponsors or fellow players :).

What makes this game a community game is that the pack of flash cards is actually created from questions and answers provided by fellow players because the "entry fee" of playing the weekly trivia game is that you submit a question/answer for the next weeks flash card pack.

Since I want the game to be a have a positive socially conscious angle, I'll have to come up with some guidelines for the questions and answers so that players are encouraged to submit facts that they want other players to also learn.

Ultimately the point of the game is to get players to teach each other about socially conscious issues important to themselves.

Since the game concept is fairly straightforward, I'm thinking of developing the game for multiple platforms including
1) Web - Flash
2) IPhone/IPod Touch
3) G1 Phone on Android OS

Since I'm already using Flash at work, I'll probably create the main game code in Flash and then port it over once I'm done with the initial prototype.

I'm thinking the Flash version should only take about a month. My main concern is the user management system since I'll have to set up a database to keep track of members.

I'll post a more specific design later, but for now I just wanted to do a brain dump to get my ideas down on paper, so to speak.

Look for more in details in the future and please let me know if you have any suggestions for the design and game name since Community Flash Cards doesn't have much zing to it.

Giving up games...at least for two weeks

2009-01-17T21:32:00.000-08:00

Although I'd never think I'd have to utter such a deplorable phrase, I've finally been forced to say "I'm giving up all video games for two weeks!"

After finally finishing Persona 4 which topped off at about 90 hours (frigg'n awesome game by the way), I decided to give up gaming for two weeks so I could focus my free time on my other goals mainly working on Gamers Of Action and working on a top secret totally revolutionary socially conscious game project.

Well I lied about the "totally revolutionary" part because I'm still don't have a solid game concept or design for now although I'm kicking around a few ideas that I would like to tackle.

The real question that needs to be answered though is what do I do about my gaming addiction at the end next week ( I've already been game free for 1 whole week :( ). Do I continue practicing game abstinence or do I just go back to my old habits? Ultimately I think I'll just have to decide to give up gaming on certain days of the week to force myself to get other productive things done.

Man I have to make the "Guilt Be Gone" game that has the magical ability of assuaging my guilt about gaming. It could be a game that helps you rationalize why you play video games and how they better your life and a good use of your time. Hmm now that I think about it, it sounds like the whole rationalization angle is already handled by the mainstream gaming press.

Speaking of the mainstream gaming press, check out Brian Rubinow's blog "The Select Button" for a very eloquent on going critique and reflection on the state of videogame journalism.

The Select Button blog is definitely one to watch as Brian's vision for videogame journalism and the gaming industry in general run parallel to my own goals and dreams for the industry and its gamers.

Hurricane Katrina: Tempest in Crescent City Review

2008-11-22T12:29:00.000-08:00

Created by Global Kids youth leaders at Canarsie High School in Brooklyn, Hurricane Katrina: Tempest in Crescent City is a side scrolling game that focuses on the heroism of a young girl named Vivica Water during the flooding caused by Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Although the Vivica's heroic rescue efforts are only played out in her dreams, the situations she and her neighbors overcame were definitely real.

According to Tempest's website, the three main goals for the game were
1) Teach players about how everyday residents of New Orleans acted heroically to help each other.
2) Emphasize what are perhaps the two most important priorities in any disaster: communication and use of local resources, needs, and knowledge.
3) Draw attention to the continuing struggle in New Orleans as residents fight for housing in 2008.

Tempest did a good job at 1) and 2), highlighting how many residents helped each other during the rescue efforts by sharing food, shelter, medicine, tools and hope. I appreciate the game's positive portrayal of the survival efforts during the disaster because at the time it seemed like all the mainstream press wanted to focus on stories of "looting", "pillaging", "general chaos" perputrated by people of color. Although Tempest was created in 2007 after the Katrina converage had ended, I believe the positive portrayal of all Louisiana citizens both white and people of color sends a subtle, yet very powerful message to players that everyone can be a hero.

