In mid 2011, "Kirstens Viewer" based on Linden Labs' open source Second Life Viewer code, added support for 3D stereo vision using a variety of 3D methods, including simple red/cyan glasses.  This viewer is no longer maintained and is not available for download.  but the last version created - Kirstens S21(9) - still works with current Second Life servers. Here is an example image from Kirtsen's Viewer in red/cyan 3D (click on image for a full sized copy and get out your 3D glasses to see the effect):

There was an earlier patch for an early version of  the Second Life Viewer from the University of Michigan to support 3D stereoscopic views in Second Life. See http://3dvision-blog.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=142 and https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/VWR-2972?

I have been thinking about the game design asessment since Christmas.  It is my style to make notes and get ideas flowing early on and collect assets before seriously starting any work element.  I had originally thought a game using assets already available to me from a project on the "Virtual World of Whisky" might make a suitable topic for the game design.  See for example:

• http://www.aiai.ed.ac.uk/project/i-room/resources/vwow/VWoW-I-Room-Final-Report-2008-03-19.pdf
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y4nqlqRAd04

I have seen other opportunities while exploring quests in World of Warcraft, a number of space-themed games mentioned in this blog, and playing a range of new (to me) games on the course.

I am finding that a number of themes keep arising in my interests while engaging with these games and thinking about their narrative, objectives, and the ways in which they introduce artifacts and skills.

• Situated Learning and Narrative
• Levels, Scaffolding and Push to the ZPD (Vygotsky)
• Use of encyclopaedia resources
• Community-based Learning
• "Ancient" style of learning at the feet of teachers

My interests continue to be strongly with games which have a social and community dimension, and a way to engage players with the broader community involved is often something they involve.

So, I have begun development of a game design for a quest style game in the Avatar movie theme areas of a MMO such as Second Life. The game is based on an exploration of the Pandora moon flora and Na'vi culture.  It will have strong community and knowledge sharing aspects, but allow for play that engages with others or not, with consequences.  I call the game "Moon Bloom – The Legend of the Bloom of the Aligned Moons".

I have found it much more interesting to explore the routes, travel mechanisms and locations which can be reached in World of Warcraft rather than just carrying out more quests, which I find are very linear in their design, with seemingly pointless to and fro movements.

I explored Stormwind Harbour, used the boat routes available from there (and Menethil Harbour) to locations on the continent of Kalimdor, and found Thargold Ironwing who kindly gave me a free gryphon tour of the harbour - see http://www.wowwiki.com/Thargold_Ironwing. 

At level 20 my Dwarf Hunter was able to learn a riding skill to allow for a mount to be purchased and used.  So I now have the steed appropriate to the Dwarf race, a ram. This makes movement between sites much quicker and allows low level attacks to be avoided.

I am now discovering more route and vehicle types including an ornithopter and a (repaired) bomber.

‘The importance of narrative in game-based learning is that it provides a cognitive framework for problem-solving’. (Dickey, 2000 p.131) To be precise, the narrative design provides the learners some hints about the scenario behind and actively involved them in the game environment.

Therefore, regarding the digital games, there are two ways of approaches to the narrative game design, and they can be listed as below.

1. Quest: Hero’s journey, storyline with task to be completed by a character, and followed by a starting point and an ending point.

2. Plot hooks: The storyline is conducted by revealing unanswered questions and uncertainties. It allows players to choose actions to activate responses from the scenes.

As it can be seen that the platform of Labyrinth allows people to investigate the learning process and unique learning path by clicking one of the options provided, I think it can be considered as a method to create through the Plot hook approach or similarly.

Furthermore, if the designer intent to involve a ‘Quest’ approach to a course on the environment of Labyrinth, it is also possible to adopt both ways (quest and plot hooks) to the game design.

Reference:

Dickey, M., 2000. Murder on Grimm Isle: The design of a Game-based Learning Environment. In: Freitas, S., & Maharg, P. eds., 2010, Digital Games And Learning, London : Continuum. Ch.6.

