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PROFILE

Alfia Wallace

"Great article on Dwarf Fortress in the NYT Magazine. Game mechanics, random plot generation, and what can be done by one or two people with skill and a whole lot of passion. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/24/magazine/the-brilliance-of-dwarf-fortress.html" · View

  • Name

    Alfia Wallace
    Your Pet Monster

    Sparkle Monster v1
    Location:

    San Rafael, CA
    Personal URL:

    http://www.plumsite.com/
    "If my life story were a game, it would be a cross between (a game from before 2000) and (a game from 2000 or later)...

    “Where in the World is Carmen San Diego?” and “Civilization IV – Diplomacy”
    "Most people know me as a (check all that apply):

    Writer, Student, Teacher, IT guru, The Best Project Manager Ever, Public Speaker, Researcher
    When it comes to my game-making career, I'm:

    a newbie (no game experience… yet!)
    Kinds of games I’m best known for making (or want to be known for making someday!): (check all that apply)

    Social games, Alternate reality games, Simulations, Crowdsourcing games, Art and Experimental games, Educational games, Workplace/Enterprise/Productivity games
    Will Collaborate For:

    Creative Fulfillment and Fun, Free Food, Experience and Mentorship, School Credit
    Anything else you want to say about the kinds of projects or people or organizations you’d like to work with?

    I would be interested in two types of educational games.

    One would be social games that teach critical thinking while informing people of the ramifications of various choices made by individuals and societies. They could be played alone or as multiplayer. Examples would be a game showing how totalitarianism can evolve from the micro scale of the family to the macro scale of an empire and its aftermath, a game that shows the effects of mystical vs. rational thought processes, a game that recreates key historical movements while imbueing its players with all the glamour and intrigue of individualized power plays, starry-eyed idealism or stalwart pragmatism.

    The other type of game effectively (and most important, relatively painlessly) drills the player with essential knowledge needed to advance in the modern world. Such games take all the thrill and rewards of popular games like Call of Duty or Pokemon or Final Fantasy, but require that the player develop a knowledge base in say, math, chemistry, geography or foreign language in order to advance.

    Games I’ve worked on:

    I would love to help develop a game.

    Skills and Superpowers: (What abilities would you bring to a collaboration?)

    My day job since 2000 has been Computer Lab Lady at an elementary school. This entails teaching computer basics to kids in grades k-5 including graphics, word processing, presentation, educational and multimedia software. Every year I also teach after school gifted education classes for grades 4-8 in a variety of subjects from web development to writing to Russian and Arabic language. I run a lunchtime Geoclub at the school. I also manage websites in Dreamweaver and Joomla.

    Over the past 17 years I’ve learned a good deal about what is effective with teaching kids. I ran a cub scout pack for 6 years, a children’s theater for 3 years, and in 2008 I founded and now run an extracurricular high school science program called Marin Science Seminar. In the late 90′s, I co-founded and ran the online activism for a pioneering Internet activism organization for adult adoptees (which I have since abandoned – long story). I have worked with programmers and designers before in online and print volunteer endeavors and I enjoy working with people, especially online. My organizational skills are pretty awesome and when I get excited about a project there’s no stopping me.

    My formal education is in linguistics and foreign language. I’ve studied a lot of languages. My computer skills are all self-taught.

    My teenage sons are big gamers and have been gaming since toddlerhood, so I have a some idea of what they, and their lady-friends, respond to in gaming.
    3 games I’ve played that changed my life:

    Myst; Risk; Civilization 3-4