Rainbow Run

Learning objectives

- Teach children in a really simple way to learn how rainbows come to be.
- What colours rainbows are made up of.

Play the Game

http://www.marvinroelofs.com/rainbowrun.html

Instructions

-  Click on START to begin.
- Make a rainbow with the waterhose.
- Run over the rainbow by clicking on the safe colour on the rainbow. The safe colour can be found left of the screen in the top brown square.

After playing this game you will know:

How the make a rainbow, and the 7 colours of the rainbow.

Credits:

Programmer: Marvin Roelofs
Artist: Marvin Roelofs
Designers: Richard Burgess, Dwight Cornel and Koen van der Somme

Serious games

-Review and comparison-

Food force versus against all odds

Food Force

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nuRTldf-zeM (includes gameplay although with Chinese voices)

Download: http://www.food-force.com/index.php/game/downloads/

System requirements are low

The game food force is about the process of arranging food transport to countries where people need it. For example, a country in a state of war.

The game consists of 6 mini-games. The mini-games are not hard to complete but they are fun enough to keep you playing. The game also generates a high score, so you could replay the game to perfection your performance during the mini-games.

The country you are going to supply is Sechlan. There is a situation in Sechlan, drought has stricken the country due to climate changes. In the first mini-game you can see a dried up river which is one of the causes for the lack of food.

The game gives clear background information about the situation you are going to face. You can project yourself in the situation at hand.
Before the mission a 3d character explains what is going to happen next. They integrate this well in the story.
During the first mini-game you have to fly over a landscape with a helicopter to check the situation of the people. You have to hover over groups of people and when you have scouted enough people you complete the mission.

After a mission you are shown several videos of real life footage. For example, there is a mini-game where you have to drop food packages from a plane. After the mini-game you get some additional information about dropping food and some real life footage of a plane dropping food packages.

The other mini-games are about finding the nourishment mix of the food, dropping food packages, finding countries that want to donate food, trucking food to the country, building up a village by investing food in the right department.

My opinion:

This game is well done. It provides you with a lot of information about the world food program.  As a player you take part in the action. For example; you drop food, transport food and rebuild a village. This really makes it clear to the player what actions are involved in getting food to the people of a country. Most of the information is shown in the video’s in between the mini-games. As a player you can skip this information, however you still get a good idea of the process of dispersing food.

Food Force Evaluation Rubric

Against all odds

Play: http://www.playagainstallodds.com/ (download is not needed)

System requirements: low/internet

The game Against all odds lets you experience how it is to be a refugee. The game is made in flash and guides you through different levels and aspects of fleeing to a new country and establishing a life. In this game is one part where you have to sneak through a city and not get detected, the other parts are about making decisions and reading opinions about refugees. You learn you have to make tough decisions and what strong opinions people can have about refugees.

For example, you want to flee the country by truck. However the truck is too full, six persons have to stay behind. Then you get the question who should be left behind. Six relatives, friends or neighbors?

Then you continue your journey. One of your friend then notices he didn’t bring his ID papers. You have to choose if you are going to leave him behind or not. If you leave him behind you pass the border, if you keep him with you all persons in the truck get caught.

In this game you have to make hard decisions. If you choose the wrong answer you are game over.

My Opinion

What I don’t think is done well is the character you play with. You don’t know why you are fleeing your country. You can’t place yourself into the character. There is no emotional attachment.

The game is quite long and doesn’t have much entertainment value.  The ending screen has some information about a organization. This organization is never mentioned in the game. It would be better for the organization to connect their name to the game.

Against all odds Evaluation Rubric

Comparison between food force and against all odds

Perspective

The main difference between the two games is the perspective. In food force you play the guys that help the people in need. In against all odds you play the person that needs help.

Topic

The topic also differs. Food force is about distributing food and against all odds is about refugees. Still, these games share the same genre: social issues.

Gameplay

Food force’s gameplay differs greatly. Each mini-game is different.

Against all odds doesn’t have much difference in gameplay. The gameplay is not entertaining. Most of the time you just have to click on people to hear their opinion or you have to choose a certain option.

Graphics

Food force has a really good look. Although it’s not state of the art, it is good enough and well communicated to the player. The graphics of against all odds are mostly stills made in flash. There is hardly any animation. The advantage though is that you can play against all odds in your internet browser.

Length

Food force is a short game and feels like you’re having fun.  Against all odds tends to get a bit boring. Not because of the subject, but because of the length of the game and the little variation in gameplay.

Propaganda

Food force propagates the WFP (World food program) but against all odds does not clearly propagate an organization. Food force gives you a good idea of what WFP does. Against all odds just give you an idea how it is to be a refugee, but they don’t make you feel emotionally attached to the character. So it fails on that part. Furthermore, what is the use of feeling compassionate towards refugees if you don’t know how to help them? They don’t propagate the UNHCR enough.

Conclusion

I would describe Food force as: Short, fun, informative, hits the spot.

I would describe Against all odds as: Long, negative atmosphere in game, oppression, learn harsh fact.

Preface

This review is about Windfall made by Persuasive Games ® and Waterbusters by Saving Water Partnership.

Windfall is a political strategy game. The game lets you build windmills to generate electricity for your city. Waterbusters is a political policy game that provides advice to reduce water utilization.

