"Darfur is Dying" Review

The game I chose to review is "Darfur is Dying," found at http://www.darfurisdying.com/.

The game is meant to give insight to the plight of refugees in the Darfur region of Sudan, an area decimated by genocide and civil strife. The player's job is to contribute to the survival of a refuge camp. There is a selection of avatars to choose from, including a grown man, a grown woman, and children ranging from 10-14. As grown men are the first target, he is not allowed to forage for water, the first step of the game, so as the woman or any of the children, the player must make it to the well without being captured by roving Janjaweed militia. If you are captured, you receive a grave message that you were raped, killed, or face some sort of abuse at the hands of the milita.

This screenshot shows the playing field on the way to the well.


If captured, that avatar is removed from the list of choices.

If one makes it to the well, you have to make it back as well, where you can then choose to enter the refugee camp to complete various other tasks. This screenshot shows arriving at the well:


In the village, there are various tasks to complete to maintain the health of the camp, including delivering water to crops, picking up grown crops, picking up medicine, and repairing buildings destroyed by the militia. The following is a screenshot of the camp.


One cannot say the game is fun or enjoyable-- it's about genocide in Darfur! It is a game where the player is destined to lose. Eventually avatars will be picked off foraging for water, and you cannot be in the camp long without having to fetch more. While working to grow crops or repair buildings, you are continually attacked, creating more work to do. Whenever you are attacked, the game offers the player the chance to do any number of real-life activities to aid in the cause-- from writing letters, sending money, etc. Although to me it is macabre to make cartoon games about real-life tragedy, I can see that it is one way to draw attention to the plight in Sudan.

Third World Farmer

Summary
Third World Farmer is a game that simulates the life of a poor African subsistence farmer. It Begins by giving the farmer a healthy family of four, a hut, farm land, and fifty dollars. The farmer must survive year after, making decisions on whether or purchase crops. farm animals, equipment, buildings, or medical care. All this happens as a yearly onslaught of disasters and crimes are perpetrated on the farmer, seldom allowing him to get ahead.

How to Play
The game rules are very simple and could be learned by students at almost any level. Students need to buy crops and other items from the left hand menu. Then they need to place them in the fields. Once they are done buying items, they press the play button and a year of game-play will pass by with flashing months. Then, with whatever money and resources are left, the player repeats the process until the player and his family die, or until the player becomes a successful farmer.

Playing the Game
Playing the game is fun and intellectually challenging. It is a fairly simple simulation to play, but it has a lot of nuances. The simple part is that all a player needs to do is buy crops and supplies every year, and press play. Then the year passes by, and the results from the years crops, farm animals, and disasters are flashed at the end of the year. The results are displayed like a budget summary, with the crop prices and livestock prices fluctuating every year.

The item that impacts players the most is the "Event of the Year", usually a disaster, that can dramatically alter the fortunes of the player. Some of the yearly events that occur are Guerrilla attacks, refugee squatters, bank failures, crop failures, livestock diseases, and family sicknesses. Every once in a great year, farmers will have a good year and earn a decent return on their crops.

While maintaining crops and farm animals, the player must continually keep watch on his families health, decide when to have children, and decide whether or not to invest in expensive infrastructure, political representation, animals, and farm equipment. In the end, most players usually die off from the hardships of being a subsistence farmer. In fact, the game leaves players with this statement: "

Reflections
This game is stacked against the player and it is very difficult to win. This difficulty is not a result of poor game design, however, and is clearly meant to teach a lesson. At the end of the game, this quote is displayed on the screen: "Rules unfair? Game rigged? Think about the people to whom this isn't a game, but everyday life."

I played the game three times. Two times my farmer and his family scratched out an existence for several decades before they all died a slow starving death. I would just get my player ahead a little bit, and a disaster would come and wipe out all I had worked for. It felt so unfair and I really got frustrated. I was often faced with making decisions about whether to buy crops or whether to pay for healthcare. Some years were so desperate that I was more than willing to violate my principles by planting opium poppies, storing toxic waste, performing for tourists, or allowing paramilitary groups to rent my land. I felt like I was compromising my principles, but I really needed the money being offered.

