September 16, 2004
Star Wars Mentality
I just saw Michael Naimark's post about George Lucas, and figured I'd keep my comments to my own page. It seriously bothers me that Lucas and his team have shifted to thinking of the Star Wars movies as kids' movies. I first heard that right after Episode 1 came out, and it really pissed me off. True, kids love the first three movies, but they weren't aimed at kids when they were filmed, right? If the tone change of these new movies is in fact due to a change in perceived audience, I think it was a big mistake. You don't have to dumb things down for kids, especially not at the expense of a great story, compelling characters, and decent writing.
Posted by rosenblj at 10:35 PM | Comments (1)
September 09, 2004
Educational Games
So, when Scott handed me the latest issue of GameDeveloper to keep me occupied during work yesterday, I didn't realize the treasure hunt it would lead me on. I hit upon an ad for the Serious Games Summit D. C., which is a conference that looks at how games can be used in areas like "training, policy exploration, analytics, visualization, simulation, education and health and therapy". I'm really interested in educational games, so I went to their site (www.seriousgamessummit.com) and through looking into some of the speakers came across an educational game company called Muzzy Lane. Going in turn to their site, I discovered that they are focusing on games that teach about history. I am super excited about this. As a PBS child, I was really only allowed to play educational computer games like Oregon Trail or the Learning Company games like Operation Neptune and Ancient Empires. I agree with the people at Muzzy Lane that making a game educational does not "suck all of the fun out of it", and I am really interested in their latest effort, Making History, where players take on the roles of political leaders leading up to World War II and have to make military, economic, political, and diplomatic choices which affect the course of history. The point is for kids to see that history is not set in stone, and how many factors can change the course of events. While that's really neat, my main issue with the game is that it seems to be yet another strategy game like Risk or Age of Empires, which I have always found confusing and unengaging. I think that one of the most important things that kids need to be taught about history is the fact that it can be interpreted in so many different ways, that events can be attributed to such a variety of causes that there is never a simple answer. A game that sounds closer to this is called River City, developed at George Mason University and Harvard, where users explore a 19th century midwestern town and play the role of scientists trying to discern the source of an epidemic. This game, however, focuses more on science than history. (The article I got this info from is called "Digital Games Bring Entertainment into Learning Realm" from Education Week: www.edweek.org/ew/newstory.cfm?slug=44Games.h23) I think it would be great to develop a game environment based on a historic event, that could be explored in time and space by different participants. It would be too bad if educational history games got stuck as strategy games.
Anyway, this all seems really cool to me, and I plan to look more into the state of games in other areas of education as well.
Posted by rosenblj at 09:38 AM | Comments (5)
September 06, 2004
Ender's Game
So I just re-read "Ender's Game", and I was struck by the following quotes, particularly as they pertain to games and interactivity:
"'The mind game is a relationship between the child and the computer. Together they create stories. The stories are true, in the sense that they reflect the reality of the child's life.'" (Ch. 9)
It's funny, but giving equal creative time to the human and the computer actually makes the game more interactive than if the human had more control. Bouncing off of a computer's ideas would open you up to more possibilities than if you were just pushing yourself for new ideas. Obviously, this sort of interaction would need crazy AI, but it seems like maybe you could come up with a primitive version of this game by feeding the computer information about your vital stats and feelings, so that it could use them to influence its parts of the story.
"Perhaps it's impossible to wear an identity without becoming what you pretend to be." (Ch. 13)
I just really like that observation.
"That is the Earth, he thought. Not a globe thousands of kilometers around, but a forest with a shining lake, a house hidden at the crest of the hill, high in the trees, a grassy slope leading upwards from the water, fish leaping and birds strafing to take the bugs that lived at the border between water and sky. Earth was the constant noise of crickets and winds and birds. And the voice of one girl, who spoke to him out of his far-off childhood. The same voice that had once protected him from terror. The same voice that he would do anything to keep alive, even return to school, even leave Earth behind again for another four or forty or four thousand years." (Ch. 13)
I was really impressed with this paragraph, because I am really interested in the sort of immersive experiences that interactive media can create. It was an important reminder that each of us has our own experience of things and places, so that famous landmarks and facts are not enough to create a convincing world. It's the little details, the pieces that have personal meaning that speak to us more. For example, to me London is not just Big Ben and double-decker buses: it's Indian food, and having to look for cars up the wrong side of the street, and the sandwich guy who learned that I always wanted a toasted cheese and tomato sandwich, and the haunting sound of street musicians echoing through the tunnels of the Tube stations. It would be impossible to guess which details will be most important to each human being, but the answer cannot be to give up because it's impossible. The more effort that's made to notice any sort of perceptual detail, the better the experience will be.
I know my observations are pretty vague - I'm still learning the state and direction of interactive media, so I'd love to hear what more experienced voices have to say about this stuff.
Posted by rosenblj at 05:18 PM | Comments (3)
September 03, 2004
Personal Intro
Hello! My name is Jess Rosenblatt, and I am from Bangor, Maine. (My state is incredibly beautiful, and everyone should visit it.) I went to Carleton College (in Northfield, Minnesota) for undergrad and majored in History - my focus was on Early and Revolutionary America, and my senior paper was on how the pursuit of science in America was affected by the Revolution. I also had a close brush with Computer Science, where I went through the intro programming classes, Programming Languages, and Computer Graphics. I have also had a long-standing love of the theater, and have done everything from acting to directing to stage managing to costume designing. I also know a bit about Renaissance dance. I ran track all through high school and college, focusing on sprints and pole vault. At Carleton I became a devoted player of ultimate frisbee. I love fantasy and science fiction and Jane Austen.
Posted by rosenblj at 10:11 AM | Comments (2)