Urban Games Research and Meetings

Over the past week I met with two really helpful professors at school: Nick Fortugno (Friday November 6) and Mike Edwards (Monday, November 9). Both Nick and Mike gave me some great advice on how to get started with planning out my urban game.

Nick recommended that I go to the locations of the schools and figure out what assets are available in the environment. He said to start thinking about the game mechanic and to just take a stab at it- not worrying about the big picture.

Mike directed my attention to the book Space, Time and Play. We talked about a few ways to get started including making a scavenger hunt and investigating mystery games and clue.

In terms of research and what has been done, my friend Grace Salem pulled together a delicious page on urban games.

My research to do list/brain unload also includes:
research educational games
qr codes
go to the beach and look for landmarks and things that they can use in their playground
give them a problem to solve
point system?
get parents involved?
give them missions, get in groups
are people working together/ against eachother
how does someone win game
sea monsters are helpful- giving them hints
sea good and bad
seashells: bad
sea can have good and bad things
seashells lose points if you get a sea shell card
if you find one
what i need to teach them.

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