These games are designed for public policy makers, educators, advertizers as well as ordinary people.

Both games fall under the serious game taxonomy of:  “Strategic & Policy Planning”.

Windfall

This game is controlled by a mouse only. The player can choose to build windmills and electricity poles to connect windmills to turbines that generate the electricity. The positions of the windmills have to be determined strategically. The player can do research on a buildable location which provides more information regarding the quality of wind and land. For instance, some locations have 20% of windmill efficiency while others have 60%. Researching, as with building windmills and electricity poles, costs money.

There are 3 types of windmills the player can build. They vary in size, prize and electricity production. Building bigger windmills cost more money and will make inhabitants less happy as it makes more noise and looks less nice than small windmills.

There is a monthly income for generating electricity as inhabitants have to pay for the electricity generated. However, building bigger and noisier windmills will make the inhabitants less happy resulting in more money spent on keeping them happy trough commercials and other advertising methods.

Note that the money spent to keep inhabitants happy is handled automatically. The player does not have to manually keep them happy trough these methods. The only way to keep them happy manually is by building smaller windmills.

There are 3 difficulty levels and the game has some very well picked background sounds.

A certain amount of KWh must be generated. If this objective is achieved within 3 years, the mission is succeeded.

My learning experience

The game made me aware of the environmental friendly energy production which is becoming more popular nowadays. People want ‘clean’ energy but do not want lots of noise and ugly buildings like huge windmills. It is a dilemma that has to be dealt with as is with many political decisions.

Windfall

Waterbusters

This game is controlled by the 4 arrow keys on the keyboard. The player can navigate Phill trough the house and the yard. Phill can pick up tools to repair water leaks. Phill can also interact with other people around the house.

The interaction with other people and picking up tools happens automatically by walking Phill over the tools or colliding with other people. When Phill picks up a tool or interacts with someone else a text message pops up with advice and sometimes background information.

The colors and animations of Phill are old school. The controls feel annoying and Phill is moving too slow. The game comes with a very repetitive soundtrack that is too short and is replayed over and over again.

The objective of the game is to fix all the water leaks.

My learning experience

This game made me aware of the water that is easily wasted on a daily basis. I saw today a documentary (NOVA, NED1) about the youth not realizing these problems due to the way parents raise their children has changed.

On the other hand, nowadays there is more attention to energy savings trough television commercials and other public advertisement methods.

Nevertheless may it provide a couple of suggestions you may not have thought of before, such as:  ”use a broom instead of a hose to clean the sidewalk”.

Waterbusters

Comparison

This comparison involves the rubric: “Encourages active player participation” and:  “Integration of game play and content”.

Because Waterbusters does not require any brain activity it becomes rather boring very quickly whereas Windfall requires the player to find suitable spots to produce efficient energy. Windfall makes it the player a lot harder. People have to be kept happy. If they become too unhappy the player loses too much money on commercials and advertisement to keep them happy while at the same time the player requires the money to build new windmills. Waterbusters does not include any of these mind breaking dilemma’s.

Both Windfall and Waterbusters make use of somewhat ugly sprites and outdated animations and colors. Though, they are just flash games, this should be taken into account.

The gameplay in Windfall is much more varying. The player has to find suitable spots, build windmills, connect them to turbines and optionally sell windmills. Waterbusters only allows the player to walk around. The interaction with tools and other people happens automatically.

Conclusion

Both Windfall and Waterbusters have some dated graphics but Windfall wins on mostly every other point. Waterbusters provides the user with some useful tips regarding efficient water utilization, whether this is brought in a boring manner or not.

Websites

Persuasive Games

Social impact games

Welcome to WatersEdges Versus The cost of life

In this post I am going to review 2 games that are built with flash and available online. Both of the games have Public Health as the main focus. Welcome to WatersEdges is a game that puts the player in the shoes of an intern student at the department of health and let the player experience what happens when there is a disease outbreak, and which people are involved. The other game “the cost of life” gives the player the opportunity to manage a family of 5 in the rural Haiti. The player needs to keep the family healthy, happy and wealthy. During the game the player is suppose to give the family instruction what to do during the seasons. The choices are where the player can choose is for example working on the family farm, what doesn’t make much money at first but when a harvest is successful its profitable. There are also other jobs available, they bring more money in some require a diploma, some make much money but are very unhealthy. The player gets many choices to keep this family happy.

Welcome to WatersEdge!

This game was developed by the Midwest Center for Life-Long-Learning in Public Health (MCLPH). The game is developed to make students aware and interested in the field of public health.  By simulating an outbreak in a small town the player gets introduced to various professions that are available within the field of the public health. Together the player needs to find the source of this outbreak and stop the bacteria that make the people sick. The game is a simple point and click game what is easy to maneuver in. By use of conversations reading leaflets, papers, watching video the player gets a lot of information. For example during a conversation, if colleague tells the player about another outbreak where they used the same research techniques, they reference the outbreak were they were speaking of. That way the player get information what isn’t really helping to finish the game, but still get useful information.

The objective of the game is ultimately to get students interested and aware of the opportunities public health has to offer. The player gets introduces to people that work in the public health field. Each person that player has to work with has a small biography and job description. What the game also teaches is the basic principles in gathering information, methods of investigating, data interpretation and point source contamination.

