Results tagged “Gaming”

A wiser man than myself once said that sometimes the best research just takes the time to prove that common sense actually makes sense.  Which is why I saw so thrilled to stumble across a bit of newly minted research dealing with video game violence.  Patrick and Charlotte Markey (professors at Villanova and Rutgers respectively) recently published an article that shows what the more open minded (ie horribly biased) of us have always believed.  In a woefully simplified
summary, video games are not the cause of violent behavior - personality problems are. 

I absolutely love the analogy the authors make between violent video games and peanuts -  potentially benign stimuli which can have very significant impacts on people because we process things differently. 


Check out the full article, "Vulnerability to Violent Video Games: A Review and Integration of Personality Research" which was published in the Review of General Psychology.




FlashBack

• If you have been a long time reader of the blog, you might remember Patrick Markey's name from a video I posted back in 2007 that dealt with similar research.  The recently published piece deals more with looking at specific personality factors that contribute to one's susceptibility to being affected by violent media. 
  

Video game themed rap music has almost always been a recipe for disaster - try not to act too stunned.  In fact, during my lifetime long love affair with rap music and video games, the ONLY decent game related rap song I can think of is Ice Cube's Street Fighter, but even that comes with a caveat that it was made for the painfully bad movie (which was based on the game) as opposed to the game itself. Professional rappers certainly play video games, but writing songs about them doesn't really earn you a whole lot of street cred.  And thus nearly all video game raps are from amateurs.  And wow has that led to a boat load of terrible.  Novel terrible, but terrible none the less.

So you can imagine my skepticism when my RSS reader laid upon my digital doorstep something called the "epic gaming history rap" from one Dan Bull.  I decided to give it a go, not because I had any belief that it would be good, but rather because laughing at things that are awful has become something of a hobby of mine. 

And was I ever pleasantly surprised. 

An original song, catchy song, with clever lyrics that actually does a nice job flowing through an individual's personally history of gaming?  Ladies and Gentlemen, I think we have a winner.  Though as a warning, it does have a bit of strong language for those of you who are sensitive to such things.

For the past few weeks, my firefox browser has become increasingly bloated with tabs.  As I write this post, I'm up to 44 tabs in 2 separate windows.  Its become a bit of a problem.

The road to tab-overload, as the paraphrased saying goes, is paved with good intentions.  As I scanned through the glut of sites open on my machine this morning, the large majority of them fell into the category of longs posts I'd meant to read, links people I'd sent me that I'd been meaning to read, or links I'd been saving for various blog posts... that I'd meant to write.   The theme, in case it wasn't apparent, is a whole lot of intent, with not a lot of action.  And thus I'd become as Stevie Rocco so nicely described it a digital hoarder.  For shame for shame.

So in the spirit of spring cleaning thats been permeating the rest of my life of late, I thought it high time to rid myself of this internet clutter and either do something with it, or throw it out (and by throw it out I mean tag it in delicious, which is a whole other topic of conversation).  But alas, I'm not quite sure I'm ready to toss out one of the 17 page rants I normally go on in this space.  So I'm going to see if I can try something new: Rapid Fire.  A topic.  A bunch of a links for your viewing pleasure.  And a *small* bit of thought/ analysis.  Will it blend?  We'll find out.  How is this different from the old Almost All Things Considered posts I used to write?  ... Enough questions!  To arms!

The Setup

This edition of rapid fire is inspired by two talks that have bee rattling through my head for the past few weeks.  The first, is Jesse Schell's talk at DICE 2010, the second is Jane McGonicgal's TED talk.  If you havent seen them, I highly recommend giving them a listen.  But in a nutshell, they both bring up this idea of games and their intersection with reality.  And perhaps more specifically, ways that can intersect with reality to make us better people, better citizens, or better caretakers of the planet with live on. 


The Links
A random collect of things I've observed in the past few weeks that represent that connection between the virtual world and the real one.

• Professional Athletes Train With Sports Games - The Escapist

Long term readers might remember a story I linked too a couple of years ago that talked about Penn State quarterback Anthony Morelli's use of game's to improve his on the field play.  Well the idea has expanded, and the Escapist article talks about the positive (and negative) impacts on MLS, NASCAR and MLB. 

• Why Twitter and Facebook Are Key for Games Marketing - The Escapist
  

Recap of a panel of gaming industry leaders on the importance of social media marketing.  

• For All the Farmville Haters Out There - Kotaku
  

I post this partially for its amusement factor (I respect, but very much dislike Farmville as a game).  But more importantly because this shirt represents the dark side of what can happen when games infiltrate our real social networks. 

• Games Takes on Real Soldier at Modern Warfare 2 - Kotaku 

A tv personality from the Gadget Show "takes on" a former British SAS soldier in a little virtual vs. real competition around a level from Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2.

• A Real Life Analysis of Mass Effect 2's Science - GameTrailers co/ Destructoid

GameTrailers.com sites down with Physicist Dr. Michio Kaku to talk about the science behind some of the sci-fi from the game Mass Effect.  

• Rooster Teeth Experiments with Third Person Driving in Real Life - Joystiq

The majority of video games that include vehicle sections will often orient the camera behind and above the vehicle you are trying to control (3rd person perspective) as opposed to behind the steering wheel (first person perspective) to make it easier to control.  The guys from Rooster Teeth (makers of the Red vs Blue Halo machinima series), decided to see if 3rd person driving works as well in real life.  As a warning, there is a bit of strong language in this video for those who don't like such things.

• Impressions: Power Gig - Rise of the SixString - Joystiq
  

It was only a matter of time. Studio Seven45 has a new spin on the Guitar Hero/ Rock Band craze.  Except this one uses a real guitar, playable both with the game, and just by hooking it up to your standard guitar amp.   

• The Revolution Won't Be Televised - It'll Be A Game - Kotaku

A quick expo on exactly the kind of game for change Jane McGonigal was referring to in her talk - Armchair Revolutionary which strives to combine social gaming with philanthropic efforts, designed to make the world a better place. 

• On Leadership: how video games build leaders - Washington Post

Another story that isnt necessarily new to readers of this blog.  Except now its not being discussed here, or in IBM company reports, but rather on the Washington Post. 







So What

Making sense of all of this (and more) is something I've struggled with for some time, which likely explains why all of these articles have been sitting in my browser for a month+.  On the one hand, I'd like to say that the intersection of video games and reality is a positive thing.  And in some cases I believe it very much is - athletes using games to help them train, Seven45's idea to bridge Guitar Hero and the real guitar, and of course the ideas shared by Byron Reeves or the efforts of Armchair Revolutionary to solve real problems using video games. 

 On the other hand I'm frustrated.  I feel like gaming, and perhaps more importantly our society has a problem.  A problem the ultimately stems from a societal view that one video game is just like every other video game.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, a game which I very much enjoyed, is akin to a summer movie blockbuster.  Its big, its expensive, it trys to be epic and it has a whole lot of things can go boom.  And multiplayer not withstanding, thats it.  Its not deep.  Its not meaningful.  It is a disposable entertainment experience.  That is exactly what is hopes to be.  Make no mistake, it was and is extraordinarily successful in that regard.  But thats where it ceases to be interesting in a larger context.  Much like the video above which was inspired by it. 

Six Days in Fallujah is another military themed video game set in modern times.  To the casual observer, there might not be any discernible difference between the two games with the exception of one.  Six Days in Fallujah is based on the accounts of real soldiers, who participated in the brutal Battle of Fallujah - a part of the Iraq War in 2004.  When the media got a hold of this information, bad press ensued, and eventually publisher Konami pulled the plug on the project, leaving a nearly finished game to collect dust, looking for a publisher that may never step up.  All because it was too real. 

And that was a mild controversy.  A Japaneses game about rape known as RapeLay has set off something of a firestorm over immoral content in games.  Ban it.  Censor it.  Tear the vile piece of filth limb from limb from the very depths of the internet.  But this takes nothing of the game's intent into consideration.  Nor some of the dark, introspective ways I understand it can end.

I've never played RapeLay or Six Days in Fallujah, but thats not really the point.  Clearly I don't advocate making light of topics so serious as military sacrifice or rape.  But who is to say these games do either?  It is far too often assumed that because video games, a frilly nonsensical medium for infants (apparently) they can't deal with serious subjects.  Such a comparison, however, is like suggesting that we should ban the Scarlet Letter, because it, like Cat in the Hat, is a book.  Some games, like music, literature or movies, are made for children.  Some, however, are not.  Some games, like music, literature, or movies, are exactly as they appear to be, devoid of interpretation, substance, depth, emotion or intent - meant solely for the purpose of interpretation.  Some games, are not.  Which brings me back to my frustration.


I think that video games have the potential to help us solve a lot of problems in this world.  Make no mistake, I am incredibly passionate about using games to improve athletes, or teach children to play guitar.  But we have a lot more serious problems in our world than how to train the next generation of business leaders.  And if video games are going to help us solve those kinds of problems - those messy problems we don't like to talk about - then we need to accept that there can be more to games than meets the eye and that not every game needs to be purely for whimsical entertainment. 

So much for rapid fire.





Images from kotaku.com and joystiq.com

Whenever I talk with people about re-purposing commercial games for educational purposes, it is inevitable that Ubisoft's Assassins Creed will enter the conversation.  Despite the fact that the game is based around the often polarizing premise of ... well... assassinating people, it represents one of great examples of the potential for learning to occur when learning is not the primary goal.  Fun First, Learning Later if you will.  And so despite a recent glut of blockbuster video game releases, I was quite pleased to be able to give a copy of Assassins Creed 2 a happy home earlier this week.

