Contextual Studies: Video Games As Scientific Tools

After looking at the negative impacts that games can have I wanted to find some video games that can actually make a difference in the world instead of making it worse. This lead me to games with scientific purposes that anyone can play and potentially make a help with matters like curing diseases.

the reason I thought about this was after watching a ted talk with John Hunter talking about his world peace game I start to wonder if there were games that could actually help the world.

my first game is ' Play to Cure: Genes in Space' develop by a wide range of video game designers working for cancer research, in the game the player is on a mission to collect as much 'Element Alpha' as they can while flying through space. before each mission the player must map out a route each map is an DNA micro-array which is a collection of microscopic DNA spots attached to a solid surface. By allowing players to map out a route it gets thousands of eyes to look for spots and patterns which would take a small minority of scientists years. 
the player then plays out their route in a 3D environment at the end they find out if they have collected enough 'Element Alpha' to go to the next level.
With loads of eyes looking for patterns and scanning the DNA, scientists are hoping to minimize the time it takes allowing them to find cures for cancer quicker. 

This type of education tool has been found to work in other projects like 'Fold it' where player must manipulate 3D models of enzymes in to different shapes allowing scientists to spot possible structures to be re-enacted in real life. the potential of these games are seen when you find out that players learned more about an AID enzyme in 3 weeks than scientists had in 13 years. 
which shows that with everyone thinking differently we can get more problems solved than people who have been told to think and do things in a certain way. 


sources:
https://www.ted.com/talks/john_hunter_on_the_world_peace_game 

Bond, J. (2014). Play to Cure: Genes in Space lets you fly spaceships and aid in cancer research at the same time. [online] Apple news, reviews and how-to's since 2004. Available at: http://www.tuaw.com/2014/02/06/play-to-cure-genes-in-space-lets-to-fly-space-ships-and-aid-in/ [Accessed 9 May. 2014].

Cancer Research UK, (2014). Play to Cure: Genes in Space. [online] Available at:

http://www.cancerresearchuk.org/support-us/play-to-cure-genes-in-space [Accessed 17 Apr. 2014].

Fold.it, (2010). Solve Puzzles for Science | Foldit. [online] Available at: http://fold.it/portal/ [Accessed

18 Apr. 2014].

Maxwell, B. (2014). ExPlay 2012: What can games offer science and society? | Features | Edge

Online. [online] Edge Online. Available at: http://www.edge-online.com/features/explay-2012-what

can-games-offer-science-and-society/ [Accessed 19 Apr. 2014].

Mohammadi, D. (2014). How online gamers are solving science's biggest problems. [online] the

Guardian. Available at: http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/jan/25/online-gamers-solving

sciences-biggest-problems [Accessed 17 Apr. 2014].

Mundasad, S. (2014). Play to Cure: Games for cancer. [online] BBC News. Available

at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-26009350 [Accessed 9 May. 2014].

Concept Art: starting my final design

I haven't done a final design on character for a while so I thought I would play it safe and do quick thumbnails which encapsulated the character as well as the environment she lives in.

In the scene when we are introduced to Queen Red Riding Hood its in her palace where she greets her friend 'Jack' who she is madly in loved with. i wanted to give this welcoming maybe even flirtatious look. also the scenes in the palace depict red as self obsess with portraits of herself every where as well as the colour red. after creating these thumbnails i went through the ones i liked and looked at merging two together to get both the character and environment correct which is the bottom-left thumbnail. 

My first worry about this scene is the pose 'Red' is doing as her hand is coming toward the audience which I saw as a challenge as i find hands hard to draw especially when at a odd angle. Also in the past i have found environments hard to do as i have had problems with perspective, so i see this final piece as a challenge.

Concept Art: Trollbella Model Sheet and Character Sheet

 once again doing the character sheet was so much fun as well as challenging, I feel like I have really captured her character and not lost the shape of her face by doing so. Also in the model sheet i feel that i have followed through on the look of the dress but I might go back and make the dress look more grubby to reflect more on where she lives.

Contextual studies: What are Games really teaching us?

After my last contextual studies post I have become intrigued by how games can potentially teach us to think a certain way or do certain things. Below I have looked at some games that might shed some light on what I'm saying.