I actually won the third game and ended up with an advanced farm, a healthy family, educated children, and $25,000 in the bank. Somehow, through good planning, decisions, and luck, I was able to gain enough profit to buy enabling tools and equipment, expensive farm animals, political representation, medical clinics, a road, crop insurance, and a school. Once I became safer and more secure, I noticed that my decisions became more principled and financially oriented. I turned down unethical ventures, and I invested in cash crops like cotton that would pay the most, and I replaced my farm animals with expensive elephants. My choices became all about making more money, because I was protected from many of the problems that I had as a poor farmer.

This game was surprisingly addictive and moving. I didn't want to stop. As a poor farmer, I was just wanting to survive and waiting for a little luck. As a rich farmer, I was trying to do good by my family, stay in perfect health, and make wise investments. It really opened my eyes up to the hopelessness of life and extreme hardship faced by farmers in third world countries. It just made me want to do something to help them out. As a side note, I am going to go to Ethiopia this year on a school district "blessed" trip to assist a school with teaching and technology. I think this game will help me to look at their plight in a new, and more sympathetic light.

Park Planning...What a challenge!

PLAN YOUR FUTURE PARK!

I have new found appreciation for the intense time and effort it takes to plan public recreation projects.  I stumbled across the "Play Your Future Park" game while exploring Social Impact Games.  Before you can even begin playing, the participant is asked to ask a question about a current par

k project in process in New York.  I got every answer wrong, until there was only one choice left. Oh well.  

After finding an appropriate location to build a park, I had to build up public support and find funding for the project.  What a task! I eventually decided to let the corporate money pour in and let the big businesses leave their name on everything in the park.  The park was becoming beautiful and lush, but there is something about Martha Stewart's name on an information booth that just doesn't seem quite right.  I wanted a beautiful park not a K-mart linen's section! I continued to deliberate over a series of tough choices, all of which did not settle all too well in my gut.  Do I build a playground for kids or a Bocce Ball court for Senior Citizens? Do I build athletic fields or do I foster a nature reserve, or both? How clean do I want the bathrooms? Should i be cheap and get a porto? What about food? Picnic or snack bar...picnic...snack bar? I don't know! What about crime in the nearby area? Should I have the police out in full force, or let things run their course?  

Even after juggling many tough decisions, the overall space of the park became consumed with all of the outcomes.  The end result, didn't really look much like a "park" It looked like an attraction! I would rather have a nice lush space where people can run and roam.  What I created was a crowded landscape that looked more like Disneyland on crack.  The underlying point of the entire game is to look at the consequence of choice.  It's inherent that there is a detailed process involved in the planning and designing of public spaces.  Is it all necessary? I felt overwhelmed with choices and decisions to make.  In the end, the original idea I had for a park, had transformed into a recreational nightmare.  Although my vision for a park disintegrated, witnessing the process was definitely fun and challenging. At any rate, I highly recommend it. Have fun! 

Serious Games:Ben's Game

Ben's Game was the culmination from the Make-A-Wish Foundation and Ben Duskin, at the time a 9-year old Leukemia patient. Ben was an avid video/computer game player and wished to have a game designed for kids with cancer to relieve some of the stresses with chemotherapy. However the idea was was put into a quandary because executives believed that the game would take a couple of years to make and millions of dollars in cost. Fortunately, Eric Johnston of LucasArts volunteered to create the game and worked together with Ben to help his wish come true. The object of Ben's Game is the player must shoot the infected blood cells and collect seven shields that symbolize protection against the side effects of chemotherapy. The features include new characters to choose from or creating your own and the game is in several other languages.

As I played this game, the action was suited for a younger audience. I found it a little difficult to maneuver my character as it speeds past everything, but since I'm an adult I think my patience runs a bit thin compared to someone twenty-years younger than me. I like the symbolism as monsters represent the ill side effects of chemo and I can see where a child could get into destroying an effigy of something that makes them sick. The weapons are pretty cool as they give a bit of variety to what power-ups you can gain for your character. Being able to pick differenct characters also creates a personalize game for whatever child that plays it. Overall I think the game is great for kids with or without cancer and it gives control and meaning to taking treatment for chemotherapy.

http://www.makewish.org/ben

Games For Change

I browsed and briefly played quite a few games from the Games For Change and Social Impact Games sites, but will describe only two here in this post. As I explored those sites, it became very clear what was meant by Serious Games. These are certainly not fun topics. Those that are well-made are certainly engaging and I could find myself getting involved in them, even experiencing the concept of 'flow', but I don't know if I would call myself entertained. This was almost certainly the purpose of many of them.