I think the game is very clear and does what it supposes to do. My only concern would be that it isn’t much fun to play and very straight forward. The dialogs aren’t very interesting and the gathering of the information isn’t very difficult. I think the game would be more fun to play if the player actually gets challenged. Implementing puzzles, or for example more creative ways to gather information.

What worked pretty well in the game was the awareness of the problem. The first thing what pops up is a ‘illness counter’ that counts the people that got ill and during the game the more time the player takes the more people get added to the ‘illness’ counter. The game doesn’t take long to finish, and I think that is a good thing, because it gets repetitive and boring very quick.

Evaluation

Score 18/36

Gameplay video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zey-bG3Es_U

Link to play the game

http://www.mclph.umn.edu/watersedge/play.html

Ayiti: The cost of life

The game Ayiti: The Cost of Life is a game developed in 2005 by the Global Kids and the New York based Gamelab. The global kids program is a non-profit organization that has the mission to educate and inspire urban youth to become successful student. The game is developed to make children aware of the situation some people are forced in and how difficult it is to get a decent living in certain places in the world. The game is made in a child friendly art-style with an easy to use interface. The player has to manage the “guinard” family in the given 4 years. The four years are divided in 16 seasons. In the beginning of the season the player is able to choose the roles that the family members have to perform during the season. This includes work, school, or volunteering. Each member is assigned to a set of statistics; Wellness, Happiness, and Education. There is also an overall statistic and that is the money meter. It will show how much money the family possesses. Without money the family cannot go to school or eat.

The main objective is to make people aware of situation some people have to face every day. It shows by simple game mechanics that living life as a family in a poor country isn’t anything alike a family in a rich country. Even though the game seems very easy to play it is very difficult to keep the family alive and healthy. I haven’t been able to get through the 4 years without wiping out my whole family. This strengthens the point the developers trying to make. Because of the seriousness of the subject it shouldn’t be too easy and simple to complete the game.

I really liked the way the developers designed this game. The content is very clear. The game is easy to play, it is challenging and also very important, it is fun to play. Because it is so difficult to get a successful game it almost seems impossible. I think that eventually stop motivating the player to play the game.

What I liked about the game is the simple gameplay but still there were lots of options and strategies to consider. What also appealed to me is the way they integrated charity in the game.

Gameplay video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vfhWV7kQQdM&feature=player_embedded

Link to play the game

http://www.unicef.org/voy/explore/rights/explore_3142.html

Evaluation

Score 27/36

Comparision

Both games take a completely different approach to reach the target group. Where Welcome to the WatersEdges is very serious and dull, the “The cost of life” game is very serious to but more spend much more time in the playability of the game. Result first game is dull and for the player not fun to play a second time. But the game isn’t designed for that. The goal is to get students interested in Public Health. Playing that game once is sufficient and informative enough to get a student interested. The second game is designed to play more than once, it stay fun after a few plays. It isn’t difficult to learn but very challenging. In contrast of the first game that isn’t challenging at all.

Conclusion

Both games were well designed, and did what they were made for. The second game was definitely more fun and challenging. It is a pity that the developers of the first game didn’t put much effort in making the game fun to play. It would probably appeal more for students to play a fun game and catch their interest, then to play a dull game that doesn’t really challenge. In that way the first failed and the second prevailed.

In this post I will review the two serious games Sneeze and Killer Flu. They both try to teach the player something about the spreading of viruses (flu viruses mainly). Both games encourage you to try and infect as many people as possible. In Sneeze you are controlling a single infected person who can sneeze once to spread the virus to nearby people who then become infected and start sneezing themselves, causing a chain reaction. Killer Flu gives the player more of a god like perspective and confronts the player with virus mutations as well.

Sneeze play here

This game is created by Routes. Routes is an eight week game from Channel 4 Education in association with the Wellcome Trust that takes players into a world of genetics, evolution and the human genome. A small amount of mini-games (including Sneeze) was made to learn the players more about that mysterious world. There are no hardware requirements listed on the site, but it is safe to assume everyone with a browser, an internet connection and Adobe Flash installed can play the game.

The game is pretty simply. You have a top-down view of a single area which is crowded with three types of people: children, adults and elderly. You control a single individual which is infected with the flu. Your job is to infect as many people as possible by sneezing at the right time at the right location. Infecting children is the easiest because they have a high chance of being infected due to having an inexperienced immune system and because they walk around very fast they have a higher chance of infecting other people. Because of these attributes children are only worth a few points when infected. Second are the adults. They are hardest to infect due to a strong immune system and they travel at a normal pace, granting twice as much points then an infected child. The elderly are worth the most. They are not hard to infect because of a weakened immune system due to old age, but they move very slow, making it unlikely they wander into an area where you are spreading the virus.
In each round you need to infect a certain percentage of all the people to be able to progress to the next round. Going over this percentage will award bonus points.

Between each round, a fun-fact about sneezing and virus spreading in general is displayed to educate and entertain the player. For example “The 1918 flu pandemic killed 2.5% of the world’s population” or “It is impossible to sneeze with your eyes open”.

The educational value of the game stops there. Nothing further is explained or otherwise build into the gameplay like the reason elderly have a weakened immune system or what having a stronger immune system for the adults actually means.

