More backlog: Polygonal Fury

I've been meaning to write about Polygonal Fury from Armor Games for some time, and if I wait much longer it's going to be 2010. As is, it's already been months since I played the game and because I didn't jot down any notes at the time, I only have a vague recollection of why I thought this game was particularly blogworthy (apart from the fact that it was fun enough for me to finish). As a result I'll just use Polygonal Fury as an opportunity to poke at the game vs. simulation question due to the manner in which the player has somewhat peculiar limitations on how they exercise agency within the game space. Polygonal Fury from Armor Games, Level: Insane 4

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Experimentation and virtual worlds: why worry?

In the spirit of backlog* (which is the real theme of my blog), I've been meaning to write about a couple of concerns I had after reading Edward Castranova and Matthew Falk's  article in the October issue of Games and Culture entitled Virtual Worlds: Petri Dishes, Rat Mazes, and Supercolliders. Now let me start by saying that Professor Castranova has the unenviable task of representing a relatively controversial research ideology within the context of the emerging field of virtual worlds research. There are a lot of methodologically qualitative/ epistemologically constructivist researchers in this field, and Castranova does generally quantitative work operating from a more or less Post-Positivist perspective. For the non-researchers among you, this means that he uses numbers a lot and that (as near as I can figure) he proceeds from an assumption that truth claims can be proven through measurement provided the tools are good enough. Motivational Poster borrowed from xdr.com - In case you didn't notice I'm a big fan of these posters. This one has only a tenuous connection to this blog post.

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"You put the last piece in like this."

Apparently the grocery store is a good place for studies of cognition. As it turns out, it may also provide fertile grounds for the study of games and learning. My mother Judy shared the following story with me the other day. With her permission (and the permission of the Trader Joe's employee from this story), I offer it here for your consideration. She wrote:

"I took 3 TJ's* bags out of the back of Volvo, wandered around in the usual way and checked out to the tune of $75 or so. The checker started bagging and I said, 'Don't worry if there aren't enough bags. I have more in the car.'  He responded, 'So you don't want any extra bags?'  I came back with the usual bit about not needing to use more paper etc. 1 1/2 bags into the process he said, 'I don't think you need to worry about it Ma'am. Everything will fit. I'm good at Tetris. Do you know what Tetris is?'  We talked about Tetris, and he told me how you just have to think ahead and then finished up by putting the eggs across the top of the last bag of stuff saying, 'and then you put the last piece in like this.' " *Trader Joe's

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Games and Simulation for Healthcare Library and Database

My colleague Eric Bauman and his team of crack ninjas have been working on a new portal for Healthcare games and simulations (now with a new URL), and it is awesome! In their own words:

"This website aims to provide a portal and network to meet the needs of clinicians, researchers and educators in the healthcare community who want to integrate games and simulation into their scholarship and patient care strategy.  This resource also welcomes healthcare consumers, advocates, and others interested in patient and clinician education, and clinical research taking advantage of games and simulation-based learning."

If you're in any of the healthcare, serious games, or game and simulation research communities you should definitely check it out. If you want to get involved or have recommendations, there's a contact button on the front page. In case you're feeling lazy, here's the URL one more time. http://healthcaregames.wisc.edu/

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Not enough orcs they said

So it seems that my previous post advertising my need for more guild leaders for my research was less effective than I might have hoped. After consulting with the oracles of high fantasy gaming and research, I have established that the problem was a lack of orcs in the original post. I will rectify that now.

Orc Waaaaaghh borrowed from DustDevil75's photobucket

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