Chopping off the fingers

I am going to hold off on this blog for a while and maybe repost it in another format. I see a lot of potential here, but right now I just don't have the time to keep it fresh or get it out there and grow its audience.

To any who might stumble on this, you are welcome to shoot me an email to see how things are faring: ransome.coleman@gmail.com

Flatland

There is a relatively new genre of games out there are called alternate reality games and according to Wikipedia they take place half in the virtual world and half in the "real world". One of the more popular ones in recent history was "I love Bees", a promotional ARG for Halo 2. ARGs do not have to take place over a means of communication as Wikipedia might have readers believe. Some are held in locations, using pre-existing structures as game pieces, as in the case of the Graveyard Games.

I find alternate reality games to be intriguing mostly because their playing ground is metatechnical (no, metatechnical is not a word). By this I mean, they are generally organized across the same medium as a video game (the internet), but are executed in real time without need for code or models or a client. This differentiates ARGs in two very important ways:

1.) Components of ARGs must occur at a set time and their occurance will always lead to a widespread change for all of the players involved. Compare this to a video game, where something happening on one client has no affect on another. Or, in the case of a multiplayer game, instances are created and removed time and time again with little static consequence.

2.) ARG's players are aware of a seperate reality outside of the norm, yet contained within it. Video games are often thought of as a fake reality. Generally the virtual world and the physical world are considered seperate from one another, though that is certainly not the case. ARGs have the unique opportunity of turning the "real" world into a game. Players who participate in the game live in a collective seperate reality from those that do not participate. They are sharing in a real experience with real people, rather than a virtual experience with avatars.

I believe games would do well to incorporate more ARG structures. At present most games reward players with virtual items that are only connected to the "real world" by some monetary value other players within that virtual system might place on them. Furthermore, most game's puzzles are contained entirely within the game world. All of the keys to unlock a dungeon, for example, are present somewhere in the virtual landscape. Introducing an ARG element would make the player stop for a while and realize that the game they are playing is reflected in the world around them.

No thoughts yet on specifics of how to better incorporate ARGs into video games, but I believe there is some potential there.

Code Warrior for real

TopCoder is a service in which coders come together in an arena and code solutions to problems, competing against one another to get the best solution in the fastest way possible. Programmers compete for prizes in several disciplines - algorithm, design, development, etc. Big name development shops (AOL, Google, Yahoo, USB, Bloomberg, others) use TopCoder to source candidates for their teams.

A good friend of mine has told me about a project he's been working on to build an online educational game that can actually be evaluated as though it were a class.

A thought that sprung to mind was a cross between TopCoder and an educational RPG.

So, say you have this 3D fantasy world setup and instead of casting spells and swinging swords, you defeat enemies and solve puzzles by coding solutions to problems. Some problems can be coded in 3 minutes, some would take an hour sitting, and some the player would have to devise code for outside of the game and port it in for "grading." There could potentially be several expansions for the game and, after completing the initial courses, the player might venture out into an MMO world and compete/collaborate with other coders.

The cool thing about this game is that its winning condition is not necessary dependent on what the player's avatar is capable of in-game. For example, a person already familiar with all of the concepts an expansion can teach could very easily march through the end boss' dungeon and challenge him from the get-go. Different "zones" of the game would rely on different methods of problem solving so that analysts could get a feel for a player's weak and strong points.

The icing on the cake is that this game is good for everybody involved. It's an easy way to distribute education and has lots of room for expansion, so the company that creates the game has a lot to work off of. Most coders are open to gaming, if not avid gamers, so players wouldn't be hard to find. And finally, statistical data collected throughout the game can not only be used for grading purposes, but for recruiting purposes as well. It's a win-win situation all around. Ever get off of WoW and feel like you've just wasted a lot of precious time that could have been used to complete that Huffman decoder using Binary Trees? Well now you can be playing a game similar to WoW and still be accomplishing something. This is not original, simply a combination of several fields into one.. one that I contend is more powerful than its seperate parts.