E-Game Project Possibilities

1. RPGs for Normal People

Role Playing Games have incredible power to engage. Online environments like EverQuest and Second Life have hundreds of thousands of players spending dozens of hours per month. Most RPGs are embedded in worlds based on fantasy or science fiction genres. How would you structure an online RPG to teach content about the actual real-life world? How would you keep the fun while losing the dragons? The Big List of RPG Plots might come in handy here to kickstart your brain.

2. SimIslam

Americans are suddenly realizing how little they know about the Islamic world. Is there a way to develop that understanding without trivializing the culture? How about a version of The Sims which models the inhabitants of a small village in Pakistan? Or an adventure game that puts the player in that setting? Or a massively multiplayer persistent virtual world like Skotos or EverQuest?

3. A Flock of Seagulls, or Cars

Most people think that geese flying in V-formation are following the lead goose. In fact, they aren't but instead are driven by a simple algorithm that results in that arrangement. Traffic jams, rumors, diseases, smart mobs and ants operate simularly. This project involves developing a simulation of a decentralized system using StarLogo, a free tool from the MIT Media Lab. The team will develop a simple model and a wraparound lesson that suggests ways to adjust the model to make new discoveries about the reality being modeled. Adventures in Modeling is recommended reading for those who take this on. See projects from 2003 for inspiration: Wildfire Challenge, Outbreak and Construction Safety

4. Stamp Scrabble/Glass Bead Game

In Hermann Hesse's novel Magister Ludi, the citizens of a far future civilization entertained themselves by playing (or watching the play of) a game in which glass beads were used to represent concepts. Players laid the beads down in patterns that represented links between the abstractions. Fans of the novel have tried for years to actually implement the game which was only vaguely described. Could we scale it down to something doable and playable by using something more concrete in place of the glass beads? How about postage stamps? They often represent important people, places, things and events in a nation's life and one could imagine ways to link them.

• Webmagister Ludi and the Glass Bead Game
• The Waldzell Glass Bead Game
• The Glass Bead Game - Hermann Hesse
• Joseph Luft's Philatelic Resources on the Web
• E-Bay's stamp auctions
• Google's Stamp Collecting Web Directory
• Junior Philatelists of America

5. Spelling and Grammar for Adults

How many times have you seen “there” when it should have been “their”, or “it’s” instead of “its”. Will dictation software and instant spellchecking make spelling an obsolete skill? Not for a long time. There are scads of spelling programs designed for school-aged kids, but the vocabulary and graphics aren't well matched to the needs of adult learners. Can you design something as addictive as solitaire or Snood that will improve English mastery for grownups?

• Unemployment Linked to Bad Spelling
• The Art of Spelling
• Old Way/New Way Spelling Software

6. Alternate Reality Games

ARGs are somewhat like RPGs with one exception: some of the action takes place out here in the physical world. They combine a storyline with puzzles buried in websites or images, and clues given in terms of their latitude and longitude. They depend on the players working together and in so doing can build a community where none existed. I Love Bees just concluded, and the ARG Network serves as a clearinghouse for others now in progress. Imagine an ARG designed to be played in a single high school that surreptitiously teaches a topic like world politics or diseases or art history or cultural sensitivity or how to pick a college or career?

Other handy resources: Tutorial on Playing ARGs, PuppetMaster Guide, Collective Detective

7. Los Desaparecidos Simulation

This project involves a partnership with the SDSU Language Acquisition Resource Center and members of the Spanish and Portuguese Department. The format is that of a treesim or decision-tree simulation, and it will be media rich with film clips and interviews taped especially for the project. Because of the extra coordination required by the expanded cast of characters involved, this project is only open to students in the face-to-face part of the class. More information here.

8. Ethics for Kids

According to a just-released study by the Josephson Institute of Ethics based on a national survey of 24,763 high school students, nearly two-thirds (62%) cheated on exams and more than one in four (27%) stole from a store within the past 12 months. Additionally, 40% admit they "sometimes lie to save money." With values education somewhat absent from schools, we may be growing a generation of semi-crooks. Is there a way to embed the learning of ethics in a non-preachy game or simulation? There has to be a more effective way than hiphop songfests. Perhaps the story-based approach of Philosophy for Kids provides a starting place.

9. Financial Planning in a Social Insecurity World

With privatization of social security looming ahead, the need for those at the start of their working life to understand the principles of sound investment is stronger than ever. Twenty-somethings, typically, find the prospect of retirement to be so far in the future that it never warrants much of a thought. How can we make getting this knowledge fun? A competitive arcade game on financial facts? A simulation-game that compresses four decades of investment decisions into a single sitting? Most existing resources on this topic seem age-inappropriate or dry. Can they be moistened?

• Monte Carlo Simulation
• Moneyopolis
• National Endowment for Financial Education