Finally after a lot of project and design changes we are approaching the starting line of testing. Right now one prototype is ready to go. We just have to set up the server and upload the content. We decided that on-site testing was the best choice for our purposes. Since we are dealing with online content and games, it makes more sense to leave the subjects undisturbed in their offices and homes and give them freedom to take part in the test at their discretion. We also count on reaching a much wider user base via mailing lists. Initially we...
more »Fabio Berzaghi
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Two Different Media/Game Approaches to Delivering Content
There are a couple of new things happening in our research group. Just a quick reminder first: we had an outside contractor for our mini-games idea that we decided to part with, and then we were also working with Distill Interactive for a game-like environment. In the meantime we totally changed approach and discarded the mini-games with embedded bit of information, and we designed a card game that, in my opinion, seems quite interesting. We also just finalized our decision of assigning the development to a team within the University of Minnesota. We hope the proximity will make it easier...
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Card Game Prototype on Its Way
After the last meeting we had we have now finalized an idea for a card game. We were inspired partly by the card game Clue. The board will be divided in two parts: one part will show a set of cards representing questions and the other part of the board will be divided in different areas that will represent each facet of the issue. Each area is made of different cards, every card is a fact/answer. The player, maybe with a roll of dice, will have to reach the specific area and then decide which card is the answer to...
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We had a brainstorming session and an idea of a board game came up. Then a card game followed and it seemed interesting enough to be explored in detail because of the low cost prototype that we could make. The idea is that the player would gather cards by talking to the stakeholders that are involved in whatever issue the game is about. The end of the game would be a player vs computer card game. Every card can have 5 parameters, each parameter can affect positively or negatively or be neutral to a certain facet of the issue. Yet...
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I have a few news about our project. We were working with the development team at Pine Tech, the Johnson Simulation Center. After almost one year into the project we decided to part ways with them. I think we need to work with someone on campus, in the house, to work closely with. We struggled to work with them since they had other projects to work on and could not put much effort into ours. But at least we got something out of it. A learning experience, bits of a design process and something that in my opinion is close...
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Report from the Knight conference at MIT: 2nd and 3rd day
report from the knight conference at MIT June 11-13
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1st Day at Knight News Challenge Winners Conference
report from the 1st day at the Knight Conference at MIT
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We Need a PowerPoint to Make Games
"Playing the News" Update - Distil Interactive I just returned from Ottawa where Nicole Rinerand I went to collaborate with Distil Interactive. We spent two days in their office and it was a positive learning experience. I should make a premise that Distil is trying to build a system that will allow non tech-savvy users, with little knowledge of coding, to create a game or game-like environment in a simple way and in a short time. The system is based off XML, flash and C. Right now the XML code is what controls what is being displayed on screen and...
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Collaborating with Distill for Games
Finally I am able to post independetly, and after the semester is over I will have a chance to work more on the news project. As a matter of fact I already started working on it. I have an internship for the summer at the Johnson Simulation Center and I worked 3 days of this weeks on the news game. I mainly tried to understand the code, and try to implement some features in one of the mini-games, a breakout clone. The mini-game is still in an early stage, as well as the whole system actually. Other projects have been...
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Here is another update from our research assistant on the "Playing the News" project. The team has been exploring "mini-games" that would provide a challenge as players move through the information from the news stories. Fabio has discovered some open source flash sites that might help. "As I mentioned in my earlier post, this week I started looking into open source flash games that could be adapted for our purpose. After some research on the web, I found this website http://www.flashadvisor.com/movie/index.php?viewCat=24 . It's called Flash Advisor and it's a collection of resources for Flash programmers and what not. I went...
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In the end, there's no real trick or black magic to making news valuable: it's about providing readers with what they want to read, as opposed to what publishers think they should be reading.
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