The game is incredibly addictive though. After losing the game in rounds 4 and 5, I have restarted it for at least 5 times because I wanted to see if I could progress further. But unfortunately it is extremely hard to predict how the people will sneeze once infected, so the game is more luck based then anything else.

Here is a YouTube movie of someone who won the final round with either skill or luck, that’s up to you to decide.
Sneeze on YouTube

Evaluation

Score 17/36

Killer Flu play here

This game is created by the UK Clinical Virology Network. The primary aim of this Network is to provide a modern and comprehensive virology service, with equality of service provision across the UK. More info about them can be found HERE. The same as Sneeze, this game has no hardware requirements but simply requires the Flash player.

In Killer Flu you also need to try to infect as many people as possible. There are three different game types. In each the kind of virus and the method of infection is different. The difficulty also varies between these types. I will start with the first type, the Seasonal Flu.

The game is played with god-like influence. You can zoom in on a piece of land and see people walking or driving around, minding their own business. You can select one of these people to see against what kind of strain this person is currently immune to. To make sure the infection is successful, you need to mutate your virus before you attempt infection. How this infection actually occurs is never explained by the game, it simply happens. Once infected, you can order the person to spread the virus by sending him to his natural environment (a student to a school, a manual laborer to a factory, a tourist to an airfield, etc). Everyone this person encounters on the street will be infected as well along with the complex you send him to, but you cannot control those people to send them somewhere. After everyone on a single piece of land is infected, you can zoom out and select another piece of land and repeat the process. You can even order a controllable infected to move to another piece of land to infect a complex there. You have to move quickly though, because after a while, the immune systems of the infected people will have adapted and cured the infection.

The goal of the game is to infect 25% of the population within a certain amount of time. The site told me it was not easy and I should prepare myself for failure on the first attempt, but I had no problems whatsoever in spreading the virus and reaching the goal in half the time allowed.

This mode starts with a lot of text explaining everything about virus mutation and human immunity. Although educational, it is a lot of text and is not very motivating to read. The other modes start again with a lot of text, but also add a video to clarify it a little. Although I could learn the difference between different kind of flu’s with this game, I wasn’t very interested to read all that text so I didn’t bother.

Although a lot more educational then Sneeze, this game is a lot less fun to play. After playing enough to be able to write the review, I lacked any motivation to play another round.

Killer Flu on YouTube

Evaluation

Score 22/36

Comparison

Both games are focused on the flu and instruct the player to spread it amongst people as much as possible. But it is clear Sneeze was designed with a fun factor in mind next to the (relatively small amount of) educational value. Killer Flu is really trying to teach you about different kind of flu strains, how they mutate and how hard it is for a single strain of virus to achieve global infection and the creators put a lot of work in this as well with the bird movies. The fun factor however really took a back seat in Killer Flu, which is ok for a serious game, but it does not score well on the re-playability department because of it.

Conclusion

If you want to have some fun with the basic rules of flu infection go for Sneeze, but if you want to learn more about the flu and what exactly the difference is between a seasonal and a pandemic fly, go with Killer Flu. You even get to test your management skills to check if you are quick enough to spread an infection around before people become immune to it.

Introduction

In this review we will be comparing America’s Army with Virtual Battlespace 2. Both are serious games in the games for training genre in the defense sector. The two games are for training military personal in virtual combat situations. Although America’s Army is also primarily used as a recruitment tool while as VBS2 is primarily used for training.

Game: America’s Army

The main focus of America’s Army is on team-based multiplayer battles. The entire game is centered around the idea of working as a squad of US Army soldiers. Both sides see themselves as American soldiers (to avoid any potential controversy) and the opposite side as a fictional nationality.

The attention to detail is very important in this game. Smooth, good looking animations and realistic looking guns and soldiers combined with realistic sounds make for an immersive gameplay.

America’s Army comes with a standard amount of maps that are iterations from previous versions of the game. With each map you can choose a different mode like VIP (where you need to escort a Very Important Person to safety, while the other team hunts him down), some Capture the flag modes, … but you could ignore those and just try to kill the opposing team.

The latest version of the game is called America’s Army 3 but basically it is just an iteration of the previous versions with better graphics and some patched up things. Although the game does have a few bugs like glitch-y animations, people can’t complain because of the price, it’s free.

Links

• Official website: http://www.americasarmy.com/downloads/

• Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9DTQqdFdlas

Minimum hardware requirements

• Microsoft Windows XP (with Service Pack 2)
• Processor (CPU): 3.0+ GHz Single Core CPU
• Memory (RAM): 1GB RAM
• Video Card: Direct X 9.0c compliant, Shader 3.0 enabled video card with 256MB RAM (NVIDIA 6600 or better/ATI X1300 or better)
• Sound Card: Direct X 9.0c compliant sound card (Minimum)
• Hard Drive Space: 5GB free hard drive space
• Network: Broadband Internet Connection
• DVD-ROM: 4x DVD-ROM (Disc Copies Only)

Developer

U.S. Army

Evaluation

Score: 25/36

Game: Virtual BattleSpace 2 (VBS2)

Virtual BattleSpace 2 (VBS2) is a military grade simulation of air, land, and sea small unit combat. it doesn’t come with any already made missions at all, except for 2 simple training missions, an obstacle course and a weapons range. It has a very extensive tool kit for level creation and the like. That being said that is all that you get with the game. It is up to the player/company/army that bought it to make the levels/scenarios that is has a need for and wants to train for.