As a gamer, AC2 is all I could have hoped for (at least so far).  But as impressive as the game's  improvements in entertainment value are over its predecessor, its advancements as an entertainment based learning experience are what really bring home the bacon and fry it in the pan. At least for me =)

I'm hoping to prepare a far more detailed breakdown of the historical truths behind the game (similar to the post a did for the first Assassins Creed), but to prime the pump (and to give myself a chance to finish the game), I wanted to talk generally about a few design mechanics in AC2 that really advance its support of informal learning.

• The Database

Its become something of a standard for large games with intricate storyline to maintain a database of important people, places and things that the player may come across in the game and Assassin's Creed 2 is no exception.  But where most game databases are filled with fictional content, the AC2 database is filled with real history.  In the first Assassins Creed there was no way in game to figure out if Conrad de Monferat was actually a real person who played a role in the 3rd Crusade, or whether he was simply a fictional character created by the game's writers.  Sure curious parties could do their own research or look for posts like mine - but any such curiosity would involve leaving the game.  "Oh noes!" might exclaim the cynic.  "Forcing people to do their own research would be a travesty!"  Eye roll.  Yes I know, that might not seem like a daunting task.  But keep in mind that this is an entertainment based game which is being played for fun.  Forcing players to leave the game environment to assuage curiosity puts learning and entertainment at odds.  And that could serve as a barrier to what might otherwise be receptive learners... er... players.  Having an in game database that allows players to access real history while they play is a key addition that could create even more opportunities for people to come away from Assassins Creed having learned something new. 

• An Artists Touch
  

Though somewhat tangential to the game's main story, art plays an interesting side role in AC2.  In each of the main cities you frequent, you can choose to purchase paintings to adorn the walls of your family's villa. Though such an addition could have been made haphazardly using gibberish art, the designers chose to use the collection mechanic to expose players to 30 different famous paintings from the Renaissance period in which the game is set - for example, Botticelli's The Birth of Venus or Da Vinci's Lady With Ermine. Again, the game does not force you to purchase these paintings to advance the plot, but they are tied to an in game achievement and make for a nice little educational side dish.  While on the subject of art, there is also something to be said for the game's use of historical photographs (not from the Renaissance period obviously), famous sculptures, and of course the masterfully recreated architecture of the time. But I'll discuss those juicy nuggets in my larger post. 

• Viva Italia!
  

Under normal circumstances, playing a game where a sizable amount of dialog is in a language you do not speak would probably be considered a bad, or at least a frustrating thing.  But AC2's use of Italian was not only appropriate, it also added depth and a sense of immersiveness to the world of Ezio Auditore da Firenze (the game's main character).  From longer plot discussions, to quick hitting expressions, to various "exclamations" or side talk from soldiers and townsfolk, there is plenty of Italian to be had in AC2.  Even the little touches like the "Fabbro" (blacksmith in Italian) sign that hangs over the Blacksmith's shop, or the way Venice is always pronounced Venezia add an incredible richness to the virtual Italy in which the game is set.  And it might just lead you to start learning (and yelling as you wash dishes, much to the dismay of my wife) a bit of Italian.

• The Tourguide
  

One of the things I discussed far too briefly in my post on Assassin's Creed 1 was the way in which the design team recreated important historical landmarks within cities such as Damascus or Acre.  Ubisoft's effort in bringing real places to life was commendable, but, as I discussed earlier, these efforts could often have been in vane.  For in order for a player to realize that they were looking at a virtual Dome of the Rock, they must either already know what such a building looked like, or be curious enough to try and match what they saw in game to a real place in the world.  In this way, the attention to the historical architecture could have easily been overlooked by potential players. 

AC2 fixes this in two specific ways.  The first, is the use of the aforementioned database.  Whenever Ezio walks by an interesting looking building, the building's name is displayed on screen letting the player know that the building is (or was) real.  And when you walk by the Ponte Vecchio, the Duomo, or some other real life place, an entry is then automatically added to the aforementioned database, allowing the player to view additional information on the location, such as when it was built or its historical significance.  The effect is comparable to walking through, say a museum with a hand held tour guide.  At minimum, you'll learn the names of some historical buildings, but if you'd like to learn more you have the ability to do so.  A side quest which helps to reveal more of the game's back story also encourages players to spend a little extra time taking a look at specific database entries and climbing around on some of these buildings, for anyone looking for an excuse to getup close an personal with a little historical architecture. 

The second way AC2 helps draw attention to important historical buildings of consiequence is a literal tour of a handful of important landmarks by an NPC upon arriving in Venice. Subtle, but beneficial and it proves to be interesting, at least for the interested.  I heart Yogi Berra.


None of these little mechanics or design decisions are earth shattering by any means.  But each one adds a little more educational potential here and a few more informal opportunities there.

Check back in in a few days and hopefully I'll have drummed up the motivation to pull out the old history books and get down to some edumicatin' video game style.



Images from http://www.consolemonster.com and realmofvenus.renaissanceitaly.net 

   

There was a time not too long ago when, as a presenter, looking out on an audience and seeing this would have lead to the emotional equivalent of being hit in the face of a rotten tomato. 
Thankfully (or perhaps not so thankfully, depending on your view of human social evolution) seeing a crowd full of faces illuminated by the radioactive glow of their laptops or smart phones is no longer the symbol of disrespect that it once was.  It can be, in many cases, the new look of engagement, which I've discussed in this blog before.

Today, open laptops, prevalent wireless internet access, and highly functional smart phones have ushered in the era of the backchannel and increased the level of engagement and interaction at conferences by magnitudes inconceivable just a few years ago.  The speaker is now only part of the experience.  (For those not familiar with the term, back channel communication refers to the practice of using social networking tools such as Twitter, Facebook, Ning, etc to communicate/ discuss the happenings of some event "behind the scenes", often in real time).  Hashtags (for aggregating social media contributions from conference participants) have become even more prevalent than printed conference guides. And from my own personal experience, I can say that the back channel has really added a welcome depth and connectedness my conference going experience over the past few years.

How conferences and individual presenters choose to embrace (or not) this phenomenon is widely varied. Some people pretend that there is no backchannel, and that people connecting with each other is a fad.  Thankfully I don't attend such conferences or associate with such individuals =)  Some will post a hashtag during a conference kickoff then stand back and let things ride.  Some will integrate backchannel artifacts such as tweets or fickr images into their conference websites, or bring the "back" to the "front" and address back channel conversations during presentations or Q&A sessions.  But at this years GLS conference, I happened across a use of the backchannel that I've never seen before - a game. 

The game was called "BackChatter" and it was put together by several GLS participants - Mike Edwards, Colleen Macklin, John Sharp, and Eric Zimmerman.  How does it work?  The full explanation can be found on the game's site but essentially it goes a little something like this.

• You try and guess which word will be tweeted most during a particular conference session block. 
  
• You can pick up to 3 words per session block, which are submitted by direct messaging the bcgame twitter account.
• You earn points based on the word frequency (more points for more uses) and based on the number of other people who picked that word as well (less points for each person that picked it).  So basically you are trying to guess what words will be frequently used that no one else will pick.  
• The top words are selected by pulling together every tweet with a particular hashtag (in the case of the Games Learning and Society conference, the tags were #GLS or #GLS09
• The person with the most points at the end of the conference or at the end of each session block wins (t shirts and a copy of Spore were the prizes).

Basically, BackChattter is a modified version of the board game Scattergories, where the categories (and the clues) are the conference sessions themselves. 

I didnt actually participate in BackChatter but I was a big fan of the idea for a few reasons.  First of all, it was a game and turning things into games = awesomesauce.  Secondly, it was a very non intrusive, and more importantly fun way to draw people into participating in the conference Twitter stream who might not have participated otherwise.  You didnt necessarily need to live-tweet the conference yourself, but you did need to pay attention to the people who were as well as the entire range of available sessions beyond those that you may personally have attended if you wanted the best chance of winning.  Third, there were very few barriers to entry.  As a bit of a hardcore gamer myself, I don't always like that, but in the case of a conference game its important to set the bar at a point where as many people as possible could participate.  BackChatter hit that mark beautifully.  The only things you needed were a Twitter account and a device that could let you send your picks.  The game mechanics themselves were easy to pick up.  The time commitment or pre-existing knowledge required to play was negligible.  There were no complicated controls to master or skills required to succeed.  And because prizes were awarded for the winner of every session block, you could even play if you missed some of the conference.

But the party doesnt end with the BackChatter game.

One of the game's developers, Mike Edwards, took the time to do some analysis of all the Twitter data that was being compiled for the game and he did some trend spotting of his own and even put together a pretty slick sociogram of twitter based connectedness (you can click the image for a bigger version if you really want to see how sweet I am ;-)

 
Obviously you can expect that to a certain degree, a crowd of folks dedicated to the exploration of educational gaming might be pretty open minded their willingness to embrace and promote phenomena like back channel communication, but I was impressed with the thoughtful integration that BackChatter had with the conversation, and the dedication of the GLS organizers to promote and share the goings on of what lie behind the curtain.  It might not have been the most progressive use of backchannel communication at a conference I've ever seen (we've got quite a few all stars in my own office) but it was certainly up there and I applaud the effort of everyone who made it happen.

Now the question becomes, when will BackChatter be available for every conference?   
 




Image from http://www.bech.uni-c.dk/tnc2006/wednesday; Graph from http://onearmedman.com/research/glstweets

I'm still only a few days removed from the 2009 Games, Learning and Society conference - just enough time to begin reflecting, though not enough time to fully make sense of it all yet.  Be that as it may, I wanted to take a few minutes and at least recap some of the sessions/ ideas that were explored during my stay in Madison.  There are some bigger thoughts brewing as well, but they may still require a few more days of ripening before they are ready to pick off the vine.  So I'll try and keep this somewhat brief (or at least bite sized).  Stay tuned for slightly more reflective post or two. Now for some general thoughts/ recaps.  Stay tuned for more posts to come.

