Posts tagged education

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

One of the first steps we took in creating the Time Tribe was bringing Karen’s vision to life. Our concept art of the characters and the Keep — the rambling old museum/manor home that serves as the home base of the game and the setting of our opening episode — really helped set the tone for everything that came after, and we’re blessed to have worked with artist Chris Beatrice to do so.

But we’ve come a long way since then, and as our amazing developers Dubit Ltd. actually put the game together, leading up to our beta release, it’s amazing to see these visions come to fully realized and gorgeous life.

It’s when we see images like this one that it hits us — we’re making a game. And that’s pretty cool.

Lucas

I’ve gone through the incredible journey of pregnancy three times. The panicky doubts that see-saw with giddy mania, the sleepless nights, the aches, pains and miserable setbacks that blindside you. The waiting that seems at once endless and yet over in a flash. And best of all, that magical way in which your brain obliterates all the bad stuff once that baby arrives.

But I have to say the experience of spinning the Time Tribe from the scattered filaments of my original vision into something that people will soon actually be able to play, to enjoy, maybe even to learn from, has been nothing less than mind-blowing. Like some pit bull that clamped down and refused to let go until I handed over a beta key, the ongoing development of this thing has obsessed, tortured, and - in precious glorious moments - fulfilled me more than any other project. Ever.

So, I hope you’ll tune in here as we share the backstory of the making of the Time Tribe. It’s been a crazy process of self-education and discovery in the Dark Arts of Digital Storytelling, made possible by a lot of help from amazing, generous friends and colleagues in the gaming, transmedia, and edtech communities. And we’ve only just begun!

Karen