The first game that I'll describe is Global Warming Interactive, a game created with funding from the NSF to teach high school students about climate change. The game as it exists right now allows students to interact with and affect the policies of one
country, Brazil, in order to modify this country's impact on the environment and preserve its resources and quality of life for its citizens. The player does this by analyzing the available data and forecasts for resource use and air quality, then taking on the roles of the Policy, Economic, and Science Advisers for the country in order to make decisions about how to use resources.

The game does a great job of modeling the situation for one country, and I'm curious to see what the result will be when and if the designers receive funding and expand the game to a global model. The ambition of the game is also to involve students from different parts of the world in a multiplayer simulation in which they would control the policies of different countries struggling to set policies for that are in their countries' interests, but that also protect resources and the quality of the environment for all. Though the model of the data and forecasts is great, the interface is difficult to manage, and I consider it the weakness of this game. It needs to be streamlined and clarified to make it more accessible to its audience.


The second game that I'd like to describe is Mission Migration from the New York Audubon Society. This game's mission is to educate children about the needs and challenges of migrating birds.

The player takes control of a flock of birds and attempts to guide them to their migration destination. On the way the birds must avoid storms and planes and find safe pesticide and pollution free areas to rest. The game would probably be fun for younger kids and it does a nice job of informing players of the challenges and dangers for birds without being preachy about it. The drawbacks are that it quickly becomes a challenge of eye-hand coordination when the clouds and planes start coming at you quickly. Finding landing sites is just a crapshoot since the icons that represent safe or dangerous locations are too small to see until its too late. But the intended audience would probably be entertained and educated, so I guess my complaints aren't all that important.

Serious Games and Disabilities

Handigo The Game - Ubisoft

3 mini-games, placing the player in a situation of disability: motor impairment, sensory impairment and learning difficulties.

Play a part!

Emergency!

An earthquake has just taken place. Put yourself in the shoes of a doctor or a volunteer and help the victims as quickly as possible!

Play a part!

Learn to read Braille!

You may have good eyesight but how good is your memory? You can test it by learning the different letters of the Braille alphabet.

Play a part!

Learn to lip-read

Have you ever thought of the difficulties deaf people have to face when lip-reading?

Play a part!

Use this game to imagine that you have a hearing impairment. You should get a better understanding of the dificulties faced by heard of hearing and deaf people.

Lipread the words said in the video and contruct the sentence by putting the words on the screen in the correct order.
-----------------

These games simulate disabilities, which is a serious issue in our society. People without disabilities really have no way of understanding what it is like to live with a disability. These serious games give some insight into some possible scenarios encountered in everyday life.

After trying the lip-reading game, my appreciation for my own sense of hearing was greatly increased.

Discovering Serious Online Games

Discovering a variety of serious games on the web was an easy task, playing some of the games was the difficult part, especially if you aren't a gamer!

I unearthed the Gameland site created by Shockwave, I played several of the online games.
http://www.shockwave.com/gamelanding


Oil God Game
http://www.shockwave.com/gamelanding/oilgod.jsp

This online game is a strategic puzzle game developed by Persuasive Games. The Oil God Game gives the gamer a chance to "control the oil industry" by trying to double the cost of gasoline over a period five years. If you are tired of big oil companies running the show, this game is for you.

To start the game you are first asked to select your difficulty level: Regular Unleaded, Super Unleaded or Premium Unleaded. During the course of the game if you make the correct strategic moves you will accrue "Hand of God" credits every month, which in turn gives you the option to purchase new disasters to send down upon the unsuspecting countries.

The goal is simple, you are given "the hand of God" to control oil prices among several countries on three islands. You can use whatever means necessary to accomplish the task at stake. You can command natural disasters such as hurricanes, floods, earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. Or you can change the politics of countries by spinning the wheel of fortune to discover what change Capitalism, Communism or Socialism will have on the cost of oil. Or you may want to control the form of the government in each country; you may try your hand at Totalitarianism, Capitalism, Imperialism, Theocracy or a Republic. Participants can even overthrow the government starting a civil war or creating a war between two or more of the countries. "The Hand of God" can even command an alien invasion throughout the counties with an extra-terrestrial attack!

