IMSH 2012 micro-SBL presentation

I just got back last night from IMSH 2012 where my colleague Terry Tao and I presented work by our team here at University of Wisconsin-Extension on a system for micro-Scenario Based Learning for nurse education. We're designing the system to be usable for other content areas as well.

San Diego was fantastic as usual and the conference was great. The image above is from the current prototype of the micro-SBL system which we demoed at the conference. If you click on the image you can download a copy of the presentation as a .pdf. Needless to say, the demo is not included in the .pdf.

AC: Revelations and la vita assassino (spoilers)

Jumping from roof top to roof top, hiding in shadows or hanging patiently from ledges, uncovering the secrets of an ancient brotherhood, leading a cabal of highly skilled killers, and of course exeucting targets using a range of tools and techniques...This is the assassin lifestyle, and it is this experience that I believe Assassin's Creed: Revelations (as well as the other games in the series) aspires to grant the player...

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Ideation and Game Designers

There's a common refrain from many successful game designers when it comes to the topic of ideas. You've probably heard it before. It takes several forms including "Ideas are cheap." "Ideas are worthless, it's all about execution." "No one's interested in your game idea." "Game design isn't about ideas." The list goes on. Game designers as pundits are often pretty down on ideas. As a researcher, I've been trying to puzzle out exactly why this is...

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Game Genres: What've you got?

I'm building a list of genres for video games, or possibly for digital games. Either way I'm trying to start at the top level by focusing on the big conventions that organize around pillar verbs or core mechanics. to clarify I'm making a tool for thinking about game genre for design. It focuses on the pillar verbs that are intentionally built into games via core mechanics rather than the emergent verbs that best characterize the player experience. I have the highest regard for understandings of games focused on the player experience. After all, I've already spent a bunch of time studying players myself, and more importantly every designerworth their salt knows that players are highly unpredictable creatures, and at the end of the day there's no telling exactly what they'll make of your game.* In fact, that's exactly why this list is focused on choices that the designer makes. Here are the top level genres thus far:

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AC: Revelations first thoughts (spoiler alert)

I'll keep this short. As noted, this post includes spoilers. They are not plot spoilers. Mostly, they focus on the absolute failure and tragedy of game design which is the tower defense minigame in Assassin's Creed: Revelations.

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