There are some ideas I would like to reflect as below:

1. Culture factors may matter

As it is mentioned in the article provided, due to the fact that the participants are international students, it may be relatively difficult for second language users to have real-time meetings purely online. Take myself as an example, I need to spend more time to read the discussion and then try to response some of them, I can’t image that if I can type all the real-time conversation in text and try to be as fast as while I am speaking to them. Can the language be a benefit instead of being a barrier? Will the technology help?

Not only are these, but also the factors of cultural issue involved. As it can be seen clearly, privacy is a main issue in Western counties. However, it is relatively weak when comparing with the Eastern world. In my country, most of companies declare strict regulation regarding prohibit employees to discuss the details of individual compensation and reward with others. In contrast, it is always an open ‘secret’ for all of the individuals and departments. You will always know your current ‘ranking’ among the whole group. Can this platform apply to all the culture?

2. Advantages

I believe that creativity may not be limited in the virtual world. By providing more possibility, it is easier to be ‘different’ in a virtual world. Due to the fact that ‘In virtual world, anything is possible’, you can even fly if you want. Why not try to having a conversation while walking along the beach?

Although it is emotionally inappropriate to chat through text only, not noticing any facial expression and emotional information is not provided, the delays of texts allow participants to monitor and self-censor their own thoughts. In real life, it can be easily out of control due to the immediate emotional reaction. However, in the Second Life environment, in order to chat through text, participants can confirm their own words before submitting to others.

3. Anonymity

Can we keep it fully anonymous? Even if providing voice communication, which is extremely convenient and more ‘real’ to the real world, the function itself limits the level of anonymity. Can we not only design our own avatar but also design our voice? Or, can ‘picking up your own voice’ be a pack of modules?

4. Identity

How you want your avatar (projected identity) to be? Why? Does it project something from yourself?

In business content, I think this point doesn’t really matter while carrying out a real ‘performance appraisal’. However, it can be well-managed when designing a training programme in order to fulfill some conditions in a training design. I fully agree that something which is difficult or impossible to be achieved may be easily access through virtual world, such as: inappropriate clothing and gender swaps.

Reference:

Morse, S. Littleton, F., Macleod, H. and Ewins, R. (2009) The Theatre of Performance Appraisal: potential for role play training in Second Life, in Higher Education in Virtual Worlds: Teaching and Learning in Second Life, (ed) Wankel, C, and Kingsley, J. Emerald Group Publishing Ltd.

I want to say that I spent lots of time in this game. Due to the fact that I was a big fan of SIMS computer-based version, I want to discover more about the difference between game devices which contains diversity.

The similarity:

- There are five main occupations you can choose from, and I have completed all of them to the highest degree.(Chef, teacher, sport man, fire man, artist)

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- The task of occupation is set up with different levels and the requirements of skills and qualification should be met in order to achieve highest honor.

- You can give birth and build up a family with your partner.

- There are some random tasks and personal desires can be achieved as part of the overall goals

The difference:

- Mobile device provide easier access to the game, no need to turn on the computer and connect to internet

- The game control in the version is quite loose which means the goal can be easily achieved compared with computer-based version. For example, you don’t need to maintain the friendship with other citizens, and they will always consider you as friends no matter about if you contact them frequently or not. You can even develop your relationship with every citizen to be your partner. (I try to do so, and it really works!)

- The main player (sim) in this game does not have free will to take actions unless their emergent needs need to be satisfied.(ex: hungry, tired)

- No new game content is added

In other words, there won’t be any new citizen for you to discover, only 12 persons are available.

At very first beginning, I am keen on playing this version due to the loose design of the game. I am thinking I can achieve something I can’t do it on the computer version. Well, after all, I must admit that I feel bored soon when I complete every single task. It is very interesting to note that when the difficulty is eliminated, the fun decreased. However, if the goal is not attainable, the fun will no more exist.