Augmented Reality
ARG/ Moble gaming experiences were well represented at this year's GLS.  Arizona State's SMALLab (video below) was a cool example of a game based non traditional learning space.  Who needs a Microsoft Surface when you can have an entire room?  The presenters, who I did not have a chance to speak to personally, stressed that it was a relatively low cost solution - but the specifics of that cost as well as the development demands associated with building for it were not covered in detail. 

SMALLab @ Arizona State University - 2009 from aisling kelliher on Vimeo.

Two other interesting examples were Re:Activism (a game out of Parsons' PETLab, which incorporates SMS and Amazing Race style challenges to  get people to visit the site of famous activist moments in Manhattan) and Mentira (a reality game out of the University of New Mexico, which used location aware mobile devices to encourage students to solve a mystery, while interacting with members of the locale community and learning Spanish in the city of Albuquerque).

Wheres the (Commercial Gaming) Beef?
Admittedly I'm biased since this is an area of particular interest to me, but I was a bit disappointed by the lack of sessions that dealt with the use of commercial games for educational purposes.  Or perhaps, more specifically, commercial games that are not titled "World of Warcraft".  I absolutely love the work that so many groups and institutions are doing with regard to custom built games.  But in many cases, these games are created to suit the needs of a specific demographic, often at the cost of substantial time or financial resources.  Some of these solutions are looking to position themselves as a platform upon which other educators can eventually build and add additional content.  Some, but not all.  The result was several, very interesting, extremely well thought out games ideas that can't really be applied outside of the context in which they were developed.

Bringing ideas back home to apply in your own way is a huge part of the conference experience and I most certainly don't attend GLS just to survey the tools that I can use. But it feels like a missed opportunity not to discuss the $60 off the shelf title that any teacher could purchase, for the x year, x hundred thousand dollar project that only a handful of institutions or groups could replicate. 

And , though I was excited about many of the games on display, I would be lying if I told you that my Stubby sense doesnt start to tingle when I hear educators talk about game design.  I say that being an educational game designer =)  I'm just saying.
 

The Reflecting Pool
One thing that really excited me to see was the degree to which teachers were using games as a means to inspire discussion and reflection.  Games are the means to a separate ends, and its fantastic to see so many educators understanding that.  I was particularly impressed with the Mission America team, who have built an RPG like experience with multiple decision points, meaning that two students might experience the game (and the events it portrays) from two totally different perspectives depending on their decisions.  Students are then brought together and given the opportunity to learn from each other. 

The idea that games must be paired with reflection and discussion is not a new one, but its often an under-appreciated principle, and it was good to see it out in full force at GLS.


Pecha What?
Pecha Kutcha, a micro presentation format which allows a presenter 20 slides (or images), which can be displayed for 20 seconds each (timed), was on display at GLS.  Its a wonderful, socially considerate way to shut down the long talkers, who seem to be multiplying in the age of the endless powerpoint presentation.

An interesting take on the lightning talk that, as you can probably imagine, has both strengths and weakness.  I happened to experience a well planned presentation.  But I could also see how it could quickly spiral into a rushed, panicked disaster in the hands of the wrong presenter.


The Remix
One of the more interesting concepts to come out of GLS (though I hesitate to call it a game) was on display with Young American Heroes - a history experienced designed to help students build empathy with famous characters or human moments from America's past.  Dramatized historical clips are used to set the scene for key historical moments, then paused during key cliffhanger moments.  Students must then consult primary stories in order to finish the story, by building out a graphic novel scene.  When finished, they compare their comic interpretation to how the actual scene turned out.

As I said, not exactly a game, but still a pretty slick way to get students engaging content.


Contrary To Popular Belief
Lawrence Kutner, co-author of Grand Theft Childhood: The Surprising Truth About Violent Video Games, gave an excellent closing keynote which touched our America's history of trying to ban and condemn new media which it perceived as potentially detrimental to the public good (to the point of absurdity).  He also, as one would expect, shared the findings explained in his book - namely that the effects of video game violence are more a product of the political/ media hype machine than real science.  And Kutner should know - he's done the research (with more than 1200 kids) and serves as director of Harvard Medical School's Center for Mental Health and Media.

Kutner's keynote was as clearly articulated as his book - which I highly recommend to anyone concerned with violent video games and children.  There are a few risks - but they probably arent the ones you think.  Kutner also offered up the quotes of the conference. "People never let data interfere with their preconceived notions" and "What we hear depends on what we're listening for".





Sessions Attended

• Embodying, Designing, and Learning Multimodally with SMALLab
• In Retrospect: Outcomes of Cosmos Chaos
• The Best of Both Worlds? Design Challenges for Developing Playable Historical Games for Classroom Learning
• Re:Activism NYC: Urban Interactions and Learning
  

• Designing Ethical Dilemmas
• Following Basic Directions In the Land of Destructible Delights: Learning and Exploration Patterns in the Virtual World
• Funeral Games: Ethics, Immersion, and Culture in MMO Games
• Need or Greed: An Analysis of Ethical Issues Across In Game and Out of Game Contexts
• Happiness if Mandatory: Emergent Ethics in Massive Online Environments
  

• Soft Modding

• Against Education: Understanding the New Culture of Learning

• Games (Through) Theories of Language, Learning, and Mediated Social Practice
• Reading Performance and Literacy Practice in the Context of MMO Games
• It's a Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood: Developing Place-Based, Augmented Reality Games for Language Learning
  

• Mobile Games and Education: Current Projects and State of the Practice

• For the Lulz: How 9000 Internet Jackasses Took on the Church of Scientology and Redefined the Politics of Play

• History Games Go to School: Research Insights From the American History and Civics Initiative

• Grand Theft Childhood? Making Sense of Teenagers's Responses to Violent Videogames

Last weekend, Jenn and I found ourselves at the wedding of a high school buddy of mine.  Amidst the many conversations with quite a few old friends (as well as some new ones), we mentioned that we would each be headed off to conferences this week. 

"Where are you guys headed?, one of my friends asked.

"Las Vegas!" Jenn said with a smile.

"Madison, Wisconsin," I added.

"Well I think we know who got the short end of that stick", another friend chimed in.  We all had a good laugh.  Though as I thought about what awaited me in Madison, I felt a little bad.  Jenn sure did get the raw deal =)

Because come tomorrow, I'm on my way back to the Games, Learning, and Society - a conference that was, without question, a 2008 Stub highlight and the most inspiring, thought provoking, and rewarding conference I've ever attended.  This years lineup looks even better than last, even after you subtract points for them giving me a chance to speak ;-)  Last year power/ wireless problems limited my level of live blogging/ tweeting, but hopefully a new venue (not to mention an iPhone) will give me an opportunity to up the ante a bit. 

Hope you're ready to hear what an inspired Stub sounds like, because its go time ladies and gents.  Stay tuned to the blog or the twitter stream for updates/ incredible amounts of spam.  Game on!

And yet again, the internet provides glorious things for us from its endless bounty.  If you are a Halo fan, appreciate a Red Hot Chili Peppers cover, or have a soul, you too will find yourself watching this video an unhealthy number of times. Palette Swap Ninja

A few weeks ago, Tom Clancy and Ubisoft released the latest addition to their arsenal of military themed games.  This particularly game, titled H.A.W.X. (which stands for High Altitude Warfare Experimental Squadron) is based on tactical air combat.  Or put another way, its about fighter jets.  Awesomesauce.

I've only played through the demo of HAWX, so I can't comment too much on the game play itself.  Of course that works just fine for this post as I'm not writing to talk about what is going on in the air anyway.  Because its what is happening on the ground that makes HAWX so interesting.

In order to make the game as realistic as possible, Ubisoft negotiated a deal with GeoEye - a high resolution satellite imaging company - to provide real world data for use in game.  If GeoEye sounds familiar to you, its because they are the same people that provide satellite imagery for Google Earth. The result of the Ubi-Eye partnership is that Rio de Janeiro in HAWX is not an artists rendering, but is the real deal complete with the real landmarks, real topography, real buildings and even real trees down to the meter.  It takes EA's old saying "if its in the game, its in the game" to a whole new level.  Or should I say altitude.  Lets go to the video tape!


 
Despite the fact that HAWX takes place well above the ground (at least as far as I've seen) the attention to detail is immediately noticeable from the virtual pilots seat and it adds an impressive depth to the game play experience.  The fact that its a pretty cool mashup (which seems to have been the topic of choice around here of late) doesnt hurt either.

But taking it a step further, I'm also getting a delicious whiff of educational pie here, and it comes in two flavors.  Obviously this sort of realism gives HAWX immediate potential as a geography tool for whatever cities are depicted in the game.  But thats pretty vanilla.  Lets take it the extra mile.

The majority of Clancy's games take place on the ground, from the perspective of an individual soldier or squad.  And given the fact that the Ubisoft-GeoEye partnership is already in place, its not unlikely to assume that the next Rainbow Six or Ghost Recon game will bring the realistic satellite images of Hawx back down to an ground pounder perspective.  Now, imagine Ubisoft providing level editor tools to let you create your own maps, based on real world satellite data... 

Put away the M-60 machine guns and F-22 raptors and you have just created a framework to allow anyone, anywhere, to explore any city in the world, any time, by foot or by air.  And did I mention that these games are all already built for multiplayer experiences?  Now just let your mind wander through the educational and collaborative possibilities of that kind of freedom.  It could change the way we think about everything from language learning to home buying.  Forget about virtual worlds.  This IS the world.  All from the framework of a game.  At this moment we shed a single tear for what Google's Lively could have been.