“Being schooled means understanding how to stand in line, how to speak when acknowledged, and how to follow directions.”-Ian Bogost 

The Stanley Parable is a indie game developed by Galactic cafe which follows the player as they play as Stanley and how they react to the narrator. though-out the game the play is given choices to make but the narrator will always try and put the player on a certain path but the player has the 'illusion of choice' spread out in front of them. If the player goes against the narrator the player gets punished some how but if the player follows the narrator's narrative the player has been said to have been 'freed' but this can be argued to be false as the player did not leave on his own free will. in a bigger perspective this game could potentially be telling the player that not following the rules whatever the case may lead you to horrible circumstances, and to stay within the lines of society leads you to a 'happy' life.

another game I found intriguing is 'Animal Crossing' created by Nintendo is a 3D simulation game that puts the player in a new town where they must pay of their dept for their house and help the community with the problems as well as the player having time to collect items.
But over time the player can lose the sense of peacefulness in this town and start craving for more and more things. the player is influenced by the endless cycle of consumerism that they are constantly reminded of by:

• the non-playable character who are quite happy with their small house and old possesions which  makes the player distant and different from them.
• the value of some collectables are quite high that the player is face with the decision to give the item to the community or kept it to themselves and make more money. 
• the constant letters from the 'happy room academy' reminds the player that there house could look better, encouraging the player to buy more stuff leading to them buying a bigger house for it. 

the feeling of consumerism can also be felt in other games like 'The Sims', the more expensive possessions the player buys the happier their Sims and the non playable characters are.

sources:

Animal Crossing. (2001). Nintendo.

Bogost, I. (2007). Persuasive games. 1st ed. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Davidson, D. (2008). Beyond fun. 1st ed. [Pittsburgh, Penn.]: ETC Press

Ferrari, S. (2014). The Judgment of Procedural Rhetoric. [online] Academia.edu. Available at: http://www.academia.edu/431419/The_Judgment_of_Procedural_Rhetoric [Accessed 17 Apr. 2014].

Gwaltney, J. (2012). Gaming rhetoric: The Stanley Parable in the classroom. [online] VentureBeat.

Available at: http://venturebeat.com/2012/10/27/gaming-rhetoric-the-stanley-parable-in-the

classroom/ [Accessed 19 Apr. 2014].

Johnson, J. (2011). Freedom and Control. [online] Psychologytoday.com. Available at:

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/cui-bono/201104/freedom-and-control [Accessed 18 Apr.

2014].

Rao, L. (2014). EA Founder Raises $6.5M From Greylock For Social And Emotional Learning Game

‘If You Can’ | TechCrunch. [online] TechCrunch. Available at: http://techcrunch.com/2014/02/26/ea

founder-raises-6-5m-from-greylock-for-social-and-emotional-learning-game-if-you-can/ [Accessed 27

Apr. 2014].

The Sims. (2000). Electronic Arts, Aspyr.

The Stanley Parable. (2011). Galactic Cafe.

Concept Art: Red Riding Hood Character and Model Sheets

 this is my Character sheet for Queen Red Riding Hood in my model sheet I wanted to go through the emotions she portrays in the book  like flirtatious and panicked  as well as basic emotions such as anger, happiness and sadness. i attempt at adding her crown on top of all of her heads but i had difficulty understand how her tiara would sit especially with her hair up in an odd way this also explains why there is none on her model sheet.  Overall I'm happy with the character sheet as i feel i have caught a variety of emotions even if some have changed her face a bit too much that she looks different, on the other hand some emotions I feel I have portrayed nicely.

even though I like her new dress and that i wanted to show all of its features I also wished that I had added a back view with her hood on to show how it would flow on her body. If i have time i will arrage this.

Contextual Studies:working games

Just a quick subject I want to touch on which relates back to my previous post on edutainment. As pointed out Ian Bogost's book there is not just children that companies want to train , there is also a specialized type of game targets at workers, using games as a 'fun' way to train.

"The videogame Cold Stone Creamery: Stone City, Despite the relative novelty of a videogame with an ice cream viscosity model, the training outcomes described above return all benefits to the corporation, not to the worker.