Unfortunately in terms of 3), the focus on the continuing struggle for housing, I didn't get the sense that the game raised that issue other than the fact that Vivica is not living back home in Louisiana even one year after being evacuated. A whole new game to focus on the contining struggle for housing and infrastructure could be useful because it's a multifaceted issue facing many communities both in the US and internationally.

General Critique Disclaimer: I understand that the socially conscious games that I'm reviewing are independently developed usually with very limited manpower and funding. I also understand that these games have been created with a target audience in mind (which usually doesn't include hard core gamers). The critiques that I make are not intended to be jabs at the game designers and developers because I respect the time, effort and heart that went in to creating their game. However I believe that providing feedback is a good way for both game developers and the game community as a whole to learn what improvements can be made in future projects.

Now with that out of the way, let's get down to reviewing.

Gameplay
Gameplay consist of standard side scrolling elements such as running, jumping, swimming, collecting and delivering items and interacting with NPCs. Since the game only consist of 5 levels and can be beaten in about 10 minutes, the gameplay remains fresh with the first level focusing on jumping and ducking and the remaining levels focused on running, jumping and swimming. For a 10 minute game, I was pretty impressed with the variety in Vivica's move set because many similar sized games only have a run and jump gameplay.

Sound
Each level has a different background beat with a similar unifying theme. A small set of sound FX covers all of Vivica's moves as well as environment interactions like smashing roofs, opening doors, taking damage from sharp debris, etc.

Controls
Controls are intuitive and should be familiar to anyone who has ever played any post-Mario Bros era side scrolling platformers. As a gamer who was raised in the console style of using my left hand to control player movement, it would have been cool to have the option of using the WASD keys first person shooter style.

Social Conscious Content
The socially conscious aspects of the Tempest are much more subtle than other games like Molleindustria's McDonald's Videogame, but are powerful none the less because they come across so naturally. Here's what I observed.
1) The main character Vivica is a young African American female - These three facts are important because they break with video game convention which primarily features main characters who are male, either racially white or Asian and range between 18 to 30 years old.

2) The game's story involves child's dream of finding her mother who in reality is most likely dead. Most games, especially those targeted at a younger audience usually don't cover serious issues such as mortality and parental separation or death. Although the game never explicitly mentions whether Vivica's mother is alive, I would assume that since Vivica hasn't heard from her mother even after a year, Vivica's mother didn't survive. I commend Tempest for raising such a mature issue.

3) There is no mention of Vivica's other parental figure, which I would assume either means he or she passed away or was not a part of Vivica's life either by choice or not. I'm not sure if it was intentional or not, but I am glad that the game touches upon the point that single parent households are becoming more common place.

4) In the last level, I found it impossible to save all the residents in trouble becase I ran out of daylight. I'm not sure if this was intentional or perhaps I just wasn't good enough to time every thing correctly. I interpretted the failure to save everyone in the last level as a statement about the futility of trying to save every person in need even if you do everything perfectly and try your hardest. The thought of having to leave people behind in order to save yourself and others is an unfortunate and disturbing concept, but I think it touches on the grim reality that decisions made in diaster and life or death situations have very serious outcomes some unavoidable.

Overall
Hurricane Katrina: Tempest in Crescent City is a solid, yet short side scrolling platformer that will appeal to a younger audience with its bright graphics, intuitive controls, young herione and message of youth empowerment, community heroism and diaster preparedness. More experienced gamers will have no problem finishing the game in under 10 minutes or may tire of the simple gameplay before completing the five levels, but all gamers will walk away with a better understanding of the situtation many faced in 2005 and are continuing to face in the aftermath Hurricane Katrina. In terms of socially conscious content, Tempest touches upon several serious and mature issues that are important to players of all ages and to people of all cultures.

MacGyver "The Game"

2008-11-19T21:43:00.000-08:00

Wouldn't that be pretty freaking bad ass. I'm envisioning it as a puzzle adventure game where you're put into situations where you have to figure out how to make useful contraptions out of seemingly random stuff. The Monkey Island series was pretty good about using seemingly random items, but it would be cool to inject some real life physics and science into the mix. Obviously the laws of physics and science would have to be bent a little (or a lot), but it would be cool to give the players information on what principles of physics, chemistry and engineering are working behind the scenes. I guess for a science head like myself, I would love to hear explanations about the chemical reactions being used when Macgyver creates his taco shell pen rocket launcher.

