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Showing posts from November, 2015

A Breathtaking Testbed For Seamless Integration Of Game And Learning

The Mars Game ,   developed by Lockheed Martin Mission Systems & Training   in partnership with StandardsWork, Inc.   , was selected as a finalist in the  2015 Serious Games Showcase and Challenge in the Business Category. The Pentagon’s Office of Training and Readiness Strategy’s Advanced Distributed Learning laboratory (ADL lab) researchers and Lockheed Martin’s Mission Systems and Training (LMMST) team have joined forces with award-winning educators to create a math and programming Serious Game that is engaging and highly captivating with a subtly embedded, but highly focused set of learning objectives. In The Mars Game , the player takes the role of an autonomous Mars rover, sent to prepare a habitat for a team of human explorers who are already en route. Just before landing, the rover’s spacecraft is struck by a rogue asteroid, and the rover crash lands in a damaged state, its equipment and supplies scattered in all directions. Students need to work through a ser

Serious Games To Develop Conversation Capabilities And Improve Negotiation Skills

The Suspect , developed by The Project Factory , was also selected as a finalist in the  2015 Serious Games Showcase and Challenge in the Business Category. The Suspect is an interactive interrogation experience where participants must prove themselves smarter than a man with a mind as dangerous - and yet as charming - as Hannibal Lecter. You play the game by conversing with Markus Winter, a serial killer suspect. The conversation is the Serious Game context in which both of you need to build a relationship and discover your goals along the way: players get inside the mind of a psychopathic serial killer and keep him talking to save innocent lives. Your objective is to get to the end of the conversation with the best possible outcomes for yourself and all the innocent people involved. The game uses a chat AI engine – Dialog - to create the context for learning empathy with restraint, communication and negotiation skills. Developed for a PC Browser, The Suspect

Serious Games Perfecting The Art Of Customer Service

Waisimo ,   developed by MAVI Interactive LLC , was selected as a finalist in the  2015 Serious Games Showcase and Challenge in the Business Category. The game has been launched by LC Waikiki, based in Istanbul, Turkey, which trades in 577 stores in 27 countries with the philosophy that “Everyone Deserves to Dress Well” and aspiring to become "One Of The Three Most Successful Clothing Retailers In Europe by 2023". MAVI Interactive has formulated the case for action while observing that “short orientation programs are often a knowledge transfer of policies and procedures which are not enough to help new retail employees become fully effective in their duties.”   Waisimo is a virtual apprenticeship Serious Game that addresses some of the prevalent reasons for voluntary employee turnover in the retail industry, among them lack of opportunities for professional development, boredom/lack of challenge, and job stress/unfair treatment. Built for the millennial g

Serious Games Testing Potential Vulnerability Of Computer Systems And Networks

Hacknet ,   created by Adelaide-based developer Matt Trobbiani--aka Team Fractal Alligator --was selected as a finalist in the  2015 Serious Games Showcase and Challenge in the Student Category. Hacknet is an immersive, terminal-based hacking game for PC with a fully internally-consistent network simulation and an interface so real you shouldn't play it in an airport. In the game, you'll be doing "real hacking". Using real UNIX commands and abstractions of real hacking p rocesses, players dive down a rabbit hole as they follow the instructions of a recently deceased hacker, whose death may not have been the accident the media reports. You stand in for no one, as most games have you do - play for yourself, make your own decisions, and see the world react - if you're leaving a trace that is. Hacknet has no protagonist, other than the person using it. Don't be reckless though - it's more real than you think. The game’s primary goal is provi

Unlocking Leadership & Employability With Serious Games

Following my prior post ComingSoon: The Leadership Game By Totem Learning Where Roles Are Fluid And Opportunities Plenty , Totem has recently launched Unlock:Leadership , the Serious Game that works as a sandbox in which learners can practice their leadership skills. Unlock: Leadership is a 3D, multiplayer online game set on a tropical island in which 4 players at their own PCs collaborate in real time to solve puzzles and achieve their goal. Players can be in the same room or on opposite sides of the world and their only means of communication is via an instant messaging window. This serves three purposes. The first is to train player’s communication skills, a vital soft skill for the workplace. Players will quickly learn that to succeed, they must give clear and concise direction to their team mates. The second is because it levels the playing field, those that ‘shout the loudest’ will not have the advantage. The third purpose is so all communication can be captured and

First Call 4 Papers: 10th European Conference On Games Based Learning

This is the first call for papers for the 10th European Conference on Games Based Learning (ECGBL 2016) hosted by University of the West of Scotland, Paisley, Scotland on 6-7 October 2016. This call will close on 17 th of March 2016. Over the last ten years, the way in which education and training is delivered has changed considerably with the advent of new technologies. One such new technology that holds considerable promise for helping to engage learners is Games-Based Learning (GBL). The Conference offers an opportunity for scholars and practitioners interested in the issues related to GBL to share their thinking and research findings. Papers can cover various issues and aspects of GBL in education and training: technology and implementation issues associated with the development of GBL; use of mobile and MMOGs for learning; pedagogical issues associated with GBL; social and ethical issues in GBL; GBL best cases and practices, and other related aspects. Organizers are

@ Kickstarter Online Storytelling Game Casts Kids As Heroes Of Their Own Stories

The online StoryTelling Game and Journal that uses story, life skills and DIY projects to bring your best stories to real life. Whyville and Numedeon are collaborating with a wonderful small children’s independent book store on a project to allow kids to become their own Harry Potter. Specifically, today’s market for books written for children ages 8 to 14 is dominated by fantasy-based hero journeys. Aware of this focus, the Tree House Book Store, a small independent book store in Ashland Oregon, decided three years ago to launch The Secret Book Club , where children use StoryJournaling techniques to compose their own creative stories with themselves as the action superhero.  In collaboration with the folks at Tree House, Numedeon wants to bring this StoryJournaling project to Whyville where potentially many thousands of children world-wide can be engaged in writing and sharing their own hero journeys. They have just kicked-off a Kickstarter campaign to raise t

GlassLab Merges Into LRNG Work Expecting To Scale Up Serious Gameplay Reach

GlassLab , a leader in exploring the potential for digital games to serve both as potent learning environments and real-time assessments of student learning, officially joined the LRNG movement last month in a bicoastal series of launch events in Washington D.C. and San Francisco. LRNG ’s goal is ambitious — to redesign learning for the connected age — and GlassLab has been tapped to play an integral role. GlassLab is merging into the LRNG work, envisioning an opportunity to scale up its reach to classrooms, businesses, community institutions and individual youth nationwide. Under LRNG , GlassLab will continue to design and develop Serious Games for 21st century learning and assessment — only now it will have broader and deeper channels of distribution. In addition, GlassLab will develop the nationwide LRNG platform, a youth-facing website that will be the backbone of LRNG . The LRNG platform will enable partners to connect gameplay to real-world application by put