The game was easy to play once you understood the point system. I can envision this game used by high school Economics students who would thoroughly enjoy controlling "The power of God" in this game.


Xtreme Xmas Shopping Game
http://www.shockwave.com/gamelanding/xtremexmasshopping.jsp


This Xtreme Xmas Shopping game is a strategic action arcade game developed by Persuasive Games. Although I believe that calling this a strategic game is a long shot, I would consider it more a game of chance.

The game requires participants to run around and collect items as quickly as possible and if someone else gets them first, you can knock them out and take them for yourself! Only in America can shopping be considered contact sport! As a shopper, you have a list of "must have" toys. You will need to use any means necessary to gather those gifts before someone collects them first! You can actually use physical harm to snatch the toys out of the hands of other greedy shoppers!

Players learn to use the arrow keys to move around the board and the spacebar to pick up items. Xtreme Xmas Shopping credits are earned each time you snatch up a gift from the "most wanted" list. I found no entertainment and had difficulty using the recommended and required strategies to do well.

And this is supposed to be Christmas??? Good Luck with this one!

KarmaTycoon

Karma Tycoon is game in which players choose a city's population to serve and the type of non-profit organization to open within it. Players earn Karma points by attracting their target population to the site. How can you improve your site to attract a larger number of individuals? Should you pay cash or use your credit line to fund your site's expenditures? Do you qualify for a grant? Keep your balance sheet in the black and earn a 100% Karma score to advance the next city.

Karma Tycoon's web site offers a comprehensive, 34 page teacher's guide that includes pre-and post-game lesson plans, vocabulary resources, and worksheets. Resources for instructors adds value to this game and increases it's potential for use.

Karma Tycoon's Web Site Description
"It has cool, splashy graphics and is fun to play, but instead of trying to make a million dollars, users are making the world a better place by running nonprofit organizations (homeless shelters, animal shelters, youth centers, senior centers, and performing arts centers) in different cities across the United States. Players apply for grants and loans (and learn the difference between them), outfit nonprofits with the basic necessities, and watch the news ticker to make sure a hurricane doesn’t interfere with plans. With successful management of funds, players are given additional grants and donations, enabling their organization to grow in scale and offer more services to further help the community. The goal of the game is to serve as many people (or animals) as possible, which will maximize karma, so players can move on the next city and make a difference there, too. Simply put, the more people helped by each player, the more karma is gained. "

One Round of Game Play
Players choose to open the non-profit in one of several cities across the continental United States. Each city is marked with one of three icons to note level of challenge non-profiteers face in the city. Karma Tycoon presents each city and it's population realistically.

Once a city is chosen, players must determine which type of non-profit to establish and operate. Players can view authentic demographic information relating to the target population for each type of organization and links to real organizations by clicking "learn". The information in the "learn" links provides insight into the city's unique social challenges.

I chose to open a Youth Center in San Francisco and was presented with a map of the area. Each red dot represents a youth than can be served by my center. I was able to place my center in any location of the city.


I began play with with a $45,000 start-up grant. I was immediately faced with difficult choices for the features of each center. Choices for the Youth Center include a study hall area, computer lab, indoor games, dining hall, kitchen (complete with chef), basketball court, skate park, and swimming pool. I decided to purchase two buildings and then equipped each with different big-ticket items, a skate park and basketball court respectively, to eliminate competition between the two sites. I provided a kitchen, dining area, and computers at each site.

The pace of the game picked up after I opened my centers. There was constant movement on the screen. Each month I was presented a billing notice for expenses. Operating costs were deducted automatically from my balance sheet's total. I was excited to watch the red dots on the map move to each center and my Karma points increase. During play, the Karmmeter keept track of my expenses and funding sources. My excitiement waned as I ran out of cash and needed to find more money to keep the centers in operation. I stubbornly stuck to my non-credit funding strategy. I applied for and received several small grants, however, was denied larger grants. After a few months of operation (about 15 minutes) my non-profit's bottom line was in the red.