As excited as I am about the possibilities, the path I've gone down here is probably more than a little overly optimistic.  But I like where this is going.  And if Ubisoft doesn't run with the ball, you can bet someone else will.

Very cool stuff here.
 
 


Image from ign.com

This is one of the best stories I've read in a long time.

From BoingBoing...
-------------------------
This is a picture of my amazing youngest son Evan. He's 13, he's holding a game controller and looking at a glowing screen and he's doing what he does a lot of -- diving into digital realms of adventure.

His latest favourite game is Call of Duty - which he plays on-line with his friends. Evan's wanting to play C of D was something of a challenge for us. It's rated T and he's only just a teenager and point and shoot first person games worry me some. Evan is relentlessly reasonable sometimes -- he outlined why he wanted to play the game and he was pretty upfront why he knew my "parent-sense" would start tingling. So I had to be reasonable too. I looked at the game. I've done a lot of research for military museums so I could tell that the content was accurate -- but there was lots of shooting and blowing things up. But there was a fair bit of that during World War II. So it was undeniable that Evan was experiencing history and there was this teamwork factor...

So we compromised. Well, sort of.

I asked Evan to google the Geneva Convention. Then he had to read it and then we had to discuss it. This we did. So the deal is that Evan has to fight according to the rules of the Geneva Convention. If his team-mates violate the Convention then play stops and Call of Duty goes away for a while.

We'll see how it goes, but Evan keeps his word. Especially about his games.
-------------------------

There are a lot of things I love about the story of Evan and the Geneva Convention.  For whatever reason, game controversy tends generate a firestorm of attention, particularly when it comes to the Media, Politicians, and certain watchdog groups.  We try to ban them.  Censor them.  Plaster them with ratings and fine retailers for selling them.  And in the process, we fail to sit back and look at whats really going on, and what kinds of opportunities we are missing out on, both as parents and educators (something I've written about before).

Hugh Spencer, the author of the BoingBoing piece, could have taken the game away because of its violent content (which clearly made him a bit uneasy as a parent).  He just as easily could have looked the other way and done nothing at all (a much bigger problem with game violence, that for whatever reason, rarely enters the discussion).

But he did neither.  He took an active role in the things his son was doing.  He investigated the game content objectively.  He thought about what he could do to help allieviate some of his concerns.  He leveraged the power of a popular game and web 2.0 technology.  And he created not only a family opportunity for discussion, but a powerful informal learning moment.

I havent played the newest Call of Duty myself, so I can't speak to how exactly abiding by the rules of the Geneva Convention (which, if meory serves, deals with the treatment of Prisoners of War) applies to its gameplay.  But regardless - my kudos to Hugh Spencer for treating games, parenting, and learning with the thoughful attention they deserve.

By now we're probably heard of at least one creative way that businesses are using Twitter to help improve their awesome quotient.  So when I read that Infinity Ward (makers of Call of Duty Modern Warfare) were using Twitter to solicit suggestions for the next installment of the Call of Duty series, I found myself at about a 2/ 10 on the "this might be interesting" scale.    But because I've been hard wired to click on anything that combines video games with social networking, I gave it a quick look.  And I was quite pleasantly surprised.

You might have seen Twitter being used for business before, but what you (and by you I mean me) probably havent seen is Twitter being used quite like this. 

Heres the scoop.  Basically Infinity Ward asked a question on their site - "Name one thing you'd like to see in Modern Warfare 2".  The reply button then kicks the user to Twitter and pre-fills their response with the #MW2 Hashtag.  All of responses are then aggregated back on Infinity Ward's site.  Interesting sure - but we're still meat and potatoes.  We need a little flava flav!

And that "flav" comes in the form of delicious social ratings chedda'.  Check out the bottom right of each tweet.  Now we're getting somewhere.

The leaderboard button you can see in the screen shot then tallies the individual twitter users whose suggestions have earned the most votes, and shows each of the posts they've submitted with the MW2 Hashtag.
Personally I feel as thought the leaderboard would be more effective if it ranked the suggestions based on votes, instead of the people who made those suggestions (under the system, the single best suggestion might not make the list if one person made several lesser suggestions).  I'm also not sure if the dismissiveness associated with Twitter makes it the best tool for social rating.  People to to hit and fade when it comes to Twitter, and don't usually take the time to sort through pages of old data.  I.e. really good ideas could easily be overlooked by the masses if they happened to be posted at a really slow (or really popular) time.

But what I do love is how community outreach in this fashion really has an opportunity to create bonds between previously unlinked Call of Duty enthusiasts and between the player-base and the development team. 

What Infinity Ward has done is also very reminiscent of Harvard's Live Question Tool - something we've casually adopted here at Penn State, and have been hoping to port over to our Movable Type platform.  Does the casual, highly mobile, condense nature of a tool like Twitter make participation and social rating even more useful?  Or will things get jumbled a bit too quickly?  Only time will tell, but I'll be following Infinity Ward's progress with this little experiment with great interest.

Games, twitter, social ratings, business - its a little bit of everything.   Gotta love that.



Read more on the story @ computerandvideogames.com

Better late than never right?  I wanted to take a few minutes and share a few of the points discussed during the EGC's February 10 Virtual Worlds Lunch, which focused on Eve Online.  We're hoping to record future sessions, but for the moment, my notes are the best you get =)

If this is the first you've heard of the Virtual Worlds Lunch, then a quick shameless plug!  Roughly once a month or so, we (Penn State's Educational Gaming Commons) host a presentation/ discussion lunch which focuses on a particular virtual world (which includes massive multiplayer online games).  About half of the time is devoted to a demo and basic overview of the environment, with the remainder of the lunch devoted to discussion.  Basically its a great opportunity to learn a little more about virtual world environments, network, talk with like minded individuals within the Penn State community, and brainstorm potential educational or research opportunities.  The meetings are open to everyone, and we even provide lunch, so if it sounds interesting, keep an eye on the gaming.psu.edu - the next lunch should be on the books soon!  End plug =)

Now for a quick hitting review of Eve:

• Eve Online is a space themed Massive Mutiplayer Online Game that has been around since '03 and is currently under the control of the Icelandic company CCP.  A series of computer based missions can get you started, the majority of the game is focused on player vs. player combat, amassing wealth in an extremely intricate virtual economy, and eventually working with your corporation/ alliance to control regions of space.   
• Unlike games such as World of Warcraft, which partition users onto different servers, Eve is a singular online universe which spans several thousand star systems. 
  
• There are currently around 240,000 active accounts, with the most concurrent users clocking in at ~51,000 in February '09.
• The game client is distributed for free online and available for Windows, Mac, and Linux.  You can try out the game with a 14 day free trial.  Standard subscription fees run $14.95/ month.
• Players can choose from 1 of 4 playable races, each with 3 separate "bloodlines" which influences the starting skills and background story for your character.  Additional customizations such as physical appearance and an RPG-like skill point allocation system are also available.
• The guild in Eve is known as a corporation.  Corporations form, not only for protection and expansion, but to  to gain control over finite resources (ranging from rare and expensive ship building blueprints to physical regions of space). 
  
• Corporations can group together to form alliances.  Alliances and corporations can then specialize in different areas such a mining, security, piracy, etc.  To give you an idea of the scale, the largest alliance as this is being written is Goonswarm with 89 corporations and more than 6,300 members.  Each of the top 10 alliances in Eve have more than 1,500 members.

Gameplay
Playing Eve (at least early on) amounts to accepting and undertaking computer based missions which encourage either combat or exploration.  Eventually, the computer missions fade, as mining, taking on contracts, or working to better the interest of your corporation become more paramount.  Like many MMOs, playing alone will only get you so far - eventually working with others become key to growth and progression.  However the core of Eve remains the same - amass wealth, continue to purchase bigger and better ships and components, and eventually achieve interstellar domination.

Managing the economy is the game within the game.  For players not interested in combat or resource harvesting, there are a myriad of player created opportunities (some of which will be discussed later) such as banker, stock broker, contract manager, etc.  That stuff will blow your mind =)   


Interfaces
Though graphically, Eve continues to hold its own, despite resting on a 6 year old core, its interface leaves much to be desired.  For starters, Eve does not scaffold itself, giving the beginning player access to every tool available in the game from the moment you set foot into the universe.  Without a scaffolded approach, the interface quickly becomes overwhelming, and is only partially intuitive.  A beginners tutorial and computer based quests help to guide you through some of the basic functionality of the game, but your curiosity quickly outgrows Eve's helping hand, leaving you to an enormous amount of trial and error - in a bad way.  For example, at the beginning of an early mission, my computerized agent recommended I upgrade my ships weapons, but neglected to tell me that my new weapon was kinetic, not energy based, and thus would require ammunition.  My mistake was not realized until I dropped into an enemy system, and fired air at a squadron of well armed enemy ships, bent on killing me.

The game is also very mouse intensive, which can be extremely problematic for a new player.  Space, in case you are not aware, is quite vast, and so when the game forces you to target an opposing ship by clicking on it (keeping in mind that both you and your enemy are moving, and distances are conveyed rather well) the experience is about as satisfying as trying to hit a grain of sand with a dart from 50 feet away... while intoxicated.  I'm sure there are interface shortcuts or quick keys, but they were not readily apparent, which is, as we say in the bidness, no bueno.  Take a look at the screenshot below - if it looks confusing, it is =)  And you too could see a screen like this one, after about 10 minutes of game play. 


