Meeting with Ethan Silverman

Today I met with one of my professors- Ethan Silverman to talk about my thesis. The meeting was helpful because after running my idea by him he made the point that the action of my interaction is exactly what I am trying to help to avoid in reality. This is a somewhat obvious point, however it made me consider a few alternatives to my game concept. One thought is to have the game utilizes alternate worlds- or realities- so while we are doing something that happens in the rainforest (for example) we could see how it is directly effecting the life of a city inhabitant. (this would help me to localize the content maybe?) Another thought is to come up with a scenario where there are portals into the past present and future so that any time you can see how current actions effect the lives of humans, animals, flora and fauna in the different times. This is a little complicated but I am going to try to write this out and make the index card prototype.

Some resources that Ethan suggested I check out include:

• Rube Goldberg's illustrations
• The Sims
• Spore
• The Boston Science Museum
• The Manhatta project at the Museum of the City of NY
• Eco- tourism in Costa Rica