Players advance to another city when 100% Karma points are earned by a non-profit whose bottom line remains in the black. My play ended after my balance sheet was in the red for two months in a row.
My cumulative progress is tracked in a score card. The need for social support organizations in a particular city is again emphasized through the organization of cities into categories.

Conclusion
Karma Tycoon is a challenging game that could be used to enrich or supplement curriculum in several content areas. The resources for teachers provide comprehensive materials that teachers can implement easily. Karma Tycoon offers authentic data and descriptions of social issues faced by particular populations, both human and animal, in cities across the continental United States. Players engage in activities that increase social awareness and develop a myriad of managerial skills.

Free Rice is a vocabulary game I found through the Games for Change website. FreeRice is a sister site of Poverty.com and their partners are the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University and the United Nations World Food Program.

FreeRice has two goals: To provide education to everyone for free and to help end world hunger by providing rice to hungry people for free. The Free Rice game gives people the opportunity to expand their vocabulary while at the same time donating grains of rice for every word they define correctly.

While the game is not very high tech, it is something that can definitely be used in any classroom. As you progress through the game, the words get harder to define. The levels range from 1-60 and they even offer the option of changing the level or subject at any time. You can choose from Art, Chemistry, Geography, Language Learning, and Math. Each time you answer correctly, the bowl starts to fill with rice, which I think the younger students would find interesting.

I really enjoyed this game because it was entertaining, educational, and it made me feel even better knowing that I was helping others out. I think this game sends a great message to anyone that would play it. I will use this game for my ELD students.

Serious Games Taxonomy

As a newbie, still trying to find out what’s so serious about “serious games”, I ran across a helpful site offering a Serious Games Taxonomy. Ben Sawyer & Peter Smith (U of Central FL Retro Lab) developed the slide pres for the Serious Games Summit in Feb 08.

Ben is also the author of Serious Games: Improving Public Policy through Game-Based Learning and Simulation Whitepaper for the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and was a contributor to Game Developer magazine. He’s co-director of the Serious Games Initiative found at http://www.seriousgames.org/ (Home page)

http://www.seriousgames.org/presentations/serious-games-taxonomy-2008_web.pdf (PDF link)

If you link to the Taxonomy PDF, Slide 29 offers a nice table of serious game industry segments cross-referenced with game objectives. Industries currently investing in serious games include Government & NGO, Defense, Healthcare, Marketing & Communications, Education, Corporate and Industry.

Game objectives include Games for Health, Advergames, Games for Training, Games for Education, Games for Science and Research, Production, and Games as Work. There’s a drill down from this chart for greater levels of detail within each category.

The presentation offers good information about precursors to serious games, the relative strengths of industry segments, levels of game play, and references to serious game projects. It’s a worthwhile overview if you’re into serious games.

Ben will be back at the 2009 Serious Games Summit March 23-27, 2009 in San Francisco.

Gum Beat

Gum Beat purports to be about a teenage girl who stands up against the oppressive government. In the game, bubble gum is illegal, which is seen through many postings plastered across the city. So, naturally, your character chews bubble gum, which is used to attract followers, inspire happiness in others and derail police efforts. Even with this impressive set-up, the game falls flat. There isn't a heck of a lot of learning. It feels like a poor man's Legend of Zelda (minus the puzzles, adventure and fun). I would not recommend this game to anyone, unless as a practical joke.

http://gambit.mit.edu/loadgame/gumbeat.php

The Peace Doves

The Peace Doves is a nuclear disarmament game, developed by the United Nations and can be found on Nobelprize.org
http://nobelprize.org/educational_games/peace/nuclear_weapons/index.html
(Originally found on the web site Games for Change listed under "Global Conflicts")

The object of the game is to send peace doves (that have magical powers) down from outer space to countries that have nuclear weapons to disarm them. There are eight doves that can only disarm one specific country. The player must read descriptions of the country's nuclear profile to determine which country to send the dove to. The player uses a map of the world to pick the country and launches the dove. If the dove is sent to the correct country, it is disarmed. If it is incorrect, the dove flies back and the player is given another description. If the next launch is incorrect, then the dove will be out of fuel and will not be able to fly back to the spaceship.