The rest of the interface is somewhat windows-esk, presenting users with the familiar close, minimize, stretch, drag standards we've come to learn from most operating systems.  It works, and it allows for a fair degree of interface customization, but its not particularly elegant and most certainly isnt pretty.  And for some reason, everything is written in absurdly small print.

Oh, and I don't know how many stellar cartographers we have in the audience, but Eve's map system made absolutely no sense to me what so ever.


The Economy
Though I mentioned earlier that amassing wealth is one of the tenants of Eve, the complexity with which that occurs is unlike any game I've ever seen.  A few examples.

For those of you not familiar with MMOs, there is a process known as "vendoring" which basically means selling unwanted items to the computer instead of to other players.  Vendoring items often offers speed and convenience, but will often yield less money than meticulously finding a human buyer who would be willing to pay more.  In World of Warcraft for example, vendoring an item would look something like this: 

In Eve online, vendoring an item looks more like this:

Though it may take glasses to read the small print, it doesnt to a Warton graduate to realize there is a lot more going on in Eve.  Regional averages?  Sales tax?  Brokerage fees?  Sounds almost... real worldly. 

So what if you've like to sell to other players instead of the computer?  Glad you asked.
What you are looking at here is a price index table for a random product over a 3 month period (though the chart duration is variable based on user preference).  Feel free to dissect the chart at your leisure, but lets just say this is intense.  I had convinced myself that a Donchian Channel was a made up phrase... until I found out its actually a real economic term.  And all of this information is available to every player interesting in selling or buying anything from anyone else.  The result is an entire universe of players who must learn to navigate a commodity market in order to maximize their potential.  And let me reiterate... this is what people do for fun.

Oh, and there is also an entirely player run Eve Stock Market.  Yes, a real stock market.  <head falls off>


Insurance
In Eve, loss of property is a big deal.  A band of roving pirates destroying your ship can wipe out months of effort in a flash.  This metric not only helps to create a deep routed sense of investment (and encourages players to rely on each other) but it has also created a market for ship insurance.  Purchased in 12 week increments, ship insurance can cover anywhere from 40% to 99% of your ships value in the event it is destroyed  Of course the varying levels of coverage do not come without cost.  Should you sell your ship, the insurance is non transferable, of course.


Contracts
In all MMOs, agreements between players or guilds take place.  However these agreements are almost always informal.  Eve allows players to formalize these agreements in the form of a contract.  Say you'd like for someone to transport a particular commodity from one point to another for you.  In Eve, you create a contract, which stipulates the clear terms, payment for success, and even the collateral needed to take on the mission in question.  But perhaps most interestingly of all is that at the end of the contract, both parties must decide on whether or not the contract was properly fulfilled or not.  Though this is not tied to an official enforcement agency of any kind, it is tied to a reputation system (think Ebay).  Voting on the success of a contract also allows a degree of flexibility in contract terms.  For example if you agree to pay someone with a ship instead of cash (which was initially agreed upon) and the contractor accepts, the contract can still be considered successful. 
      There are 5 types of contracts - auction, item exchange, courier, loan, and free-form (which is a misc type), each of which includes slightly different terms.  Contracts can be issued privately between players, or publicly to give any interested party a chance to accept it. Contract templates can also be created, if you have a particular type of contract that is posted frequently.    
     Contracts issued to or from corporations, are only considered valid if agreed upon by approved "contract managers" - the equivalent of an Eve corporate lawyer.  


Banks
Commodity trading, insurance, contracts, a stock market - sounds like we're just a banking system away from having a full fledged recreation of a real world economy here.  Funny you should mention that...

Eve also has player run banks available to store and invest your money.  Dynasty Bank, for example, offers players standard and limited access savings accounts, as well as 2, 3, and 4 month CDs which offer between 3-7% interest.  And just like a real bank, the player run banks of Eve make money by investing holdings.  Another Eve bank, EBank, maintains over 10,000 individual accounts with holdings of over 6 trillion ISK (in game currency).  The banks even go so far as to put out annual reports.  Take a look at this thing, and keep in mind, one more time, that this is someone people are doing for fun.

EBANKAnnualReport07-08.pdf

Player run banks do not come without risk, however.  Earlier this yea, a financial manager for Dynasty bank took off for more than 80 billion ISK in investments, leading to a small run on the bank.  But in Eve Online, its all just a part of the game.  Not so different from the way things play out in the real world, is it? 


 Eve TV
Starting in 2006, player vs player matches in one of Eve's annual tournaments were broadcasted, with analysis, through Eve Tv.  For a sample of one of these broadcasts, check out the video below.

Obviously this doesnt quite meet the Todd Blackledge standard to which I hold all competitive event broadcasts (seriously, is anything better than Todd's Taste of the Town?) but I do think there are two important takeaways.

First off, if you've never taken the time to watch a coordinated MMO event, then it might surprise you just how much strategy, premeditation, communication, and on the fly decision making it takes to pull off a victory (regardless of whether or not the opponent is human or computer).  The content may be fake, but the value in what you're seeing here is very real. 

Secondly, this speaks volumes to the investment that the player community has in this game.  These video are not being produced by CCP - they are of the community for the community.  Voluntary strategic analysis.  Hmmm...

--------------


This has likely been an overloaded, incomplete (and very scattered) overview of some of the topics discussed during the Virtual Worlds Lunch on Eve Online.  But I hope, whether you are a gaming enthusiast or not, you get a feel for some of the incredible complexity associated with this game - particularly when it comes to the economy.  Hopefully you'll be hearing more about Eve and the EGC, as it is an area ripe for further educational exploration.

 

Jumping puzzles.

Since the days of the original Super Mario Brothers (if not before) this devilishly horrible mechanic has plagued video gamedom.  I've tried for a long time to come up with a game dynamic that I loathe more, but to no avail.  The jumping puzzle is the lowest of the low.

There are quite a few reasons I dislike jumping puzzles, though none of those reasons include warmongering or the fact that if said slowly, the word jump creeps me out just a bit.  That and "moist".  Yeeee!  Anyway...

For starters, I'm all about flow when I game.  Not necessarily flow as it has been presented by Csíkszentmihályi (though that is important too).  Rather flow as in coherence.  A sense that everything in a game works together to help build out the all important willing suspension of disbelief.  Perhaps this overstates the case - but think of an actor's motivation for playing a part.  What is your motivation for doing what you are doing?  When you play Half Life, its fairly obvious why you are shooting mobs of angry aliens bent on killing you.    And its even somewhat obvious why you might need to, at some point, jump over holes, or fire, or some other obstacle that involves jumping over.  But, if I were Gordon Freedman, and I had to jump between really thin beams placed far away from each other, I'd consider strapping the gun onto my back and using my hands (you know, like a sane person) instead of trying to stick a landing that an Olympic gymnast would scoff at.

In all fairness to Half Life, there are (and were) clearly technological limitations to trying to build in a "put your gun away and desperately grab onto anything you can" mechanic.  Half Life is a shooter, and jumping puzzles are a change of pace to try and provide varied experiences.  It is clearly not a focus of the game, so I don't blame Valve for not investing in a "grab the stupid ledge" button.  But by the same token, that destroys the flow of the game.  The second you as the player ask yourself "why" and come back with an economic justification for programming resources, or a technical explanation for the impossibility of an in game action, you've ruined the flow.  If you can't make the jumping puzzle work in the broader context of the game and its characters, just take it out.  

Another problem I have with jumping puzzles is that they inevitably showcase (and magnify) any technical flaws in what might otherwise have been a solid game.  Have you ever tried to land a difficult jump in a game where the controls arent tight and your "jump right" ends up being a backwards swan dive into a pit filled with panthers?  Or where the camera takes a bad angle and you end up in mid-air unable to see yourself?  Or where you realize, as you plummet to your death, 45 minutes from your last save, that the outcropping that you thought was a handhold is actually just a shadow in a really convincing shape and location.  The Tomb Raider franchise is one of the few that really makes jumping puzzles work as far as the game world and the story are concerned.  But the Tomb Raider games are also some of the most notorious for the aforementioned problems.  Thats not a knock on Tomb Raider games - I'm actually quite fond of them.  But jumping puzzles (and the environments and controls needed to facilitate them) are much more difficult to design than more traditional levels because there is a lot more that could go wrong.  And if there is even the most minute problem with a game, jumping puzzles will almost certainly make it worse.

Lastly, and lets just be honest with each-other here,  jumping puzzles are not fun.  I won't speak for everyone on this, but at least for me, jumping puzzles are not compelling obstacles in and of themselves.  When you engage a squad of enemy aliens, there is clear conflict, and a clear winner and loser.  Every time they defeat you, it only adds to the intensity of the rivalry, and increases the thrill of eventually defeating them.  A giant rock formation with loose vines is no enemy.  I have no animosity towards it.   No sense of competition or rivalry.  Nor even the physical thrill associated with climbing a real mountain.  If you ascend the peak, it is just over.  And if I fail to ascend it, if you die and loose 20 minutes of progress, there is no tangible target upon which to release your frustration.  One does not defeat the rock, because the rock was not there to be defeated.  Its all very unsatisfying, and whats more, not particularly compelling. 

With this long introduction as a backdrop, let us move to Prince of Persia (the 2008 edition).  A game where you spend nearly all of your time jumping around hanging off... just about everything you can find.  There are beautiful visuals (non photo realistic for once) and a simplistically enjoyable combat system, but by and large the game is about jumping puzzles.  Its a good game, but lets not mix words here - there are control flaws, environmental flaws, and an entire game worth of largely contrived jumping puzzles (you do more jumping than walking, by a long shot).

Sounds like a recipe for Stubstyle disaster right?  Well thats the funny thing. The jumping puzzles in Prince of Persia really aren't a disaster at all.