Training videogames become educational when they stop enforcing a process as a set of arbitrary rules in the service of the organization and begin presenting a procedural rhetoric for the business model that the employee has been asked to work under.

Laurel Althusser points out that schools teach hierarchy and consumerism; schools are necessary in order to release parents into the working world, where they contribute to the gross domestic product while taking on greater and greater debt that perpetuates their need to conform in the role of complacent citizen.

It is starting to become clear to me that serious games and casual games alike can be potentially telling us that we must be a specific way in life to be considered successful. In this game you must not think of yourself but about the company and the customers needs constantly and that portion sizes of ice cream can result in the company losing/gaining money or a customer being happy/angry at you, in other words they want you to please everyone without any thoughts about yourself.

Sources: 
Persuasivegames.com, (2014). Persuasive Games -Stone City – Cold Stone Creamery, Inc.. [online] Available at: http://www.persuasivegames.com/games/game.aspx?game=coldstone [Accessed 17 Apr. 2014].

  

Concept Art: Red riding Hoods Dress

Even though in the iterations i went through dresses she could potentially wear i wanted to just give myself a change to see these dresses head on to see if i would change my mind.
I didn't want to feel too specific at this point about what time period the dresses were based around, I was more interested in form and colour combination. in the end i decided i would keep with a big Georgian dress with detail on the corset that would reflect Red's well known story.

Contextual Studies:casual games with learning elements.

unlike the edutainment games that I talked about before these games are not directly made for entertainment purposes but have educational values in them.

'Little Big Planet' By Media Molecule is a puzzle platform video game for the PlayStation 3 the game is for large audience including children all the way up to adults. this game unlike the edutainment games doesn't undermine their players as the game allows the player to create, share and play levels that they or other players have made this can be said similarly of 'Minecraft' also as it allow the players to make meaningful play.

when looking at these games I started to think of Jane Mcgonigal’s theory from one of her TED talks which is about how are super powerful people because they are optimistic, constructive, productive, meaningful and motivated. this can be seen when people play games like 'Little Big Planet'

another game I found interesting was the 'Civilization'series by 'Microprose' a turn-based role-playing game which was brought up in Ian Bogost book.  

"Games like Civilization12 and Empire Earth focus on the progress of history from era to era. As software systems, these games can be seen as historiographies, representing history with rules of interaction rather than patterns of writing."

This video game allows the player to understand how civilizations have grown through-out history and what could possibly happen in the future. this leads the player to think outside the game seeing what they could do for reality.

sources

Bogost, I. (2007). Persuasive games. 1st ed. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Alexander, B. (2014). Techne » Teaching with a video game: the case for Civilization.[online]

Blogs.nitle.org. Available at: http://blogs.nitle.org/2010/10/06/teaching-with-a-video-game-the-case-for-civilization/ [Accessed 18 Apr. 2014].

Little Big Planet. (2014). Sony Computer Entertainment Europe.

Mcgonigal, J. (2010). My book. [online] you found me. Available at: http://janemcgonigal.com/my-book/ [Accessed 17 Apr. 2014]

 MicroProse. (1991)Civilization . DOS, Windows, Amiga, Machintosh, Atari ST, Sega Saturn, Super

NES, Playstation. Reading: MicroProse

TED, (2010). gaming can make a better world. [video] Available at: http://www.ted.com/talks/jane_mcgonigal_gaming_can_make_a_better_world#t-652003 [Accessed 19 Apr. 2014]

Concept Art: Troll Body

After creating the faces for both my characters I wanted to understand how the body would look from the front as well as finalize some details about her appearance. the problem i faced was if she was going to lead forwards so much that she would be hunched as well as if she was going to be fat or thin.
after looking online most trolls were either very bulky or quite fat especially around the stomach so taking this into consideration as well as her age range I decide that the bottom two forms would be most suited.
i also had to consider her clothes and eyes.
I wanted to understand what she was wearing and why so i made a quite back story which incorporated the descriptions from the official book.
the story was when she was younger, she wished to be a respected princess but there isn't many supplies in the territory to have the dress she wants. so after scavenging around the edges of her territory she finds a beautiful pale yellow dress she tried it on and feel in love with it. over time she has grown and the dress is worn and shredded but she refuses to take it off because for her the dress is a princess dress broken or not.
so as i go through her costume especially when it comes to the model sheet I will try and take into consideration of what her dress used to look like and how it would wear.
I wanted to pick out her eye colour to reflect wear she lives (mostly in caves) so i did a bit of scientific research that the lightest eye colours take in more light so I was looking at either blue or green eye colours.

