by The Mayor
Your First Blog Post Comments!
Oct 10, 2010 at 10:08 am by The Mayor
Hello Monsters!
We set up this blog post for comments that will complete one of your first Mayoral challenges. Let us know something crazy, wonderful, inspiring, witty — whatever comes to mind and is truly you, that other Monsters might discover and talk to you about.
Hi all,
After seeing the TED talk and being a gamer myself, I got inspired to join the group and see what it’s all about. Not only that but prior to seeing the TED video I have had an idea about a real life game to help the homeless.
I am going to flesh out the ideas and post something up for feedback.
I am not a designer or developer, just a man with an idea
Well, what an interesting mix of interests and personalities! I am currently in the dissertation phase of my doctoral program in Education specializing in Instructional Design for Online Learning. I had a host college lined up in which to perform the research but they got impatient with the whole proposal process routine my university requires and have moved on.
Oh well… perhaps another educator who realizes the importance of utilizing online gaming in education will offer their institution? 
I am a graduate of Full Sail University’s Education Media Design and Technology program which is where my interest in online gaming in education began in earnest and I’m happy to say my eldest son has just begun attending Full Sail’s Bachelor’s program in game design. Who knows? Perhaps he’ll learn something from the old man once I get the hang of Unity and get a game or three made and out the door.
Hey! It could happen….
Sounds frightening. I’m also learning toward an Ed.D. with Northcentral University. I’d like to suggest my college, but then I’m not sure of the process. Then again, the college I work for is a proprietary college, and they are rolling out a new LMS soon to replace Moodle. Right now, I’ll bet there is little gaming structure set up for classes.
I’ve heard good things about Full Sail for those interested in audio/media. Let’s stay in touch.
Today’s 5 minute challenge to readers … find out a little about the author of this quote, if you don’t already know (I just did, and they were awesome
)
“Don’t ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive and then go do that. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.”
Thanks for this challenge – you edged me to learn about someone who fits well with my sense of the world and some work I’m doing on racial equity (new to this).
Anyone working on games that help us redesign fiscal and monetary policy? Online clearing exchanges, currency creation, taxes on un-earned/speculative income instead of labor and products of labor, commons, energy …
Random tidbit….
I have the least popular blog in all of cyberspace, but for some reason I keep posting to it anyway.
I think that I’ve played every board game there is…Lately I’ve been checking out alternate reality games. The more I think about game design, the more that that’s the direction I want to go. Because I’m a composer, most of my ideas have sound (mostly urban) as part of their thing. I also love maps, so the whole locative, mobile technology world is really interesting to me.
So I’m researching ARGs. Any favorites?
I thought this might fit the Mayor’s request for something crazy and witty! Here is a poem I wrote to apply for a job at the MIT Media Lab.
A Scientific- Serious-Gaming Gal
You thought that you would never see
A poem as lovely as a CV.
I therefore use this forum to take a stab
At seeing if I would fit in at the Media Lab.
To begin let me take this opportunity to say,
My Harvard and Stanford education has paved the way,
For me to uphold high standards of science in my career
To change the world as a games for health pioneer.
Re-Mission is a groundbreaking game whose development I led
To help kids with cancer fight while in their bed.
We did a large randomized trial
To see if all of our efforts were worthwhile.
When the results were finalized
We were thrilled and energized
To see that players had not only knowledge gains
But also more chemotherapy and antibiotics running through their veins!
This was scientific evidence published in Pediatrics that games can save a life
That helped communicate our efforts without too much strife.
In fact, as the distribution of the game unfurled,
We have seen over 200,000 copies of the game distributed around the world!
With continuing this type of work as a major aim
Off I went to Holland to pursue my next game.
Improving patient safety was the goal that was made
Because medical errors need more than a band-aid.
In reading research and texts by the patient-safety standard bearers
I found that doctors’ stress was related to medical errors.
Nothing about this problem was being done
So why couldn’t we address their stress and have fun?
I contacted a team that was skilled in biofeedback
To work with my medical team to bring us on track.
Air Medic Sky 1 was finished with acclaim this past year;
Best of Show, Best Health Game and Best Serious Game Awards did appear.