Because in Prince of Persia, you can't ever die.

Your character's partner in crime, Elika, serves as part sidekick and part guardian angel.  No matter what you do, Elika's helping hand is literally always there to pull you out of the abyss and place you gently back on your last stable footing.  

Without the fear of death, the stress associated with the typical jumping puzzles is made mute, and you as the player are free to explore and experiment with the game world to its fullest, completely and totally risk free.  No frustrating ruined progress.  No need to rage on the controls, the environment, or yourself.  No need to fabricate conflict with inanimate virtual objects.  Just painless gameplay.  A limitless supply of do-overs.  A jumping game free from the horrors of jumping puzzles.  It sounds like a dream come true.  And for a while, it is just that.

The problem is, despite the fact that immortality declaws the vicious jumping puzzle, it ruins the game.

There is something about death in games that, at least to me, is quite necessary.  Something I don't think I ever fully appreciated until it was removed from the equation.  Because in your average game, death is the only metric of consequence.  Death is the only means by which to force your improvement.  Death is a catalyst for learning.  

Death is what forces you to take one final look at that "handhold" before you jump.  Death is what teaches you to practice in safe environments before you step into the boss fight.  Death is what teaches you to block, at least every once and a while.  Death is what teaches you to save more than once every 3 hours.  Because death is failure.  Failure has consequences.  And consequences make you better. 

To render one's in game actions totally inconsequential (or perhaps, "even more" inconsequential, depending on your perspective) defeats the whole purpose of playing.  It makes the game boring.  It ruins the challenge, and waters down any sense of accomplishment.  Is your enemy really your enemy if they can't hurt you?  If you can't be beaten, what sense of gratification is there in victory?  And though different in form, are your opponents really any different than the rock formation with its loose vines and total indifference to your existence?

Prince of Persia deserves a lot of credit for rewriting the script on gaming's public enemy #1.  And it deserves a lot of credit for taking a risk with the most fundamental game mechanic of all.  The thrill of victory cannot come without the agony of defeat.  There is no such thing as fun, as accomplishment with frustration.  Even if it means plummeting to our deaths now and again.  Or perhaps because of it. 

I could have sworn it was a handhold...






Images from kotaku.com, teamxbox.com, and ign.com

I've always enjoyed teaching.  Though I've done a fair amount of guest lecturing and training over the past few years, I don't teach on a regular basis.  Maybe at some point in the future.  Thats not to say I'm good at it.  Nor is it to say that I am anywhere near qualified to have any intellectual influence on the minds of young people.  But these are technicalities not worthy of our time ;-)

As a result of this interest, I've spent a little time here and there thinking about what exactly I'd want to teach if I could design my own course from scratch.  Though there are a myriad of topics I'd be interested in (tactical military history anyone?), you can rest assured that at some point, a class or two...hundred on video games has crossed my mind.  As you can probably guess, thinking about such things sends me into "kid in the candy store" mode.  And yet with all of the video game themed courses I've thought about, there was one area that never crossed my mind:  teaching people how to play games.  Not only have I thought about it, but I've never heard of anyone else thinking about it, much less doing it.  At least up until a few days ago.

Ladies and Gentlemen, may I submit to you UC Berkeley's Advanced Starcraft Theory course.  For your reading pleasure, allow me to offer you up a juicy mouthful of the course description.
 
This course will go in-depth in the theory of how war is conducted within the confines of the game Starcraft. There will be lecture on various aspects of the game, from the viewpoint of pure theory to the more computational aspects of how exactly battles are conducted. Calculus and Differential Equations are highly recommended for full understanding of the course. Furthermore, the class will take the theoretical into the practical world by analyzing games and replays to reinforce decision-making skills and advanced Starcraft theory.
Class will start with lecture and usually include a special discussion topic having to do with the day’s lecture to inspire new and original thought. At the end of lecture, there may be time to analyze student-submitted replays to illustrate a point or to improve analysis.

Now before you and skeptical cat  call shenanigans and wave pitchforks at the downfall of modern education, the course is offered under Cal's DeCal democratic education program, which allows students to teach classes in wide range of subject areas of interest to them.  To give you an idea of some other DeCal courses, Cal students can enjoy "The Ethics of Star Trek", "Sex and the City and the Contemporary Woman", or "Alternate Realities: An Introduction to Phillip K. Dick".  All DeCal courses are 1-2 credits, pass/fail.  Crazy Cal liberals... Wait a minute <deep meaningful sigh> 

Despite its lack of standing as a faculty facilitated course, and the fact that this course might very well be seen within the Cal community as a joke, it does make me stop and broaden my own notions of learning about games.  Up until now, my mind has worked under the assumption that there is teaching about games, and games used to teach.  But using a game to teach you about improving your performance in a game never seemed like something worthy of anyone's time - at least not anyone serious about teaching or learning. 

Reflective gameplay exercises and invoking the readings of Sun-Tzu could very well be fluffy activities in a fluffy class.  But... what if they arent?  If don'e well, this course could actually make sense.  Could actually be of value.  And even *gasp* be academically rigorous.      

Is it totally crazy?  Maybe.  And there might not be anything to take away from a course about improving your gameplay.  But then again, there might just be something to it.  Don't think in terms of making someone better at Starcraft, though perhaps that might be a side effect.  But think of it in terms of teaching people to think, reflect, and theorize their play in a comprehensive way, akin to some of the research Constance Steinkuhler is doing. Hmm.

Maybe a course on becoming a better gamer isnt quite so crazy after all...



Image from icanhascheezburger.com



 

Earlier this month, a bill was proposed to the New York State Assembly.  Under normal circumstances, this would hardly be something worth me mentioning, seeing as how I scarcely have the patience to (ie almost never) read bill proposals from my own state, much less those from states with which I have no affiliation.   But bill A01474 was different, and not just because it had to do with video games.  Okay thats a lie... its entirely because it has to do with video games.  But it also raises a more serious question that I'd like to mull over.

The bulk of A01474 is devoted to making sure it is more difficult for minors to get their hands on games where naughty people with potty mouths do bad things.  Right up until you get to this little ditty:

"Prohibits the sale to minors of certain rated video games containing 
a rating that reflects content of various degrees of profanity, 
racist stereotypes or derogatory language, and/or actions toward a 
specific group of persons."

Racial stereotyping in video games? Sounds crazy right?  Too absurd to possibly be a problem?  Maybe.  But there is someone I'd like you to meet.

Let me introduce you to Private Augustus "The Cole Train" Cole, former "Thrashball" all star, and current member of the COG Army's Delta Squad.  As I'm sure you are no doubt aware, Cole is not a real person.  He is a character in the Gears of War video game franchise. 

And he is a stereotype. 

I'm assuming that most of you reading this post have not played through Gears of War, so allow me to enlighten you with a snippet of The Coletrain's witty repartee.  Be warned, its quite profanity laden if such things bother you.

In the interest of fairness, every one of the characters in Gears of War is a walking stereotype in one way or another.  And were Cole an exception, this discussion would probably be completely irrelevant.  But Cole is not the exception. 

There is Barret Wallace, the hot tempered, gun armed, profanity spewing member of the Final Fantasy 7.  Little Jacob from GTA 4, the gun laundering, weed smoking, Rastafarian. There is Staff Sergent Griggs (Call of Duty 4), who has to be the member of his squad to turns rap music on after taking an enemy communication station (though at least there is a real life story behind that character).  Drebin (MGS4), is another gun launderer.  Don't even get me started on Black characters in fighting games (DeeJay, Jax, Balrog, etc).  Carl "CJ" Johnson is one of the very few African American main video game characters you'll find.  Of course he is the main character of GTA: San Andreas, so invariably, he is a cop killing, drug running gang-banger.

Were you to continue running through the list of Black video game characters, you'd notice two things.  First of all, its not a very long list.  And secondly, its loaded with character stereotypes.  It doesnt get any better if you consider other equally under and misrepresented minority groups (Lara Croft anyone?). 

Now before we go too far, I want to make it clear that I'm not calling racism (or sexism) on any of the developers who've put forth these characters.  As I said before, taken in isolation, none of these examples are really all that worthy of discussion.  But taken within the broader context of the industry, it does raise a few questions for me.

There are literally thousands upon thousands of video games that have been produced over the last 20 years, and though I havent played all of them by any means, I've certainly played my fair share.  So should it be a cause for concern that I can't think of more than one game I've played with a black main character?  Or that almost every example of a black supporting character I can think of either speaks in Ebonics or has some connection to crime?  And just as a point of reference, I can come up with 5 female main characters, 3 Native American characters (total) and not a single game with a Latino main character.  And all those that do exist, either in a main or supporting role, are laden with stereotypical depictions.

Why?

To a certain extent, you might expect that a large chunk of game characters would be White or Japanese given that most games are developed in White or Japanese majority countries. To a certain extent, you might expect that most game characters would be male, since more males than females have historically played video games (though that is now shifting).  But rationalizing demographic trends does not explain overwhelming disparities in numbers.  It does not explain why black game characters use more profanities than periods, or why  female characters usually could have been ripped out of the Victoria's Secret catalog.  I'm an adult (though that is debated by some) and I come from a very diverse background.  To me, these sorts of depictions are at worst, decisions made in poor taste, and have no impact on my perceptions of race or gender.  But who is to say that I'm the rule and not the exception in that regard? 

What are the consequences of failing to get explanations for these character caricatures we're pumping out?

I'm not giving television, film, or music a pass on their contributions to the portrayal of certain stereotypes.  But to be fair, they also offer far more diverse perspectives than games do.  And when you consider that each of the more traditional media outlets existed during times of real segregation and racism in this country, it makes them look all the better.  What excuse does the gaming industry, which for all intents and purposes began in the 80s, have for its lack of character diversity?  What reason could it possibly have the pathetic numbers and poor depictions of minority characters in its products?