Concept Art: Faces

After choosing the two iterations  i wanted to take into development my next aim was to create faces for the characters which would suit there silhouettes and character, with both characters i mostly experimented with face shapes as seen above which gave me more variety to develop further than just being fixated. As i went through my troll face shapes i finally hit my stride as you can see from the last line of trolls the problem i found with her was making her ugly enough but still considering her age as it is specified that she is a child-teenager.

With red riding hood i wanted to try and encapsulate a Disney feeling as Disney princesses are considered the most beautiful and fairy-tale looking so as I looked through pictures of them i allowed it to influence her design with the final design being the one on the bottom-most left.

Iterations

For my iterations I chose three character I thought was interesting and had potential, so I chose Red Riding Hood, Trollbella and Goldilocks. 

Queen Riding Hood's look in someways are specific but I have found a variety of looks for her from hairstyles to colours of her dress. I have even started to think about her facial features as well as the front views of the dresses.

Trollbella was a fun character to start iterating as the descriptions of her was unspecific except from her hairstyle and a few facial features. Overall I think the posture of the character is perfect as it makes her look frumpy especially the last few drawings on the top-right and I will continue with the 3rd from the right iteration as I start to draw out the face and dresses details. Unfortunately Goldilocks some of the colours and poses just doesn't look right or look natural.       

silhouettes

With all the characters from this book to choose from I wanted to open to the prospects of doing any so I started on silhouettes, trying to make a variety of shapes and looks to the characters which is difficult to do at times as the guidelines for some characters like Cinderella are so strict.

But I have started to taking a liking to the Trollbella character as there isn't many guidelines around what her character looks like giving me a bit more freedom, on the other hand Queen red riding hood has produced the most successful result with a variety of looks even with all the specific guidelines.  

depictions of trolls

With the character of 'TrollBella' I feel more free to try out different looks and forms after looking at descriptions both of images and text it gives me a general idea of what i could create. Below is some examples

Troll are mostly talked about in Scandinavian folktales mostly described as: 

"trolls are described as being of any size, great or small, and of having one characteristic in common, they are very ugly, with small, beady eyes and large, bumpy noses. Their appearance is usually on the sloppy side with bits and pieces of last week's meals stuck to their stringy hair and clothes. Their ears are mostly large and floppy and dirty enough to grow rutabagas in!! They are also not too careful about brushing their snaggley teeth, which is not very obvious as they do not smile that much anyhow. (Maybe they don't brush them because their mouths are so very large.) They are also ugly and sloppy in their behavior, which is of more importance than their appearance."

Disney princesses

when designing 'Queen red riding hood' especially her face i want it to look soft and youthful like the way the Disney princesses are portrayed even though they are the most convention thing to think of it is true that children respond to the way they look and at the characters in the book are appealing to children I feel i have to take some inspiration from them.

Queen red riding hood: dress styles

I am drawn to doing a dress with links to the 1800 when the Grimm Brothers were around to make that link between 'The land of stories' and the original
fairy-tales.

Contextual studies: Bad edutainment games

for my essay I have decided to write about education in games especially after read Ian Bogost book

'Persuasive Games' which has influenced my view on games. 

the term edutainment was first used in 1983 to describe a package of software games for Oric 1 and

Spectrum Microcomputers in the UK but over time the term has been used to describe educational

entertainment like video games, these video games use game based learning approach to get children

interested in the subject through activities.

I looked at a few examples of these kind of games like:

The logical Jorney of the Zoombinis by Brøderbund software. The plot of the game is take as many

'Zoombinis' as you can save to a safe place for them to live, through our the quest the player comes

across obstacles which are mostly trial and error with different aesthetics and hardly no change in

game play mechanics to make the game immerse

The Magic School Bus series is another example of edutainment games developed and published

by Microsoft and Scholastic Press through the 90's. once again the aesthetics are more important to the

developers than the game play,as it is very simple and not very well directed for the player to

understand what they have to do.