Financial Advisor Game for Gamers

2008-11-18T23:22:00.000-08:00

I just met with a college friend today who's a financial adviser and he really gave me some important reminders about what things to start considering for my financial future. I think this information would be really useful to pack into a video game that was able to show users the effects of their decisions.

It could be a virtual human game similar to the Sims except that when certain events happen the virtual humans would be confronted with the same decisions and outcomes that we'll probably encounter in real life. As an example situation, your human could receive a huge inheritance from a recently deceased family member like mom or dad, but instead of just wallowing in the money, you would have to figure out how to pay the inheritance taxes, most likely requiring you to sell off a bunch of your stuff immediate or take out a loan while the paper work is taken care of.

The game sounds dry, but I think that many of the situations can be presented in an entertaining way because the game itself doesn't have to be about finances, it can just present financial facts that could come up in certain common events like character death, housing purchases, amassing large amounts of money, marriage and having kids.

Game Reviewing For Change

2008-11-16T21:35:00.000-08:00

Since I think that constructive game reviews can be useful for future game development, I've started reviewing some of socially conscious games starting with Hurricane Katrina: Tempest in Crescent City. I'll be posting the reviews both here and in the Community Reviews section at GamersOfAction.org once I'm done. Hopefully other community members will also contribute their own reviews and we can really start contributing to the development of future serious and socially conscious games.

I still need to figure out what else we can do until we get some more video game street cred so we can get some serious considerations from game publisher when it comes to focus/game testing. I really need to start looking for a larger base of active conscious gamers, maybe through Facebook, ECA, Games For Change and Gamers in Action.

DoppelGanger - Gamers In Action

2008-11-01T19:53:00.000-07:00

After doing a google search for Gamers Of Action and finding us actually listed (Hurray!), I couldn't help but notice that it looks like we have a doppelganger in another site called GamersInAction.org.

That's actually really awesome to hear since Gamers In Action is doing something similar to what we want to do although it looks like for now they are focusing exclusively on hosting game tournaments to raise money for charities. Right now it looks like they're working together with Child's Play, an non-profit org that helps raise money and donations to get games into the hands of children at the hospital which is really cool.

I'll have to contact the people over at Gamers In Action to see if they'd like to work together in the future since it seems like our orgs would be good complements for each other. Perhaps Gamers Of Action can drop the tournament missions and focus more on progressive game playing/reviewing/creation.

Shameless Self Promotion

2008-11-01T18:41:00.000-07:00

If you're interested in checking out a edutainment game that I created a couple of years ago check out Keyalaga - a typing tutor shoot em up game combining the look of Galaga with the typing mechanics of Typing of the Dead. I'm shooting to port the game over into the XNA and PSN engines so I can get a polished version out to consoles. Don't expect it anytime soon though unless I somehow get a team together to work on it because working on this project alone is gonna take a while. Let me know what you think though if you get a chance to try out Keyalaga.

http://www.cs.lmu.edu/~timberoth/keyalaga

Feast your eyes on the masterpiece known as Keyalaga...............................

Web Site Design Guru?

2008-11-01T18:35:00.000-07:00

Nope. I'm not sure I'd really even consider myself an average web site designer. Then again I'm a computer scientist first and foremost so I doubt I'll ever get out of the realm of programmer art. For now I'll focus on the organization's content and web site tech like Javascript, XML and SQL databases. We still need a website front page though, so I think I'll have to create a better under construction site for now to at least put some information up.

Logo of Action

2008-11-01T18:28:00.000-07:00

It took a few tries but we finally have a logo for Gamers of Action. It's a combination of the controller design I created with the spirally design Kat created. The controller obviously symbolizes gaming both current and future, while the spirals represent continuous progressive movement and action.

Take a look and let us know what you think.

It's Alive, It's ALIVE!!!!!!!!

