Posts tagged archaeology

The ruins of this religious house are perhaps most remarkable for the sword trapped in stone on the site. The abbey was built to honor 12th-century Tuscan nobleman Galgano Guidotti, who renounced his life of riches and retreated to this area to dedicate himself to a hermetic life of prayer. Legend holds that he smashed his sword against the rock as a symbol of breaking from old ways, but instead it plunged into the stone and held fast. Attempts to link the site to the legend of King Arthur continue to this day.

NEWS FROM THE FIELD - Read about these and more, in the latest update from the Walbrook site, where astonishing finds from the earliest days of Roman London just keep on coming!

http://walbrookdiscovery.wordpress.com/2013/04/30/money-for-old-rope/

…. A few days late - with apologies to all the contestants here on tumblr! This week, the winner posted on our Facebook page, and notification over here slipped through the cracks. *wristslap* 

It was, indeed, Wolfram’s marvelous mop of hair!  Please play again next week! We’re actually going to try and get everyone to post in one place, because we also got some replies on twitter. 

Well, not exactly fun, unless you like roller coasters (I don’t), or other sadistic forms of activity based on manic shifts between sick stomach-pit dread and impossible euphoria. 

Lucas and I have spent much of the last couple of weeks testing the earliest playable versions of The Time Tribe. This exhilarating - but humbling - experience makes me actually believe all those Hollywood stars who claim never to watch their finished work on the big screen. Even the parts of the game that do work leave me fretting about how our baby will be received, out on its own in the big bad world… 

But still… still…. we can actually play this game we made, for real, W00T!?!?

Well, at least in fits and starts.  And better yet, before too long, you’ll be able to play it too!

Stay tuned, the best is yet to come…

Karen

Originally posted on Lucas’s blog at Silverstring Media

I’ve spent the last three days attending the Games For Change festival in NYC. With keynotes by Jesse Schell, Jane McGonigal, and Nolan Bushnell (founder of Atari and Chuck E. Cheese, among others), it was a really interesting mix of game design, activism, and inspiration.

Much of the content over the three days was fascinating, though of course there were ups and downs – some case studies that weren’t very interesting, some major organizational difficulties, etc. There was a really great talk by Scott Nicholson about games in the library and how to partner with librarians to bring your games to communities (during which he revealed that, including school libraries, there are more libraries in the States than there are most major fast food chains combined).

I was here of course with Karen on behalf of The Time Tribe, it being the game for change I’m working on. Much of the content over the three days was stuff we kind of knew – principles of game design, the power of games to make for better education, all the stuff we’re predicated on. Though of course it’s always nice to get a refresher on those things and the excitement that can come with it. We got a few good ideas out of it for the planning of content going forward.

But one of the things we noticed was that when it comes to educational games, the focus is almost always on games in the classroom, games with measurable educational results. And those games always have such huge guidelines that must be adhered to, and so often result in, well, not fun games.

It really just drove home for me, I think, that The Time Tribe really isn’t “an educational game”. We’re a game. We’re an awesome adventure game with an epic storyline and time travel. The fact that it’s historically accurate, that there’s more information available if you want it, that it will get kids thinking critically and understanding multiple points of view and cultures, is just a bonus.

We want to be a game first, and while games have an amazing potential to bring change in an individual, to educate far better than the typical modern classroom, we can’t ever let a desire to do that get in the way of the desire to make a great game.

- Lucas

As many of you know, we recently wrapped a nail-biter of a Kickstarter campaign, which packed a fair amount of anxiety before rocketing in the final 48 hours, propelling us even beyond our initial fundraising goal.

One widely-circulated rule of thumb is that 80% of Kickstarter pledges come in during the first and final days of a campaign, bracketing a long, sad, drawn-out middle.

Instead, we saw a slow but steady climb in pledges, until something extraordinary happened just before the end - when our sustained outreach, brainstorming and cross-promotional efforts with other, like-minded Kickstarters* contributed to a more general wave of awareness out there on the gaming blogs to create the critical mass we needed, just when we needed it, to supplement our own fantastic personal networks of supporters.  

And finally new pledges began to pour in. This was an extraordinary experience itself, to be sure, but in some ways, even more extraordinary was the real-time dialogue we established with fellow Kickstarters who were rooting for us with all they had as our clock ticked down, even while keeping an eye on their own – not always 100% thriving – Kickstarter campaigns, which we in turn continued to promote.  

This genuine engagement, shared anxiety, and ultimate exuberance (in victory) of fellow Kickstarters was one of the most surprising and satisfying parts of my personal Kickstarter journey.

Surely this kind of collaboration is exactly what makes the indie community of creators so great.

*Special mention here to the inimitable Tex Murphy Mutant League (crushed one reach level already – how high can we take them?!), James Carter of iphone app love story, NY_Hearts (JUST 48 HRS TO GO, please send him some love NOW!!), Simonyi Cecilia of Children of the Elements (a gorgeous children’s app with a week and 70% to go), and Xeko (a digital Pokemon “with a purpose” that makes learning about endangered species effortless and fun).  Also kudos to David Hunter of the runaway hit Zombie-Based Learning project, and Robert Della Fave of Hiro Fodder - just wrapped, yeah!