Reader Rabbit by The Learning Company is my last example for this type of game in this form. The

Reader Rabbit series is very popular with parents as there is a game made for every specific age group.

but this can be seen as limiting a child's ability to learn by only learning them a certain amount of

skills repetitively through out the game.

Overall these games could only be putting the parents mind at ease as they aren't teaching their child

but a computer, these games don't allow children to excel at subjects they are good at but puts the child

through repetitive tasks with no reward for doing so.

sources:

Bogost, I. (2007). Persuasive games. 1st ed. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

EdAlive Educational Software, (2014). Edutainment Software. [online] Available at:

http://www.edalive.com/edutainment-software [Accessed 17 Apr. 2014].

LaFond, G. (2011). Why Education Needs to Get Its Game On. [online] Mashable. Available at:

http://mashable.com/2011/10/13/education-gaming/ [Accessed 18 Apr. 2014].

Logical Journey of the Zoombinis. (1996). Brøderbund Software.

LoPiccolo, P. (2004). Computer Graphics World - That's Edutainment!. [online] Cgw.com. Available

at: http://www.cgw.com/Publications/CGW/2004/Volume-27-Issue-1-Jan-2004-/Thats

Edutainment-.aspx [Accessed 17 Apr. 2014].

Piaget, J. (1999). Jean Piaget's Cognitive Development Theory. [image] Available

at: http://muskingum.edu/~psych/psycweb/history/piaget2.gif [Accessed 8 May. 2014].

Shuler.C.(2012) What Happened to the Edutainment Industry? A case study, the edutainment era:

Debunking myths and sharing lessons learned.

S3.amazonaws.com, (2014). [online] Available at:

https://s3.amazonaws.com/infographics/Educational-Video-Games-800.jpg [Accessed 17 Apr. 2014].

Reader Rabbit Kindergarten. (1997). The Learning Company.

The Magic School Bus Explores the Ocean. (1995). Music Pen, Microsoft, Scholastic Press.

portrayals of red riding hood

even though I'm using a specific description of red riding hood from the book it does hurt to see what other people have done with this character in the traditional story and interpretations of her from 'Chris Colfers' book

contextual studies: ethnics in games

Procedural rhetoric first mentioned by Ian Bogost in his book 'Persuasive gaming'- the term is defined as persuading an audience without them knowing about it; this is used in many games from the 'McDonald game' by 'Molleindustria' to 'Grand Theft Auto 5' to prove a point.

The 'McDonald' game reveals to the player what major companies can do to our environment as well as what they hide from the public to make their business popular.


While  'Grand Theft Auto 5' gets their message across by having the player's character have the need to eat to survive but the only food there is, is from fast food restaurants with the junk food costing less than the healthy food, overall this can lead to a fatter character that cant run as fast and even to the extreme of death. This gives the player a chance to put themselves into an similar but exaggerated american's shoes and understand more than  just telling them directly.

In our contextual studies we were split into groups and design a game mechanic using procedural rhetoric that could be used to explore a political issue:
my group discuss the idea of how the police is perceived by different people including the media as well as how the police deal with situations by the laws that they are given or by there own morals.

an idea for our game was based around a similar concept to the 'SimCity' where the player is a police commissioner who must decide laws and techniques that they use to make a successful and supported police force.
the player would go through the different periods of history starting from the 'Peelers' to the modern day police force, this would allow the player to not only be educated through historical events such a 'jack the ripper' to the miner strike; but the player will learn more about the social side of policing and how different sides of the UK as well as different social classes see's them.
In the game the player will have to respond to a variety of problems with each choice having both a consequence and a reward for example the medias thoughts on how the player handled a situation could give them either a good or bad reputation and as a further consequence the government will not want to give as much money to the force leading to future problems for the player. On the other hand giving the public more leeway might seem nice at the beginning but could end up with the police force looking lazy. the player would have to learn how to balance this to win the game.

Other controversial issues we were interested in covering:

• Gun crime
• Police arms
• Legality of strikes
• Stop and search
• Preventative measures e.g. against football riots
• Discrimination against races
• “dirty” police
• Informants
• Violent and non-violent protests
• Use of force