This product is strictly for training only since it has no single player missions of multiplayer for itself (need to have a LAN with lots of other trainees on it). If a person really would like to have a go at a game there is a commercial version of the game available called ArmA. It basically has all the missing features that this game lacks.

Links

• Official website: http://virtualbattlespace.vbs2.com/

• Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t_3zIodwGXw

Minimum hardware requirements

• Processor (CPU): 2.4+ GHz Single Core CPU
• Memory (RAM): 2GB RAM
• Video Card: video card with 512MB RAM (NVIDIA 9600 or better)
• Hard Drive Space: 20GB free hard drive space

Developer

Bohemia Interactive

Evaluation

Score: 33/36

Comparison

Both games are realistic first-person shooters but because the the primary focus of both games are different it is hard to compare the two. The edit-ability, scalability and reusability of America’s Army may be less than VBS2 but I believe that in the right hands the content creation tools of America’s Army to create the level and gameplay can be just as good as VBS2’s creation tools.

The biggest difference between the two games is the player base. America’s Army is accessible to everybody and thus has a very big player community giving it a lot of extra content and support. The fact that VBS2 is only used as a battle simulator by a select number of people does not encourage a lot of extra development or support.

Conclusion

Both games are proper serious games but VBS2 is more focused on the training aspect of soldiers than America’s Army is. I would have to say that for quick combat situations where the player only needs to focus on reflexes, enemies and some team based strategy, America’s Army would be the game to use. But for actual and strategic combat with the ability to make very specific combat situations with an extensive creation kit I would recommend VBS2.

Darfur Is Dying versus September 12th: A Toy World

In this post I will compare two Serious Games which are created with flash and are available online. The games are designed to educate the player about the negative sides of warfare. The first, Darfur Is Dying, shows the life of a refugee and the problems they have with the simple act of getting water. The second game, September 12th: A Toy World, is a reaction on the US’s campaign against terrorism. Both of the games can easily be played using your web browser with flash layer.

Darfur Is Dying

Play it here

This browser-based game is created by the mtvU, a division of Viacom’s MTV Networks . It sets out to give the player a view of the life of one of the millions of refugees in the Darfur region of the Sudan. The player begins by selecting a character to forage for water, quickly discovering how age and gender play heavily into the success or failure of such a simple daily tasks and how harsh the consequences can be.

The game offers an opportunity to explore a typical village, discovering all the dangers and deprivations within. The game also gives the player the ability to improve conditions in the village through various actions such as petitioning politicians to pass laws that will benefit Darfur’s refugees. The two parts of the game could have been connected to one another. Getting the water is fairly simple when you get the hang of it, the camp life is much more complicated. I hardly played the camp life because it wasn’t clear to me what I needed to do.

The game displays it’s information is screens of text which are easily skipped and mostly unneeded for the game. From playing the game you learn that a simple thing as getting water is for the refugees something they literally risk their life for. If your player is caught, you cannot use that character again. The choice of character play a big role in the gameplay: an adult will bring back more water than a child, but is also more likely to get caught.

Evaluation

Score 25/36

September 12th: A Toy World

Play it here

The game is response to America’s War on Terror. It puts the player in control of an aiming device that hovers over a town; clicking the mouse fires the weapon, launching a missile towards a “terrorist” target. However, no matter how well you shoot the missile will create collateral damage. The dead civilians are mourned by loved ones, who then become terrorists themselves due to the damage the player has caused. The game cannot be won; the player’s violent actions only make the situation worse. This is a damning commentary on the US’s military campaigns.

The game doesn’t have any text, it tries to deliver its message by showing the results rather than telling the player what the result will be. As this general has a bigger impact and it is much more likely that the player will get the message this way (written text is too easily skipped), the game fails in doing so. It was fun to play for about 5 seconds, after which it became just a repetition. The new terrorist don’t cause you any harm, so it doesn’t matter for the game how much damage you cause. The game did however get the message across that the war against terrorism will just create more terrorists and that we’re caught on a never-ending path of destruction and hate.

Evaluation

Score 3/36

Comparison

The two games which I discussed here are vastly different, both in nature and gameplay. Darfur Is Dying is showing the life of a refugee up close while September 12th: A Toy World gives a much more global overview of the problems war causes. In Darfur Is Dying, being caught while running for water has a serious impact on the game. The impact could have been bigger if you would see a dead body instead of having text saying that you’ve most likely been killed. Darfur Is Dying has clearly been designed better than September 12th: A Toy World. It is more rounded, the topic better integrated and it does a much better job in delivering its message.

Conclusion

Darfur Is Dying is a proper online Serious Game which shows the life of refugees. It might be worth playing the camp life more if it was explained better. September 12th: A Toy World is fun to play for a few seconds and doesn’t get any message across at all. It is just about of destroying buildings. The people in the game are too small to really notice.

World of Warcraft versus EVE online.

This review will compare the games World of Warcraft and EVE online.