"Why" in this case, is not a question I'm prepared to answer, though I do think someone should.  For my own part, I'd just like to ask for a change.   

The Cole Train doesnt offend me.  In fact, I really like the character.  I like most of the characters that I mentioned earlier.  And lets be honest, I'm perfectly happy with most of the white male characters I didnt mention.  Its not that I have a problem with a Black character running guns in a game.  Or an attractive female.  Or a Latino gang member.   That level of sensitivity is uncalled for.

But when the only diversity you see in games comes in the form of a stereotype, I think that everyone who calls themselves a gamer has a responsibility to demand better.

After all, we just elected our first African American President. Are a few more minority video game heros so much to ask?





Images from gearsofwar.wikia.com and listverse.com

Its been a while since I've done one of these, but I feel like there has been an influx of game + advertising/ promotion related news lately.  It may not warrant deep, ranting discussion, but I did find a lot of this stuff interesting enough to at least bring up. 

And awaaaaaaaay we go:


Obama Breaks Out The In-Game Advertising
The Obama presidential campaign has been nothing short of ground breaking in its use of technology to help marshal support for the Democratic nominee.  But with the start of early voting, the Dems decided to spread their message into uncharted waters.  And since I'm writing about it here, you can probably guess what those waters are =)

For the low low cost of $44 grand, the Obama campaign has placed in game advertising in 17 different video games (including Burnout: Paradise, shown) in 10 different battleground states, courtesy of Massive Inc.   Massive reportedly also attempted to contact the McCain campaign to make a similar offer, but did not receive a response.

All effectiveness arguments aside, the move is brilliant in my opinion.  The age range that encompasses the majority of gamers is also an age range with which Obama is experiencing extraordinary popularity.  But this same group is also historically notorious for poor voter turnout.  Speaking the language of your target audience.  Brilliant.  And as I'm sure you can guess, this is the first time a presidential candidate has ever advertised in a video game.

Though it does beg asking 1) will it work and 2) is there any risk of a negative response?


As a footnote, its also worth mentioning that Rock the Votes partnered with Xbox Live to try and inspire the youth vote.  In the first two weeks of the effort, more than 55,000 voter registration forms were downloaded (though how many of those forms were turned into completed voter registrations is impossible to tell).   


New Nissan Z Feels the "New For Speed"
Speaking of advertising firsts, for the first time ever, a car model will be premiered, not in the showroom, but in a video game. Nissan's 2009 370Z, a souped up version of the Z model sports coupe (now with more numbers!) will make its debut in Need for Speed: Undercover on November 18th, a day before its first appearance at an auto show, and 8 weeks before the car is released to dealers.

"Our relationship with EA has been instrumental in bringing the Nissan brand to a passionate and unique audience," added Christian Meunier, Nissan's Vice President of Marketing. "By launching the all-new 2009 Nissan Z first through Need For Speed Undercover, we also gain the spirit and energy that EA gamers experience so strongly. Together with EA, we have truly integrated the all-new 370Z in the overall game experience in a meaningful, multi-layered and profound way."

I'm very curious to see what exactly "meaningful, multi-layered and profound" integration of the Z into the Need for Speed experience means, but regardless its yet another example of a company using games as a means of making their message stand out in an increasingly saturated media market.  Making their message stand out... if only educators were interested in something like that... wink wink...


Marketing Madden
For the more marketing inclined members of our studio audience, an interesting little writeup/ case study on the EA Sports Madden game franchise was recently pushed out by the fine folks at Nielson.  Well worth the read for anyone interested in this stuff, but 3 quotes in particular I wanted to highlight.

• "And the NFL benefits from Madden’s realism. By educating its fan base on everything from each team’s 53-man roster to the often complex salary cap, the video game turns gamers into savvy NFL fans."
  
• "In addition, Madden offers official NFL sponsors a unique advertising opportunity to reach the often elusive young male demographic. Sprint, Snickers, and Under Armour—all league sponsors—have a significant presence in the video game."
• "According to EA Sports, the new campaign includes nearly two dozen television spots and more than 50 web vignettes. According to Nielsen, Electronic Arts spent over $10 million the past year and a half advertising across network, cable, and Spanish-language television, along with web banner ads, many of which were placed on ESPN.com"

A Little Creativity Can Go A Long (like 60 Stories) Way
Over the past few months, there is been a real glut in video game releases - most of which have been pretty high profile titles.  Resistance 2, a "go shoot them aliens" game for the PS3 is one such title.  Resistance 2 contains a highly publicized encounter with a 60 story tall Leviathan, which is running rampant through one of the game's cities obliterating everything in its path.  Well what better way to earn a little buzz than to have a 60 story tall leviathan smash through real buildings.  Sadly its just a screen (it would have been much cooler if someone could have figured out a way to get a 3D monster to hang off the side of a building) but even still, its a pretty slick way to get people talking.

Free Gas From Mercenaries

According to the Wall Street Journal, MTV-EA-Harmonix is set to announce later today that they've negotiated a deal which will allow them to offer Beatles music in their Rock Band games.

Yes.  The Beatles.

In the world of music games, this is a big deal.  Arguably the most popular and iconic band of all time, The Beatles are an enormous prize for the Rock Band franchise.  One which presents an unprecedented opportunity to connect their games to an entirely new demographic/ generation of people. 

But while its a big deal within the context of music games, its an even bigger deal when you look at the big picture.  To showcase that bigger picture, a brief exercise.

Open up your friendly neighborhood iTunes music store and search for "The Beatles".  There are 3 things you should notice rather quickly:

1. Beatles cover bands are terrible. 
   
2. "Shes Got a Butt Bigger Than The Beatles" by Cledus T. Judd is the single worst song ever made.  And...
3. There is no actual Beatles music.  Because The Beatles publisher has refused for *years* to release their music to Apple's service.
   

Lets recap.  The Beatles, ie the biggest music sensation in history, have signed on with Rock Band, but not with iTunes.  With a video game... but not most popular digital music distribution platform of our time.  And they are not even the first notable group to follow this trend.  ACDC, another wildly popular iTunes holdout, also has music in Rock Band.

If you read this blog, you know that I've been touting these games as a very possible future for music distribution for some time now.  But I have to admit, I never thought that we'd see The Beatles in Rock Band before iTunes.    

I can't wait to hear the rational (or the dollar amount) associated with this deal in the official press release later today.  But if you're still skeptical about where this stuff is heading, I have a bridge in Alaska to sell you =)

Move over iTunes indeed.


UPDATE:
The deal has now been officially announced, with the press release available for your reading pleasure.  As it turns out, the Beatles music will actually be part of an entirely new game, though its not clear at this point whether or not their tracks will also be available for download via Rock Band. 

A quote from the Jeff Jones (CEO of Apple Corp, who control the rights to The Beatles music):

“Introducing the genius of The Beatles to a whole new generation of music lovers through original and inspired ways is extremely exciting to us at Apple Corps,” stated Jeff Jones, CEO, Apple Corps. “We are truly pleased to be working with the innovative forces at MTV and Harmonix as they embody our mutual passions for music and creativity.”

“Many of us have been part of a generation that has long enjoyed an enduring love affair with The Beatles and now we’re looking to extend that love affair for future generations to enjoy,” said Van Toffler.” “Our inspiration for this project comes from a keen sense of history and a place of utmost reverence and respect for the band, their music and their heritage.”

Simple awesomesauce. 

Image from the theenglishteacheronline.com

A few days ago, I finished up the story mode of Saints Row 2.  If you're not a gamer, SR2 might not be a household name, but it is, in 50 words or less,  "a Grand Theft Auto-like open world game, which puts you at the head of a gang, caught in the middle of a brutal turf war in the fictional city of Stillwater".  You know, typical wholesome family entertainment.  If you think you can guess where it goes from there, you're probably close... or at least you would be, right after you take your prediction on violence, criminal activity, and immoral behavior and double it.

 
Though I could (and probably should) get to a post about what exactly it is that draws seemingly normal people to enjoy such deplorably virtual pursuits, that is a post that will need to be saved for another day.  Because today  I'd like to focus on another aspect of this particular game.

It is entirely possible that Saints Row 2 is the single most customizable game I've ever played.  Character personalization has become pretty common in any game with RPG elements, so the fact that you get to tweak "yourself" to your liking is no surprise.  But customizing yourself is only the beginning with SR2.  A brief overview of the possibilities:

•  Your Character.  Not only can you choose the basics of your character's physical appearance (age, gender, ethnicity, body type, hair style, etc) but you can also go nuts tweaking things down to the smallest detail.  You can choose the width of the bridge of your nose, the verbal taunt you can use to antagonize your enemies, even your standard facial expression, gait, hand to hand combat style and even their in game voice.
• Your Cloths and Accessories.  It verges on obscene that SR2 allows players to choose from almost 500 different pieces of clothing and accessories available at 12 different in game stores, ranging from shirts to facial piercings, right down to undergarments and socks.
• Your Weapons.  Its not enough to have a shotgun.  You need 5 different types of shotgun to choose from!  I won't stress the weapon stuff too much, but lets just say you have lots of choices about what you'd like to wield (mercifully the game does not actually let you customize the weapons themselves in the absurd Army of Two fashion).
  