I want to continue work that combines an impactful solution
With a scientific approach to lead to a revolution.
I thus think the Media Lab would be an ideal locale
For this scientific- serious-gaming gal.
In closing, even though the artistic value of this poem may be low
Being vivid and brief is something I hope this does show!
I would, if I could
Hire you – and they should!
I hope you got the job – great way of advocating for yourself through story – the best way in the world to communicate in my book.
HeyHey! I’m a gamer, MoM, performing artist, teacher, filmmaker, activist, the list goes on. Suffice it to say that I love games, playing them and making ‘em. It was wonderful to learn that my addiction to playing can be utilized for good! I’m stoked to see what I can create and have started working on a game to get my new career path (singing) up and going.
Almost a decade ago I created a game for kids in Special Ed. I went into a public HS in NYC to give a Theater Workshop but the Substitute Teacher was in which meant that the place was zoo. No theater was going to happen that day. Instead I talked with the students about money, their money. (I knew that would get their attention.) We ended up creating budgets to see how much they were spending on junk food compared to what it would cost to buy and bring their own. It was amazing to see how engaged they all were.
That lead me design a game that utilized their school work, real life needs and challenges. It was a hit and I’ve been convinced that games in education work wonderfully well ever since.
My experience playing World of Warcraft for the past…6(?) years is providing the template for much of how I’m approaching my latest “make life changes” game. I’d love to collaborate on it if people (I mean monsters) are interested or on anything else =)
Whew…that was long…
I feel like such a mere moral among immortals here but here I go.. I am a doctorate-prepared nurse practitioner and Campus President/Dean of a nursing program in Atlanta, Ga. More importantly, I have been an avid gamer since the paper and ten-sided-die days of dungeons and dragons. I have absolutely no current colleagues who play games (or admit to them) and definitely nobody who believes as strongly as I do a bout the power of gaming. I have a son who graduated from Full Sail with his graphic gaming animation degree – but I have no skills in game design myself. What I can offer is a wealth of nursing and medicine knowledge and a strong desire to be part of the team that finally creates truly 3-dimensional learning environments, along the lines of WOW, for nursing students to engage and learn. I also treasure any ideas I can find on how to manage a team effectively using gaming mechanics. Hoping to sit back in awe and learn here:)
This is a great video of a presentation on the selfish vs. unselfish act of creativity by Charlie Kaufman (screenwriter for “Being John Malkovich” and “Sunshine of the Spotless Mind”)
http://guru.bafta.org/charlie-kaufman-screenwriters-lecture-video
Performance and gaming. Can they be friends? Or is it just like a bad blind date never to be spoken about?
Hi, I’m a novelist, currently working on my fourth book. I’m also picking at an idea for a graphic novel which is currently into its tenth rescript. The novel-in-progress is a far future sci fi story set 600 years from now in a world very different from our own. I have managed to do about 25000 words so far. I’ve played games since the old ZX spectrum and have always been fascinated by them. Recently I’ve switched to Linux which puts a bit of a crimp in my gaming, being here is partly research and partly me goofing off instead of writing. From what I’ve seen of the Gameful community it is rich and purposeful, unlike many bulletin board-type sites where people just talk. The challenges are very interesting. You can find out more about me at http://rimibchatterjee.net/
When I was very small and we drove on family road trips, my sisters would challenge me to play The Quiet Game – a contest to see who could be quiet the longest. Later I graduated to The Alphabet Game – a game to find all the letters of the alphabet, in order, on signs. (I still remember Zim’s, a store near the end of of the drive to my grandparents’ house, because it was always the source of the Z).
I think there’s something to be said for “spoonful of sugar” games, which make boring or unpleasant things (like sitting in a crowded car for two hours) less boring or unpleasant. It’s potentially an easy arena for game designers to start – you don’t have to make your game the most compelling experience in the whole wide world, just more compelling than some very constrained options like “do nothing” or “try to nap”.