2008-10-12T16:46:00.000-07:00

The gamersofaction.org site is now live, although it's obviously under construction. Now that we have a site, we'll be adding to it over time since we don't have a lot of time to focus on it right now. If you want to help out let us know since we could always use any web design support.

Finding a Web Host is Hard :(

2008-10-10T14:42:00.001-07:00

Didn’t realize finding a good web hosting company was going to be so hard. I’ve been wallowing through reviews for hours last night, but I’m still not sure exactly who I’m going to go through to set up GamersOfAction.org, although I’m leaning toward InMotion. I’m looking to get this all sorted out this weekend so hopefully they’ll be a website up and running by tomorrow night. Wish me luck.

Quick Note to Self

2008-10-09T18:51:00.001-07:00

Game marathon fundraisers and large scale drive to play existing positive impact games like GWAPs (Games With A Purpose) and that Rice for Definitions game.

The ULTIMATE Goal...goal....goal...goal........

2008-09-27T00:19:00.000-07:00

I was able to get into email contact with Suzanne Seggerman, the co-founder and president of Games for Change (gamesforchange.org) today which was pretty damn cool.

As I was typing an email response to her, I think I articulated my ultimate goal fairly well so I'm going to copy and paste that into the blog since I don't really feel like retyping the whole thing again.

So here it goes:

My ultimate goal is to create a non-profit game company that develops AAA progressive socially conscious games that will appeal to both casual and hard core gamers. I know this sounds like an impossible task, but I know that progressive thought, video games and commercial success do not have to be mutually exclusive.

Since my end goal is not something that can be easily achieved right now with my current experience level, we (Kathy and I) were planning on starting small with a non-profit called Gamers Of Action that would allow gamers to use their skills to enact positive social change namely through the raising of money to fund the development of socially conscious games. If we raised enough money we could start a small community based foundation that could help fund other young game non-profits.

In terms of fundraising we brainstormed multiple ideas (the viability of each of these options still needs to be researched)
- Find temporary game testing/ focus testing opportunities and have participants donate a portion of their earnings. This setup would be similar to the way that TV taping fundraisers are conducted. Basically groups sign up with audience agencies and go to a TV taping and are paid a certain amount for each person they bring, usually about $14-$20 a head.
- Run a Game Tournaments to raise money
- Partner with existing game tournaments and professional leagues to raise money

Since the mission of Gamers Of Action is to allow gamers to use their gaming skills for positive change, there are other non-money related options that we could pursue as well such as
- Creating socially conscious game design classes to help inspire future generations of progressive game designers
- Create a progressive game developer mentorship program to connect young progressive game developers with more experienced ones.

Of course a lot of this will change over time, but I think it's a good start. Now I can start looking to more research and heckling other companies to find out how charitable they really are.

Not Being Lazy is Hard

2008-09-25T22:27:00.001-07:00

Even pushing myself to get this blog started wasn't easy so I'm hoping that this blog will force me to make advances toward my ultimate goal of starting a video game non-profit that produces AAA socially conscious games. Sound like a crazy idea? Makes me sad that even I answer that question with a "Yes" most of the time. I gotta keep reminding myself though that everything starts off small and crazy sounding. Even the name "Wii" sounded ridiculous when it was first announced (still does in my opinion), but now people don't give it a second thought, hell even embrace the name.

I'm just so lazy, I wished the socially conscious game genre was already established so I could easily apply for a game programming position. I enjoy working at my current job as a game programmer for an entertainment game company, but working at a socially conscious game company would be ideal. Guess I might just have to start one sometime in the future if I can't find one. Easier said than done though...I'm lazy.

Blogging for Change?

2008-09-25T22:14:00.000-07:00

I finally got around to creating a blog that I'm going to use to document the challenges that I'll most likely be facing trying to get GamersOfAction.org off the ground. It'll also be a good way to document some of the questions banging around in my head that I'd probably forget otherwise. Who knows maybe there are others out there that might be facing the same challenges I am and if not, now perhaps in the future. Even if no one every finds this blog (except for Kathy :) ), at least it'll help me stay organized and focused.