Ethan Kennerly

Peggy asked us to post our areas of interest in regards to our thesis. I had analyzed my area of interest in Spring 2007. The answer goes back to then.

In Spring 2007, I was leading an advanced game project for a procedural musical shooter (Euphonics), a maze game about the horror of factory chicken farming (Free Ranger), an epic action-adventure game, Tree of Life, a 70's pizza driving game, a notion for a public policy simulator with mechanics of ethical calculus, and had just revisited a notion I've had for since 2002, a game that teaches the Korean language through casual mini-games.

My life is limited and I recognize that everything I want to do before I die, even when I force myself to choose, will not get done. My time in grad school is even more limited. I recognized that each of the ideas had issues. Procedural graphics is cool, and is my curiosity, but others have already done it much better than I can. Free Ranger garnered no interest. Tree of Life and Pizza Driver are conventional; I'm not interested in a portfolio piece. The public policy simulator is important, but no one would play it. The Korean language game is the most difficult and academic of the concepts.

Because of my multi-disciplinary interests in embodied cognitive psychology, my experience in autodidactic learning, and my experience in crafting games, edutainment is a field I believe I have a chance push the envelope on. Although it's risky and difficult, and the project is likely to fail, the experiment would teach me more about aesthetics of play and other forms of cognitive interaction than any of the dozen or so projects that I've considered for this thesis. And when I die, if I have contributed to the advancement of enjoyable methods for mastery of a necessary skill, then I believe the world is better off. Anyone who has been around kids, knows humans must learn; and anyone who is learning wishes the process to be enjoyable.

This was a glimpse of my thoughts in Spring 2007. That summer I created four typing prototypes. Only one was fun. But my summer's research into neurolinguistics and cognitive science of vision uncovered new possibilities and a deep coupling between learning in general, language in particular, and the cognition of playing videogames.

My foundational hypothesis is: A videogame teaches skills, so can a videogame teach a skill that is transferable to high-level tasks in an academic, business, or artistic setting? If a videogame can teach a language whose basic phonemes are foreign, then all easier skills can also be taught through edutainment. Therefore, if I can solve a subset of the hard problem, then we can solve many cases of the intrinsic motivation barrier to education.

Last summer I began employing agile software development methodology and tools in Python. It improved progress, which being computer-based, is dreadfully slow, yet still better than any of the other methods and tools I've tried (C++, Flash, Processing, Ogre, custom scripting languages for PS3 and MMORPGs).

For the story of my thesis, Runesinger, see the pitch: http://runesinger.com/pitch.doc For other information, see the site. http://runesinger.com

I have investigated and been enriched by multiple disciplines, so when referring to a user of this edutainment software, I use the term that invokes the discipline that the listener ought to consider. When discussing gameplay, I say "player"; when discussing graphic or cinematic design, I say "viewer"; when discussing sound design or public presentation, I say "audience." When discussing overall human-computer interaction, I say "user." If I am referring to the story in preproduction or design document or any literature, then I say "reader." If I am referring to a psychological test (such as of educational value), then I say "participant." I do so out of respect for each tradition that has advanced my understanding, and to invoke in the listener that same tradition's treasure of insight.

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Peggy requested:

This is Part 2, the final phase of this assignment, please post your answers, as well as emailing them to me Look over your analysis, let it sit long enough to answer: 1. An area of interest you've identified.

2. A couple of questions (stated in the form of a question) and opportunities suggested by your area of interest. What do you (or a potential viewer) want or need to know about this area?

3. Identify a method or process that can be used to explore your question.

4. One to three actual topics or subjects that address your interests/questions. (Not ‘a game’ or ‘experience’ or ‘interactive film,’ find a subject/setting/character/narrative.

5. Pair your topics with a genre and an audience: Not just "a game" but the type of game and the type of player you envision. (Expert? General? Student? Adult? Child? Casual? Obsessed? Fan? Animal, Mineral, Vegetable?)

6. Commit to a term (participant, viewer, player, reader, user, audience) that you will use throughout the project. (If you feel this is restrictive, or want more than one term, this is the place to state your view, the important part is to begin to define, and address, your reader.)