World of Warcraft

World of Warcraft can be downloaded here: https://eu.battle.net/account/creation/wow/signup/index.xml

PC System Requirements

OS:
Windows XP 32/64-Bit (Service pack 3)
Windows Vista 32/64-Bit (with the latest Service Packs)
Windows 7** 32/64-Bit (with the latest updates)

Processor:
Minimum: Intel Pentium 4 1.3 GHz or AMD Athlon XP 1500+
Recommended: Dual-core processor, such as the Intel Pentium D or AMD Athlon 64 X2

Memory:
Minimum: 512 MB RAM (1GB for Vista users)
Recommended: 1 GB RAM (2 GB for Vista users)

Video:
Minimum: 3D graphics processor with Hardware Transform and Lighting with 32 MB VRAM Such as an ATI Radeon 7200 or NVIDIA GeForce 2 class card or better

Recommended: 3D graphics processor with Vertex and Pixel Shader capability with 128 MB VRAM Such as an ATI Radeon X1600 or NVIDIA GeForce 7600 GT class card or better

Storage:
15 Gigabytes or more free hard drive space is required

Sound:
DirectX-compatible sound card or motherboard sound capability
** The exact hardware requirements for Windows 7 are still being calculated. Only retail versions of Windows 7 are supported.

Created by: Blizzard

In World of Warcraft the player first needs to create a character. There are a lot of choices you can make for your character and this makes you character unique. When you are done you will be joining an online society of 10.000 online people.

There are a lot of things you can do in the World of Warcraft that have effect on this society. Your character can have 2 professions that will effect him and his environment. For example you can become a blacksmith and learn how to make weapons. You can make groups that will work together to do specific quests. These are just a few options of what you character can do in the World of Warcraft.

World of Warcraft is suitable for almost every one. The age’s range is very big. All these players have on thing in common. They will learn how to life in a completely new society. They will learn how to manage there money. It takes hard work to get money and you can only spend it once for example. You will learn how to manage your profession. For example you made a few swords as a blacksmith but now you need to sell them. So you will advertise yourself and you will learn how this is done the best. You also learn to sell your items to players and to make the best deals by learning how to talk like a real hardened salesman.

The biggest thing you learn is how to work in a group. There can be groups from 5 till 40 people that all need to work together to get to there goal. This takes some serious management skills, skills you will learn in this game. Also there is an option to join a guild. This is a group that can extent over 300 people. You can see a guild as a military operation. You have ranks(guild leaders guild members etc.) and you have people with specific skills (people that are good in healing or good in doing a lot of damage). Guilds have rules you need to follow or else you can be kicked out of it.

In short, World of Warcraft will learn to interact with people and how to socialize. It will learn how to manage allot of things, this can be used in real life as well.

Gameplay video of how group management goes wrong: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LkCNJRfSZBU&feature=related

Evolution rubric: 333323330003: 26/36

EVE online

EVE online can be downloaded here:
https://secure.eve-online.com/ft/FreeTrialSignup.aspx?aid=105895

Minimum System Requirements:

•OS: Windows® XP Service Pack 2 / Vista

•CPU: Intel Pentium® or AMD @ 1 GHz

•RAM: XP (SP2) – 1 GB / Vista – 1.5 GB

•HD space: 6gig Free Space

•Network: 56k modem or better Internet connection

•Video: 64 MB Shader Model 2.0 Graphics cards such as GeForce FX (5 series) class card or higher, ATi 9500, x300 series or higher and Similar chips from other manufacturers

•Drivers: DirectX® 9.0c (included) and latest video drivers

•DVD-ROM : 2 speed DVD reader or greater required.

Recommended system configuration for running EVE Online:

•OS: Windows® XP Service Pack 2 / Vista

•CPU: Intel Pentium® or AMD dual core @ 2 GHz

•RAM: 2 GB

•HD space: 6gig Free Space

•Network: ADSL connection or faster

•Video: 256 MB Shader Model 3.0 Graphics cards such as GeForce 8 class card or higher, ATi 3000 series or higher and Similar chips from other manufacturers

•Drivers: DirectX® 9.0c (included) and latest video drivers

•DVD-ROM : 2 speed DVD reader or greater required.

The minimum screen resolution for EVE is 1024×768.

Audio hardware must support SSE and be Direct Sound compatible. For optimum performance, use latest drivers available.

Please note that Windows 95, 98, ME, NT and 2000 are not supported.

Created by: CCP

In EVE online the player first needs to make a character. Also in this game there are a lot of options to make him or here look unique. When you’re done you will join a community of 250.000 online people.

The things you can do in EVE online are almost limitless. The options compared to World of Warcraft are really over the top. In World of Warcraft you can only have 2 professions, in EVE online you can have as much as you want. It just depends on the amount of time you put in to it.

EVE online is suitable for people around 20+. Just like World of Warcraft all these players learn the same things. Only EVE online is much bigger then World of Warcraft. The age of the game is allot higher then World of Warcraft and the amount of player also make the experience allot different.

The main thing you will learn is the same thing as in World of Warcraft but it’s more complicated and advance. Instead of working with groups of 5 till 40 players you will work in groups that can top 1500 players. This means even more management and testing your leadership skills.

In short: EVE online can be compared to World of Warcraft but then more advance. You learn the same skills of socializing and managing but on bigger level.