This game teaches about the nuclear culture of the world (what countries have them, the different treaties, etc.). At first I wondering if this was truly a "serious game" because it is not realistic at all and it offers no real solutions to the problem of getting countries to disarm their nuclear weapons. But if the definition of a serious game is that its primary goal is education first, than it definitely qualifies. Did you know that there has been a treaty signed that outlaws nuclear weapons in outer space? Did you know that Israel had nuclear weapons? I didn't. This is definitely a game that you would only play once, but you can learn a lot from it and you certainly understand that nuclear arms is still an important topic in our world.

Darfur is Dying - A Simulation Game

Darfur is Dying is a human-rights based simulation game where players must negotiate threats by the Janjaweed militias to live. Players must forage for water and risk death. Players must try to live for at least seven days in a refugee camp. The game is not fun, just like life in the Sudan, and I do not think a player can "win." It is a very challenging game, and it is difficult to stay alive.

http://www.darfurisdying.com/

“Darfur is Dying is a viral video game for change that provides a window into the experience of the 2.5 million refugees in the Darfur region of Sudan. Players must keep their refugee camp functioning in the face of possible attack by Janjaweed militias. Players can also learn more about the genocide in Darfur that has taken the lives of 400,000 people, and find ways to get involved to help stop this human rights and humanitarian crisis.” The impact of this game may be very upsetting to people, and I would only recommend it to mature high school level students who have already learned about the problems in Darfur. Most of the players will die, and it is very depressing. The facts that are presented, while true in this region, are very disturbing.

Global Conflict:Latin America

Global Conflicts: Latin America is a 3D simulation game that sends you to Latin America to explore internal conflicts within key Latin American countries. In the online demo, players take on the role of an american reporter inestigating pollution and birth-defects/illnesses resulting from chemicals being dumped into the local river. Along with pollution and health issues many people have rfecently lost their jobs and are now desperate to find ways to make money to support their families. The closing of a local maquilador, factory, is at the center of the conflict.

The graphics of this game are on par with those of other 3D simulations such as Second Life. The player has less control, movement is restricted within the game but this may be to the players benefit as there is a time limit. For example, in the demo players have an appointment with the factory manager at 6pm and only have a few hours to interview the local villagers to gather sufficient background knowledge before the interview. During this time you are given conversations organized by topic. Your job is to use your time and conversations wisely. Sometimes extra "clues" may pop up during a conversation that may lead you to another interviewee.

The game requires players to be able to read and comprehend at a high school level but does a nice job of explaining key vocabulary and concepts. I enjoyed playing the demo, there was a high level of interest and I was engaged throughout the game. I liked that all of the important information I gathered was automatically noted in a small virtual notebook that was easy to access. Unfortunately, I did not score very high due to lack of information and arguments (which you aquire through interviews). Overall I thought it was a great game and I highly suggest using it high school or even college courses.

The Garbage Game

The Garbage Game
http://www.gothamgazette.com/games/garbage.php

My mentality about garbage really doesn't go beyond putting my recyclables in the be blue can and my 'garbage' in the gray can. After I put the cans out on the curb each Thursday night, my role in the process stops (except for paying my bill every other month...) This game, although specific to the garbage production and processing in New York City, sheds a lot of light on what happens after the garbage truck drives away.



This game puts you into different roles. The first is a familiar role of consumer, or garbage producer. This part of the game prompts you to deal with different types of garbage like plastic water bottles, disposable diapers, leftover food items, etc. Your task is to weigh the different options for what to do with this stuff. For example: you have received a new cell phone with your contract renewal. What will you do with the old one? Each choice you make throughout this part of the game adds up to the total amount on garbage you produce.



The next part of the game allows you to make the decisions of the city's Sanitation Commissioner - how will the garbage that is put out for pickup be transported, processed, or "Trucked to Jersey." Each decision you make along the way is weighed against the other choices you didn't make. It turns out that even with a simple little flash game, you begin to realize that there is no overall good solution to dealing with our societies' garbage. The best way to really deal with it is to not produce so much in the first place; a solution unattainable by any one part of the chain of consumption.


In the end, your game choices are summarized in terms of transportation miles, modes of transport, total cost, total volume, and total CO2 emissions. And this is only a small part of New York City's 64,000 tons of weekly garbage.
All in all, this game is good to raise awareness of the larger impact of garbage on our society after pickup occurs. It seems like this would actually be a good topic or area of study for a field trip for students. Take them out to the landfill and let them marvel (probably not really a good idea...)