        I would like to take some notes about the definition of play in one of our readings, ’The ambiguity of play’. According to Sutton-Smith (1997), play is a paradox, and there are so many forms of play. In very specific and general definition of play, we usually concern ‘contests’, such as games or sports, as the one and only form of play. However, regarding the wider definition of play, in my opinion, it refers to any form of activities which aim to ‘HAVE FUN’. As a result, even the daydreams can be considered as a private form of play. (This point of view really attracts me a lot, which means we are actually playing all the time.)

Turing back to my personal experience, I have an unforgettable experience of ‘Sky Diving’ in Lake Taupo (New Zealand) five years ago when I went there for a long-term backpacker travelling. This can be considered as a ‘risky play’. The scenario is located in the air. I am the player and the coach must play with me at my back in order to guarantee my safety. The playing equipment is so essential to keep me alive and all I need to do is to jump out of the plane into 12,000 feet of sky. To be honest, when I jumped into the air, I have a true feeling of committing suicide. And I am also convinced that I will never do it again in my entire life. However, I realise that kind of excitement (or maybe less would be better for me) is one of the main factors of any various form of play.

By looking deeper to the true natural of play, I think it will benefit us to carry out game design in the following session. For example, not only the competition form of play is involved but also different form of individual or social events should be taken into consideration when designing or reviewing a game design.

Reference

Sutton-Smith B. (1997) The ambiguity of play, Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press.

Mission to Timocharis region on the Moon.

• Ai Austin - Team Captain
• KaronMcB - Explorer
• indrimagri - Explorer
• Kimberley Pascal - Explorer

MoonWorld Virtual Field Work: http://moonworld.cet.edu/ and http://www.avatrian.com/moonworld/

Mission Data

• Team Pythagoras Journal and Logs
• Teleport to Moon Orbit Station
• Rock Sample Analysis (as this is not currently working in Second Life)
• Mission Images Folder 

Surveys for Team Members

• http://atate.org/mscel/gbl/MoonWorld/moonworld-gee-survey.html

• Please also complete the MoonWorld project questionnaire for NASA (Teacher/Adult version) at https://oedc.nasa.gov/dc/anonymous.jsp?a=1065378030737543106513231896

Since this game is such a historical one, I won’t believe that if anyone tell me he/she has no idea what it is. However, it is really difficult for me  to play this game seriously. At the very first time when I was a kid, I don’t like to play it because I always lose. Compared with my friends, they can get higher scores than me, as a result, I feel frustrated and reduce the motivation to play this’ Pacmana’. Now, even if I try hard to play it as part of my assignment, I still can’t enjoy playing it.

What I want to know is why I can’t enjoy playing it. Does it just because it is part of my assignment? Not really, I think I am a slow decision-maker. I don’t like the games which are designed to complete with other from the speed, such as ‘Age of Empires’(see website below), real time game to be more precise.

In the ‘Pacman’, if you can go faster in the beginning, you will be more likely to gain high scores since all the monsters are not released together at the beginning. How to organise a strategy is also the key. Later, I try to not focus on the spots but how to eat the monsters instead, and then in my fifth try, the scores are higher and finally reach the second level. (And then I am satisfied. :p)

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Reference:

http://www.freepacman.org/welcome.html ‘Pacman’

http://www.ageofempires3.com/ ‘Age of Empires’

When I first came to a course which aims to tell us what e-learning is, the lecturer demonstrated a well-known online interactive game regarding ‘frog dissection’ for basic medical knowledge building. (see the website below) It really empresses me a lot since it is so interesting. Moreover, it lets me know that game can not only allow us to relax or to be social with others but also can be very educational.

        The purpose of designing this game is very easy to be understood. To reduce the number of dead frogs which are killed for the experiment purpose. It can be argue that even if the learning material is provided online, such as this ‘frog dissection’, it doesn’t mean this can assist learners to gain deep learning better instead of using a real frog. However, it still provides us a new vision to consider if the learning can be also amuse and educational. The answer is YES.

Games provide the designer a platform to communicate with the one who access to the games. However, it really depends on the designer what kinds of materials should be implemented in order to stimulate what kind of learning behaviour to occur.

Reference: http://www.articulate.com/community/blogdemo/frog_dissection_demo/player.html