A short movie about EVE online: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pzc8oPKXqvo

Evolution rubric: 323303320003 22/36

Comparison

The games are very alike. World of Warcraft focuses on a bigger audience by giving more easier access to playing the game while EVE online is allot less accessibly. They both aim for the same goal. Learn to life in a big online society follow the rules and obey the law in a society.  Interact with people and become powerful. It can be compared to real life skills and goals people have.

Conclusion

If you are looking for a game that learns you how to function in a society, learn and follow rules and obey laws. Learn to manage skills, people and money World of Warcraft and EVE online are the games to pick. EVE online just aims for a older audience then World of Warcraft.

Transport Tycoon versus EVE Online

This post is a review about 2 serious games in the Games for Education genre. These 2 games have a strong focus on teaching players about the economy. Transport Tycoon is a game in which you have to run a corporation and transport goods and people to earn money and let your company grow to be the biggest. EVE online is an MMO game about a universe. As a player there are almost endless possibilities. Warface, industry, business, politics, and many more.

Transport Tycoon/OpenTTD

Transport Tycoon is a game made by Chris Sawyer, in which the player is in control of a transport company, and can compete against rival companies to make as much profit as possible by transporting passengers and various goods by road, rail, sea or by air. The game is presented in a 2D isometric view. Since the release of the game dates back to 1994, the graphics have a very low resolution. Nevertheless the gameplay is very extensive, which makes it a good business simulation game.

There is also an Open-Source expansion of the game which is called OpenTTD. This expansion is made and maintained by a big community. The expansion gets rid of certain annoying things and limits there were in the original version.

The game can be used to teach people about how to run a corporation and make profit. The simulation is pretty detailed and thus provides players enough problems and options to make it a simulation from which players really learn. This means the learning curve is pretty big.

However, in the long run, the game is still too simple to be a really good simulation. Simple exploits can be used to get a lot of money, which decrease the replay value a lot.

In this game I learned what things you have to take into account when trying to run a transport corporation, which transport products are more valuable than others, and general information about transport types, such as busses, trains, airplanes and more.

Rating

Complete, correct and well-rounded content: 2/3
Focused on the topic: 3/3
Encourages active player participation: 2/3
Problem solving: 2/3
User interface: 3/3
Genre: 2/3
Integration of gameplay and content: 2/3
Assessment: 2/3
Scalable: 1/3
Interoperable: 0/3
Editable: 3/3
Reusable:2/3
Total: 24/36 = 67%

The game can be downloaded from: http://www.abandonia.com/en/games/240
The OpenTTD expansion can be downloaded from: http://www.openttd.org/en/download-stable
Since the game was made in 1994, the hardware requirements are trivial.

Click here to watch a video about Transport Tycoon

EVE Online

EVE Online is a game made by CCP, in which the player controls an individual settled in a universe called New Eden. The universe is almost completely ran by players, so almost every individual you encounter is real player. The game also has a huge market system in which players can buy and sell any item that is available in the game.

Around 95% of every item or ship in EVE is made by the players from scratch and sold through EVE‘s central market system. You can start your own corporation to build items that are in demand and sell them to other people. You can also buy things when the price is low and sell them when the price is high or exploit other people‘s lack of time or patience by moving things around for them. In essence you are free to invent any service valuable to other players and market it for your own profit. Wherever you see an opportunity there is probably money to be made. [EveOnline.com]

A great example of how realistic the EVE market is: There was a certain blueprint of a certain space ship, which was extremely hard to get your hands on, so it was very expensive to buy. The people maintaining the game thought it was a good idea to make this item easier to get. However, this action made the economy around this spaceship collapse completely.

I learned from this game how to sell items on a market with profit. For example by buying it on a location where it is cheap, and selling it where it is expensive.

Rating

Complete, correct and well-rounded content: 3/3
Focused on the topic: 3/3
Encourages active player participation: 3/3
Problem solving: 3/3
User interface: 1/3
Genre: 2/3
Integration of gameplay and content: 3/3
Assessment: 3/3
Scalable: 3/3
Interoperable: 3/3
Editable: 1/3
Reusable: 3/3
Total: 31/36 = 86%

A trial of the game can be downloaded from: http://www.eveonline.com/
The game requires a 1Ghz processor, a video card with 64MB of memory, 1.5GB of RAM, and 6GB of disk space.

Comparison

It is hard to compare these games, as transport tycoon is only about managing a corporation, and EVE Online is about a whole universe filled with players, and everything that comes with it, such as business, warfare, politics, and many more things. On the rating list there were 2 categories in which the games differed a lot.

Scalability

There is a huge difference in scalability between the games. Transport tycoon’s open source expansion OpenTTD can be played online, but the maximum amount of players on a server is 15, whereas the huge server of EVE Online is filled with at least 25.000 players at all times, and has 250.000 active players. This also explains why an OpenTTD server has a max of 10 companies, and that EVE online has thousands of companies, all of which fulfill a small or big part in the EVE universe.

Ability to edit

Because 250.000 players all have to play on one server and players thus cannot host their own server, everything has to be the same on each client. So the game cannot be modded or whatsoever. OpenTTD however, is an open-source project. This means players can modify the game to any extent they want. Next to modding the gameplay, OpenTTD also has support to change game graphics easily. There are tons of new and modified graphics sets to be found on the internet.