Mission Migration

Mission Migration
http://ny.audubon.org/game.html

Mission Migration is a game created by the Audubon Society. The object of the game is to migrate your flock safely through three regions, the country, the suburbs, and the city.
The game became an entertaining challenge in-flight because the flock has to dodge aircraft and storms, which diminish the life of your flock. When the flock touches down to rest, the player must target areas that will improve the health of the flock. From a bird’s-eye view, it is difficult to differentiate between a clean puddle of water or a poisoned one. A tasty berry bush might have a cat in it. That sweet mole you saw from the sky could actually be one that was poisoned.


Mission Migration gives the players an opportunity to see the challenges that face migrating birds and how choices that humans make impact the trip. Migration is a difficult concept for elementary aged children, because they don’t really see it. Therefore a game like this would benefit my curriculum regarding animals, habitats and adaptations. I appreciate that if focuses on the choices we make as humans that can affect the lives of the migrating birds. Through playing this game, I learned that using pesticides has the greatest impact because wildlife because it not only kills the bugs. but also poisons the other food sources for birds such as berries and water.

Reliving the Orange Revolution: Are You Sure You Want To?

As a teacher of World History I have found myself particularly interested with the waning days of the Cold War and the plight of former Soviet republics. I found the "Orange Revolution" off of the Games For Change website.

The game's tries to recreate the key events that took place during Ukraine's 2004 Orange Revolution in which two Ukrainian presidential candidates, Viktor Yanukovych and Viktor Yushchenko struggled for power in the hotly contested 2004 Ukrainian presidential elections. Yanukovych is the pro-Russian candidate who initially wins a slim majority over the pro-Western Yushchenko. But soon allegations of election fraud bring legal challenges from the Yushchenko camp sparking protests from both pro-Russian and pro-Western Ukrainians. The player is charged with making key decisions for both Yanukovych and Yushchenko during a tense 34-day political standoff. Each turn allows players to read a short summary of the daily developments and choose from one of three actions that each candidate must take. A rather simple public response meter tells players how the Urkrainian public reacts to the decisions made by candidates. The correct combination of answers from each candidate keeps citizens content, pleased, or otherwise peaceful. Poor decisions, or rather, a poor combination of decisions causes the public to steadily escalate from contentment to violence or all-out rioting. Decisions resulting in all out rioting result in losing the game (I lost after 3 rounds of decisions after my first attempt).

The object of the game is to keep the Ukrainian public content throughout the 34-day crisis and move your nation towards fair and peaceful elections without sparking all-out riots. I found the idea behind the game to be interesting, however I get the sense that this is an early beta-version of the game. There were several "fast facts" available through pop-up flash animations on the screen, but I found them irrelevent to the decisions that needed to be made. Each daily scenario is introduced through photos of the 2004 Orange revolution, but aside from the graphics onscreen there is an eerie silence to the overall gaming experience. After a few turns I found myself a bit bored by the experience. If this was to be used in the classroom setting with high school students, I think the game would need to have more pictures, animation, and sound to hold their interest. After a few failed attempts at "solving" the game, I lost the will to find the right combination of decisions to see the Orange Revolution through to its historic and peaceful solution.

The Anti-Bush Game (alas, it is only a game)

On Election Night, 2008, I was fortunate enough to stumble upon the Anti-Bush Game , a video game for the truly virulent Bush-basher. It seemed appropriate to explore "serious game" of this nature as a historic election took place in this country. Somehow, the phrase "from the ridiculous to the sublime" kept running through my head as I explored the game.

The game can be viewed from a couple of perspectives; either a educational, albeit depressing journey through the mishaps of the Bush-Cheney regime, or through a violent, expletive-laden video game aimed at destroying the powers of evil. Let's take a look at 

both.

From a education perspective, the game lets the player pick from several issues (Surplus/Deficit, Jobs and Benefits, and God and Terrorism are three of the nine explored within the game) and explore those issues from the point of view of the game's author. Much of the information is quite good, though a bit on the "oh my god, it's a conspiracy" side. (This is to be expected, given the game title.) While investigating the issues, there is no real play, though it appears as though you are in a video game. All one can really do is read the author's harangues about the evils of Bushism

. (Disclosure: I agree with almost all of it.)