I am a social studies teacher working at a local middle school. I am 28 and a history major from UF and FIU. After a months in the classroom, I realized that the basic instruction that I had been trained to deliver was too boring. Students lost focus and began to peel away. I step my game up ”on stage” in front of them and it worked a lot better but still was not enough. I was offered a Promethean Board after my first year and then it al changed. I was engulfed in technology after that and my class is so much more fulfilling. Students are learning more because they are simply ”into it”. The aren’t brighter because of the technology itself, but because they are no longer sitting stagnant in a classroom looking at the motionless pages of a textbook
Any writing/composition/education people wondering how to tie the games in education revolution to a writing-centered background? I have a radical – but potentially legitimate – idea. Check my profile for details (lest I muck up the board here).
But here’s a hint: Fallout 3.
Hi! I am so excited to have found this website. I hope I can become an extremely gameful person!
Hi All,
As there are more, I am very new here! One day I went to my favorite bookshop and randomly encoutered Jane McGonigal’s book about how to fix reality with games. As a veteran D&D player, but without any group recently, I was touched by that. So I read the book and now I am here!
I am a fanatic Foursquare player (but can’t be mayor of my own house) and am deeply involved in a Music Venue in Castricum, Netherlands called “De Bakkerij”. (which mayorship I have lost, and will not regain; which is awesome)
Anyway I am looking for a few more games to fix reality! Let me know
Thanks,
I came to this website due to Jane’s book as well. I picked up the book as a result of the video of her on Ted.com.
Hi team,
I am a young game developer from Montreal.
TAG research center is my home and Ludic Voice is my team.
I am joining Gameful as your new Volunteer Manager.
If you have any question or comment to enhance your community experience or just to help us make your life more awesome, please contact me at mllepetronille@gmail.com
The fact that you’re on this website makes you an important asset to the games industry. Keep being awesome people!
Hi,
I am a newbie to gamification, but not to resilience, creativity or the study of joy. I am researching how best invent a game– to be played primarily in the “real world” — where a co-located community play on 3 tiers: Self, Group, World to achieve Joy, Connection and Contribution.
Look forward to playing a creative learning game
Cheers
PS – Something interesting about me, I walked the 500 mile medieval pilgrimage path to Santiago de Compostela (Spain). It was a great adventure to a destination which was once believe to be the end of the Western World (before America as “discovered”) A great experience if you want to ask me about it.
branching narratives in games… thoughts?
“thoughts?” I think about it all the time. I’m making a game that focuses on that as the gameplay and story method.
How about you? thoughts?
hallo beautiful people!
it is an honor to be part of a group of creative brains that use their juices to make the world a better place!
congratulations!
and love to all.
I have nothing insightful to add… but the mayor wanted me to post something.
Hi all,
I guess my first blog post is actually asking for help. How do I post to the “Official Introduce Yourself” thread in the forum. I can see where you can start a new topic in the “Make Gameful Better” group but that doesn’t seem like the right place to post. It seems like you would click on the actual thread to make a post. But when you do this there is no field to start a new post.
Any help would be appreciated!
If you scroll down to the bottom, there is a window that you can type into with a ‘Submit’ button underneath. Hope that helps!
Hi there. I’m looking for someone with the technical abilities I lack who’d like to play on the next stage of a game I’ve created to help people live their best lives. I’m a graduate of Marty Seligman’s Masters in Positive Psychology and have put all I’ve learnt to work in a game called Best Life Quest (http://www.best-life-quest.com) which allows people to navigate their way through a series of Quest designed to create more moments of joy, love, courage and contentment in their lives.
Not having any coding ability myself the first version of the game provides the guidance on line but completion of the Quests and scoring is done 100% offline. In the next version I’d like to bring more of the game online – a little like Chore Wars – and being new to the gaming community was hoping someone here may be interested in collaborating on this project. Anyone want to play?
hi michelle
I was reading about your game and I found out that I have been palying your game already, in particular the Quest for Finding Courage (Self-Regulation), as I have been brushing my teeth with my weak hand for the past 6 months, now I can switch and it feel the same. Thanks! I gained much respect in my power for change!