Conclusion

OpenTTD is a good game to teach you about running a transport corporation, and the problems that come with this; however it is still too small and simple to be a really good business simulation. Whereas EVE Online is a huge universe almost completely ran by players themselves, which makes it an excellent business simulation. Mainly because everything you do has a same effect on the EVE market as it would have in the real life business. The main reason this difference is so big is probably because EVE Online is maintained by a big team of paid professionals, whereas OpenTTD is maintained by hobbyists who do this as a spare-time project.

Documentary games: JFK reloaded and Kuma Wars.

JFK reloaded

In JFK reloaded the player takes the role of Lee Harvey Oswald, the supposed assassin of John F. Kennedy. The player is positioned on the sixth floor of the Texas Schoolbook Depository overlooking a street armed with a sniper rifle. The player cannot move but look and aim at the scene in front of her. The limo with John F. Kennedy and escort drives into view and follows a set path of the screen. The player is supposed to aim the rifle at the car and replicate the assassination on John F. Kennedy.

Having only been able to play a demo version of the game I haven’t been able to judge the assessment of the game on itself and will have to base my score on impressions from screenshots and documentation regarding the game.

JFK reloaded aims to provide proof for the Warren Commission’s findings regarding the JFK assassination through using realistic physics and conditions on the bullet’s trajectory. After taking the shots the player will be able to review the past playing session from multiple angles through several camera controls. Following the player will be able to view a 3d model of the car along with the bullet trajectories of the shots the player took and will be presented with her scores based on how closely the player’s performance relates to the Warren Commission’s forensic findings. The scoring could be submitted to Traffic Games for a contest which challenged players to get as close to a perfect score as possible.

Of the supposed use to gather a large amount of data regarding the possible forensic evidence there’s never been any information released. It’s assumed solely the scoring was uploaded.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rKV7MLnJt54

Evaluation

Score 22/36

Kuma War

Kuma War is a first person shooter based around news headline real-war situations. The player is able to install a client on which she can download what missions she’d like to play from a collection of historical and more recent real-war scenarios.

Prior to each mission the player is introduced to the mission’s settings and mission specific details by means of a news broadcasting. Through satellite imaging, real footage, Interviews and an in-game reconstruction of how the mission was carried out in reality the player is made aware of what’s going on. After the introduction the player is allowed control of a character with a certain set of weaponry and possible vehicles at her disposal and will be updated about mission milestones to guide her whilst she moves around the mission through first person style game play. The player might for example have to patrol a certain area, locate enemies, take them out as well as their supply depot and make it back to base alive.

Though the mission briefings highlight the settings and introduce specific details relevant to the mission and real-war mission equivalent or even use interviews with veteran soldiers the first person shooter style game play doesn’t immerse me enough to make me truly experience the war scenarios. To me it feels as though within the game itself an entertainment element has influenced the game play itself to a larger extend than the documentary side of the game which is most present within the mission introductions.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pGFBIfU0RUI

Evaluation

Score 20/36

Comparison

Reusability

JFK reloaded contains a single situation that a player can keep replaying in an attempt to improve the final score and get as close as possible to a replication of the real conditions of the JFK assassination. The player is not able to play any different scenarios nor any variation of the situation.

Kuma war however is meant to offer the player a large number of different scenarios. Kuma Games creates new scenarios for players to download and experience real-war events based on recent headline news. (kumawar.com 2006) This leads through a large number of different missions and settings for the player to experience and learn about through the background information contained in each mission briefing. Gameplay may change slightly depending on the mission requirements through the use of different weapons or vehicles.

Focussed on the topic

Kuma war offers the player the experience of real-war situations as it claims. During a mission the player is introduced to the settings, background information whilst she’s shown how the real mission was carried out. Through playing however the player is, albeit limited, free to move around and replay the mission as she pleases. This takes away form the documentary side of the game. This is partially caused by kuma wars also aiming for a more entertainment kind of approach than documentary simulation.

JFK reloaded in providing limited gameplay possibilities stays focused on the one situation the player can influence. Regardless of how the player performs the results will be compared to the findings of the Warren commission at the actual assassination. These results are the intent by which the game was created. Because the player can solely do what Traffic Games intended the player to do in their game, it’s more focused on the topic than kuma wars is.

Conclusion

There isn’t too large a gap in evaluation scoring between JFK Reloaded and Kuma War. Both make use of first person shooter style gameplay and both stay focused on their intended purpose. As a serious game though JFK Reloaded does a better Job. It might be very limited in what the player can do but it’s focused on its single goal of replicating the conditions of Kennedy’s assassination and allowing the player to attempt to get closer to the real conditions by showing a comparison after each simulation.

Kuma War might offer a lot more variety and replay value as well as covering a lot more scenarios and historical war situations for the player to explore, most documentary value lies within the mission introductions which in themselves aren’t interactive. The missions are created based on the original settings but the game play within it to me appears more influenced by entertainment than documenting history.

JFK reloaded (2004)

Traffic Software

A demo of JFK Reloaded can be found here: http://www.gamershell.com/download_7625.shtml

Kuma War (2006)

Kuma Games

Kuma, LLC

Kuma war is available for free from: http://www.kumawar.com