From a game play perspective, the game is a simplistic shooter game where the player tries to take down Bush, Cheney, and Voltron, a Transformer-like being representing the loss of America's freedoms and liberties. (The graphics really greatly on previous ideas, such as Transforms and Star Wars. Don't expect

 lots of originality.  You choose to be Hulk Hogan, Mr. T, or some other character to go out and take down Bush and his evil minions. The problem is that each one turns into a powerful monster as you approach, making it difficult to destroy them.  As you proceed through the game, you are given some information about what mistakes Bush-Cheney have made, but most dialogue is more graphic novel-like, and less informational. There is a great deal of inappropriate language unless you had previously experience the Nixon White House. The game itself is simplistic and repetitive, but succeeds in making the author's main point:  Bush headed one of the most morally corrupt, incompetent administrations in American history.

Ayiti: The Cost of Life

I found this serious game, Ayiti: The Cost of Life, on the Games for Change website. After playing Heifer Village Nepal, I found this game to be more interesting, entertaining and easier to follow. Ayiti can be played at your computer using this link: http://ayiti.newsfrew.org/globalkids/

The developers and designers of this game used youths as part of their design team to create an authentic experience. The concept behind Ayiti is similar to Heifer in that the player lives in a poverty stricken country. This game takes place in Haiti rather than Nepal. Ayiti uses complex elements including five family members, work, medicine, education, money and a store to buy goods. This makes the game multifaceted and requires strategy and decision-making to calculate the relationship between the various elements and overcome different unforeseen obstacles.

To begin the game, the player chooses one of four strategies to support the family: education, health, happiness or money. Depending on the player's choice, the goal of the game varies. This personalizes the game, but does not make it any easier to “win.” The game progresses through different seasons in Haiti and you must determine what the 5 family members do (work, go to school, volunteer, or rest). Whatever you choose affects the family’s economic situation and each family member’s happiness and health. I found it difficult to keep everyone happy and healthy which I assume is the point of the game. Education was almost impossible to acquire and everyone had to work to stay economically afloat.

In the write-up about the game, the developers said that the most challenging aspect to the game design was making a realistic, yet sensitive representation of poverty while making the game fun. I have to admit that the game was not exactly “fun.” Instead, I was challenged and felt stress to keep the family members happy and healthy which kept me from giving up on the game. The game presented motivation in the form of challenging my skills and choices and making me think about different solution strategies. The game achieved its objective in that it was not too complex too play, but the decisions you made affected the outcomes and the game moved along quickly. I think most learners would understand the stresses of poverty and how this lifestyle affects happiness and health and makes getting an education difficult.

Serious Videogames to Educate Kids about Diabetes

While surfing the Social Impact Games website, I came across a number of interesting learning games on Health and Wellness. Since I work for a company that deals with Diabetes drugs and people who have Diabetes, I was drawn to a particular game – Escape the Diab. This game is due to be released in 2008, but had a Serious Trailer with amazing animation. View at: http://www.archimageonline.com/diab.cfm

The game’s concept was simple - to educate kids about eating right and exercise. The goal of the game is to get children to have healthy lifestyles within the game which is essential to winning. This game looks like it will be very attractive to children and adults because of the amazing features, graphic artistry and narration. It shows that a simple game can be fun and interesting with the right elements and an attractive look and feel to catch the learner’s attention. One interesting component about the game's creation was the number of different institutions and companies that collaborated to create this game. While the funding was provided by a grant from the National Institute of Health, the game was developed by the Baylor College of Medicine and produced by a company called Archimage that does video animation. Obviously much thought, research and analyses was put into the game creation and trailer for the purpose of promoting healthier eating in children. I like the idea that a government institution is investing in a game to promote education around a national health problem, diabetes in children, using innovative and technology-based approaches to reach their target audience. This technique seems to be better than most solutions I have seen because it offers a "fun factor" for kids while learning about their health.

I can’t wait to see the complete version of the game, but if you have a chance, it’s definitely worth watching the trailer. In addition to Escape from Diab, Archimage had a screening room including a videogame Nanosworm, whose objective was also healthy eating and Tutti Fruty which promoted children to each fruits and vegetables. Check out the screening room for Archimage: http://www.archimageonline.com/