Hello gameful community, I’ve been delinquent in visiting often.. but see there are many interesting posts and ideas brewing. I’ve worked the past five years on an educational board game about climate change. Finally after testing and many revisions I’ve self published the game with some help from generous friends on kickstarter. Next, I’m excited to take the concept into an iPad app (RIP… Steve Jobs) Please if you have a second to check my site I’d be very, very grateful!
http://polareclipsegame.com/index.html
Hello Everyone,
I am young psychologist and have just discovered Gameful and the game design universe in general. I am finding it all very exciting and I am looking forward to becoming involved in the community. Games of various sorts have always played a significant role in my life, but previously I have largely thought of them as merely entertainment or a distraction. I find the potential wider utility of games extremely interesting.
Hi guys!
i’m developing (right now) my own role playing game (rpg) and i’m very excited for that.
I think this is a wonderfull opportunity for share ideas and i’m very interested in your critics about my designs, so feel free to comment any of my ideas because i appreciate so much all the feedback =3
I think the rpg are focused on the experience of their players when they’re in the game and that’s an amazing area to develop =D
I can’t figure out how to make my own blog post….
You have to get to level 7 in order to create blog posts – I only figured this out when I got to level 7 recently. Keep plugging away at that Mayor and you’ll get there before you know it!
Hey folks,
I’ve been an amateur game designer for as long as I can remember, starting with drawing mazes and making roll and move games when I was a small child.
I had considered being a game designer on some kind of professional level, but had ultimately decided that it wouldn’t be fulfilling. More recently, I have wanted to do a career in counselling, but do not enjoy the “University game”.
I’m now reading “Reality is Broken” and am very excited to work on meaningful games, particularly related to working on climate change.
Thanks for reading!
I just started getting active here (after signing up months ago) when I started reading Reality Is Broken. Now I can’t help but try to think of how to make everything a game. It’s driving my wife batty, but I’m leaving more smiles than frowns!
It would be much easier, for all of us I think
Look at what we’re standing on, and what we’re on the brink
If now could be just like then, then maybe we could speak
Wouldn’t have to run and hide, from what our wishes seek
If we did not know better, what questions we could ask!
Listening, we’d make believe, and wear the answer’s mask
As for me, I’m often told, who’m I to disagree
Time to join the real world, stop playing make believe
They say I should know better, let’s see if they’re all right
Make believe that we can see, what real worlds are like
Just for fun we can pretend, there’s treasure to be found
Gold doubloons in living rooms, if riddle is unwound
Grown-ups too play make believe, when playing grown-up games
Some play ours when full of moon, before attention wanes
Hard to know just what they’ll think, ’cause what they think they know
Is explained with answers like, That’s just the way it goes
So pardon me a moment, or help me try to reach
Reflections make the grown-up, so that’s what we’ll entreat
We’ll put it in the paper, or better yet, TV
Commentator commentates, most everyone agrees
No heroes without villains, contends the silver screen
Grown-ups might grow interested, if picture me a fiend
You know that we’re all good guys, but others cross their eyes
Besides, the news won’t play it, unless somebody dies
You know that killing’s evil, and no one’s better dead
God is good, as I believe, in heart and hardened head
It’s evil to hate evil, so what are we to do
With the mess the grown-ups left, as interest does accrue
If problems were solutions, then answers would abound
Maybe we should thank them all, by foxing with their hounds
Hi! I found Gameful a couple of weeks ago when searching for information about Jane McGonigal’s book “Reality Is Broken” (I had just ordered it from Amazon) and now I decided to join. I’m very interested in how games affact people who play them and how we observe games (I took a couple of courses of cognitive science at university). I have techonology/engineering background and I hope that I can use that to help someone here.
Hi All!
I am a complete Newbie! I have science and legal background, and want to export this knowledge into Gameful’s community. My wife, a special ed teacher has an idea for a social skills training game. I have wanted to create a virtual commune of artists and scientists, and believe that doing this through gaming is the way to go! I need a gaming mentor. Anyone interested? …B
I’ll do the mentoring, and I know exactly how we can exchange experience. I’m a game writer with an engineering background. I now write stories for games and storytelling systems. There’s definitely a way to bring scientists and inventors into game design; and into the class room. I’ll answer your questions about how the gaming industry works, at least all that I know, and I know you will have a role for a lot of people if you can help with some legal questions on copyright infringement and protection that every creative game designer eventually runs into. I’m an American that has been living in Europe for over two decades and US copyright law has become a nightmare.