• Yours Cars.  Tricking yourself out is one thing.  Tricking your cars out brings the game to a whole different level.  So you want to paint your car eh?  Forget about the color.  Do you want metallic, candy, pearl, or iridescent paint?. What about the accent areas?  Paint or metal?  Steel, gold, silver, platinum, aluminum, or chrome?  You want NOS?  Sure!  A racing hood? No problem!  How about the grip level or size of your tires or the style and color of your rims?  Type of exhaust?  Window tint?  Convertible or hardtop?  Upgrade your torque?  How about frame stability, front and rear bumper style, headlight configuration, right on down to the placement of your rear view mirrors... Oh, and did I forget to mention that you can have as many cars, trucks, motorcycles, helicopters, private jets, and world war 2 fighters as you want, ranging from a tractor trailer cab to a Lamborghini. 
  
• Your Crib.  As the game progresses and you earn more cash, you can purchase various residence locations around town which functionally serve as massive inventory banks for all your stuff.  But if you can't customize it, it doesnt belong in Saints Row.  You can add pool tables, pianos, 50 inch plasmas, upgrade your bed, or pick from one of several overall styles for your place among other things.
  
• Your Crew. Pick the type of cloths your crew wears, the cars the'll drive, your gang sign and even your spray painted gang tag.  

If it sounds overwhelming, it is.  More importantly though, its flat out awesomesauce.  But we'll press the pause button on this epic tale for a moment and switch gears.

A few weeks ago, the EGC had a design retreat with some friends from the College of Agriculture.  The purpose of the retreat was to flesh out some design ideas for an animal raising game they are looking to build, which they hope will help teach some of the basic lessons of farm animal care (I'll save the specifics for another time).  At one point in the retreat, however, the question was raised as to what would make this game compelling to play more than once - a critical question for any game designer, perhaps even more so for an EduGame designer.   


All of this now brings us to the "so what" portion of the evening.  Why should anyone care about the fact that a video game lets you customize the hell out of everything?  And perhaps more importantly, what does a game about virtual gang violence have to do with raising a virtual pig? 

The answer is ownership.

When you can make something your own, the sense of personal investment and attachment to that something grows.  The more you're invested, the more you want to invest.  Grand Theft Auto 4 is one of the greatest games of all time, and yet I've logged more time (post story) in SR2 in a week than I have in GTA4 in 6 months.  Why?  Because when GTA's story was over, so too was the game.  When Saints Row 2's story ended, I found myself with more cribs to buy, more rides to pimp, more content to unlock.  Almost nothing to do with the game and everything to do with me and my own intrinsic motivation to improve that which I feel as though is mine (this is exactly why The Sims franchise has crushed the top spots on the PC game sales charts). 

I continue to play not because the game's narrative drives me to, but because its "my row" now.  Investment breeds investment.  Customization and personalization lead to motivation and re-playability. 

Which is, my friends, exactly what virtual gang violence has to do with raising a virtual pig.  Stay tuned. 



Images from gamecenteronline.net, planetxbox360.com and animalattraction.com 

Though you can find them in just about every technological system ever made, glitches are very rarely considered "positive".  Depending on their severity, they can cause loss of life, monetary shakedowns, require time consuming work arounds, or just irritate the hell out of people.  (Pay no attention to the author behind the curtain, who has been responsible for a bug or two in his day). 

There are two truths about bugs in any system, technological or otherwise.
1) They will always be hated (or at least disliked)
2) They will always exist

Taking those two points as they are, the creator of any system will likely have to do some form of damage control as a means of saving face and keeping the customer happy.  Typically this is an apologetic process, since its generally not considered good practice to have a) wasted someone's time b) wasted someone's money or c) produced a subpar product. As I said in my opening paragraph, bugs are rarely considered a positive.

Of course, thats all in how you play the course.

Every year since 1998, EA Sports has released Tiger Woods PGA Tour, the official golf game of you know who. Though Golf isnt quite my thing, Tiger Woods sells pretty well relatively speaking, and has come to be the big dawg in the merciless world of golf video games (clarification: not actually merciless). However despite its dominance, Tiger Woods PGA Tour is, like any game, system, or technology, not without a few bugs. And bugs are bad mmkay.

Back in August of '07, a Youtube user posted a video of a rather dubious bug in the then current Tiger Woods game that he referred to as "the Jesus shot".  This bug allowed users who hit shots into water hazards to play them... by levitating on the surface of  good ole H2O.  Obviously this is not a catastrophic failure, but in a game that prides itself on realism, the Jesus shot represented a bit of an embarrassing oversight in quality assurance.  Oh... and in case I forgot to mention, YouTube is kinda... how do I put this?  Public.  So one user's documented bug was viewed by more than 640,000 people.  Whoops!

But instead of hemming and hawing and begging for forgiveness, EA played it cool, stowed away Levinator25's well documented bug, to one day use it to their advantage.

Almost a year after the original video was posted, EA produced a response that turned a onetime black eye into a brilliant PR move that coincided with the release of the newest version of Tiger Woods PGA Tour.  Take a look.




Hole.  In.  One.

EA's video response has received more than 2.2 million views, nearly three and a half times as many views as the original bug video, not to mention 25 video responses, and almost 3,300 comments.  The response was so successful, in fact, that it was eventually aired on television.  And it all started with a bug.

A few things worth mentioning here:

1) Image is Everything
Ironically enough, despite being a gaming super giant, EA doesnt exactly have the best reputation as far as being innovative or customer friendly.  Obviously this ad is an exception, not the rule to the way EA handles its dirty laundry, but its a step in the right direction toward revamping their image.

2) Tivo Makes Commercials Suck
I mentioned that the ad was eventually aired on television, but it did not begin there.  Praveeta Singh, the game's product manager, had something interesting to say about that in an interview with Business Week.

"It's really important as we look at our marketing list to reach new marketing mediums.  People are on the Internet and one of the things we consider is that, with TiVo, people skip over commercials. You think about all the things you're doing in a day, you might not watch TV, but you've probably been online. As marketers we're looking for different ways to approach our customers. We want this new Tiger ad to be appealing and show that there's a new game out there."

Which leads me to my third point...

3) The Danger In Not Playing the Game
Though I've long since been indoctrinated into the fold, every time I step outside of my bubble I'm reminded that there are still those in positions of power who fear the openness of web 2.0  "We can't let our customers post reviews publicly!  What if they speak ill of our product?!  We can't let our employees blog, what if they bash the organization?!"

The moral of the Jesus Shot case study is clear: people will invariably say what ever it is they want to say.  True, Levinator25 did not post his video on some sort of official EA support forum.  So from a traditional PR perspective, potential buyers visiting the EA website would not see it under EA's name.  But if 640,000 people have seen it anyway, pretending the problem does not exist is no longer an option.  Either you can be aware of, and engage in the dialogue occurring in the social web, or the conversation can happen without you.  The old ways are coming to an end.  Hope you're paying attention =) 

The Jesus shot is a bug - a negative, a mistake.  Or at least it could have been.  Instead, by addressing it head on, it has become a major positive: an EA image booster, an explosively viral ad, and a brilliant means of creating buzz for a new product.

A new way of thinking about relating to your stakeholders?  Or is it all just par for the web 2.0 course? Either way, its good to see. Well played EA.





Images from bobmitchellinthe21stcentury.wordpress.com and escapistmagazine.com 

In the gaming world, "free" is not one of those used that gets used a lot.  There are a lot of reasons for this, Capitalism and the need to swim in pools of gold being the two biggest.  But sufficed to say that consumers will almost always foot the bill for high production games and all they encompass.

So it came as a bit of a surprise to me to read that David Orr, the man behind the music for the recent Xbox Live Arcade hit Castle Crashers, has decided to release all of the game's music for free under a creative commons license.  Though the Castle Crashers score might not quite be a John Williams, it was extremely impressive for an independent game and added a fantastic quality to the Crashers experience.

I won't babble about this forever, but its great to see a player (and a successful one at that) in the dollar centric, highly competitive gaming industry make a move toward openness and sharing.  Interestingly enough, David is only a 19 year old student.  Perhaps this is an omen of the mentality of future generations?  Only time will tell.

Below are links to all of the game's tracks available for download at Newgrounds.  This listing was originally posted on the official Xbox forums.  Personally I'm a big fan of the opening theme (Four Brave Champions), Thieves Forest (Space Pirates), and Ice Castle (Second Thoughts).

Kudos to you David!

--------------------------------

Opening Title Screen:

http://www.newgrounds.com/audio/listen/90433

Arena Theme:

http://www.newgrounds.com/audio/listen/21749

Blacksmith and Shop Theme:

http://www.newgrounds.com/audio/listen/86480 

Forest Entrance:

http://www.newgrounds.com/audio/listen/168734

Thieves Forest:

http://www.newgrounds.com/audio/listen/57239

Abandoned Mill Chase:

http://www.newgrounds.com/audio/listen/36657

The Cave song:

http://www.newgrounds.com/audio/listen/123607

Wedding Crash Hallway:

http://www.newgrounds.com/audio/listen/70107

Snow Level:

http://www.newgrounds.com/audio/listen/117474

Forest Troll:

http://www.newgrounds.com/audio/listen/169148

Parade:

http://www.newgrounds.com/audio/listen/90532

Lava World:

http://www.newgrounds.com/audio/listen/112527

Pirate Ship:

http://www.newgrounds.com/audio/listen/37040

Online Menu:

http://www.newgrounds.com/audio/listen/91286

Flying Black Knight Fight:

http://www.newgrounds.com/audio/listen/120136

Desert Stage:

http://www.newgrounds.com/audio/listen/168281

Marsh:

http://www.newgrounds.com/audio/listen/168396

Ice Castle:

http://www.newgrounds.com/audio/listen/90521

End of level:

http://www.newgrounds.com/audio/listen/110798

--------------------------------

Image from gamesetwatch.com