Hi Kurt!
When you say the game industry you mean the videogame industry? or any type of game industry? (like card games, board games, etc o,o)
I’m developing a role playing game (pen and paper game) and i don’t know the copyrights in the role playing game systems, so any advice would be great =3!
Hello! I’ve worked in card games, board games, RPG, play-by-mail games, interactive books, dice games, and then finally, I went over to the video game market because they were more able to finance the life of a father with family responsibilities. I still think of games as one industry, or I guess I should say, an evolving form of creative expression. Paper RPG is a great place to start. You get everything you need in RPG’s to become a game designer. In regards to copyrights, there are two areas. One is game mechanics, the other is Intellectual Property Rights. They are protected separately. It depends on whether you are more into the world you’re building (the IP) or the simulation system (The game mechanics). D&D 3 has an open source license for the mechanics, you can build your own world using their system as long as you acknowledge them in your game. It’s a clever deal. Here’s the first question I would ask you: which drives your creativity more: building the world, building the characters, or balancing the rules? If you answer that question for me, I can give you some advice as to what kind of protection you need to be looking for.
i just bought Game Frame and am enjoying the book, can’t put it down! I’ve always considered myself as a game groupie but that has changed. I recognize the way I add Gameful concepts to even the most mundane parts of the day, I’m glad to find this community. Am looking for someone to collaborate with on my newest website project. It would be helpful if the person was into astrology and was open minded. LGBT friendly a plus.
Welcome Linda
Thank you!
Hello! Well…perhaps the most relevant thing to note is that I’m really excited about artists’ games. While a lot of people think about artworks as static, physical objects, I’m a firm believer that artworks can be social, immaterial, and temporal. Sometimes people call this social practice art, or Fluxus, or conceptual art, or social sculpture….
But anyway! Aside from the actual form of a game (e.g. how it looks, what it sounds like, etc.) the player’s actual experience can count as artwork too, and that’s why I’m psyched to be part of Gameful, because it’s a group of awesome people who are willing to challenge the traditional definitions of what a game can be, and what players can achieve.
Sarah, do you have some examples of such games or links to more info? I’m always looking for new experiences to incorporate in events and collaborative workshops, and art has been an element that we have not yet managed to include actively. Your post is inspiring me to try a different angle – art as a game experience…
Thanks!
I just want to share the thing I most value learning from gaming of any kind, be it digital or analog and everything-in-between and all that does not fitting those generalizations: Cheating takes out the fun of the game.
I would agree … with a caveat. Cheating when playing with other people takes the fun out of the game. I’ve been “cheating” in single-player games for years – if I don’t like the way the game is written then I’ll change the rules. Sometimes that’s a game in itself.
I don’t only do this with computer games – I also hack around with the rules for board & table-top games … with the assent of my fellow players.
Cheating is only cheating if it gives you an advantage that other players don’t have.
In the terms Reality is Broken puts it – gaming is about voluntarily taking on unnecessary obstacles. Cheating takes away those obstacles and thus takes away the game.
I’d tend to use “hacking” or maybe even “designing” to refer to the activity you describe. “cheating” is apt to have negative connotations and miscommunicate your intentions. Playing with the rules to make an activity more interesting is a great activity.
Some things people consider as “cheats” can be creative and innovative and instructive. Also sometimes cheats are expressing a player’s frustrations with the restrictions of the game. Games for the most part have to have rules and restrictions, of course, but seeing how players cheat or get around some of those rules and restrictions seems like it can be informative and innovative. I don’t want to defend cheaters by any means, though. Back in the day I stopped playing Diablo 2 online because of all the hacks that were contaminating the experience. Like the item duplicating hack someone wrote, it made finding the rare items less fulfilling, but at the same time the whole reason it was probably created was because of the frustration that rare items *were* so rare. If I was playing the game as much as my brother, but how was it he kept finding rare items and I hardly ever did?! Just wanted to weigh in, sometimes positive outcomes come from something normally considered overwhelmingly negative.