Bristol's Part in Global Game Jam

We're happy to say that Bristol is one of the 212+ sites from 46+ countries that are taking part in the Global Game Jam.  If you're new to the term, 'Game Jam' is an informal development session where people get together and create a game from scratch around a theme.  Auroch Digital is providing project support to the Bristol event.  The event is going to be at the PM Studio on 27th till 29th January 2012.  Places are limited and going fast, so if you are interested then please sign up asap! Hashtags for the event: #ggj12  for the global event,  #ggj12bristol  for Bristol.

Bag It & Bin It Educational Games Goes Live

Bag It & Bin It is an action puzzle game that sees you trying to help the good imp stop the naughty imp from throwing the wrong things down the loo and so into the sewer.  It’s got a kids mode in (because young kids find toilet humour a blast) and is a free download for iPhoneand iPad.  Here’s how it looks:

This was a project we were part of the design of.  The project also involved Wessex Water and Tool Box Design. There is a little more about this game here.

Crysis and the Biological Singularity of Life

Another article by Auroch Digital's Tomas Rawlings is out on the Wellcome Trust blog:

A recent game release that has done well both critically and with fans is Crysis 2.  A ‘First Person Shooter’ (FPS), the player looks through the eyes of the character they control, shooting enemies and being shot at. That’s all good fun if you like that sort of thing, but why are we writing about it here?  Well, like Deus Ex (covered in an earlier post), Crysis 2 explores a number of interesting biomedical ideas.

The story is set in a war-torn Manhattan, where an alien incursion has turned the city into a dangerous no-go area. The few civilians who remain have become infested with an alien virus, while the aliens themselves have set about building mysterious funnel-like structures that reach into the sky. You play a rogue solider equipped with a powerful state-of-the-art nano(technology)-suit who is hunted by both the CEPH (the aliens) and human forces trying to control the area. The player’s technologically advanced suit is a pawn in a much bigger game that many people wish to possess.

Full article.

(Past articles for the Wellcome Trust blog include one on Deus Ex:Human Revolution & Portal 2)

Warcraft, Portal and the scientific habit of mind

Tomas has written a new article on the Wellcome Trust blog looking at the scientific habit of mind and how games like Warcraft and Portal can help with this:

I believe that the scientific habit of can be widely found within gaming. All video games present the player with a virtual space to be explored. The laws of nature within that space start as a mystery to the player and they must engage in a series of trial-and-error experiments to probe and understand that world and gradually build up a predictive model of how this virtual world operates and how the player can thrive within. This ‘gameplay’ is akin to the scientific method. In Portal 2, for example, the player finds themselves in a room and must solve its puzzles in order to exit. Puzzles take the form of an increasingly complex series of switches, lasers, locks, springs and fluids. To assist the player in solving each puzzle, they are equipped with a ‘portal gun’ – a device that fires two connected portals that allow objects, lasers, people and more to pass between two points.

Full article. (Past articles for Wellcome include one on the game 'Deus Ex:Human Revolution')

Strange Seeds: The Ethics of Artificial Sperm and Eggs

Auroch Digital's Tomas Rawlings is going to be facilitating this event:

What will happen if scientists succeed in their attempts to create artificial sperm and eggs? Could anyone become a parent, regardless of age, gender or sexuality? Would this make reproduction truly ‘democratic’? This raises interesting ethical questions. What if the safety of artificial sperm and eggs could only be established by trials in humans? Access to IVF is currently limited, but is society ready to allow ‘IVF for all’?

In Vitro is a 20-minute film that explores these questions through the story of Rachel. She’s a high-flying scientist who fertilises her own egg with artificial sperm created from her bone marrow. Compelling and provocative, the film shows a world where using artificial sperm and eggs to conceive is as routine as IVF.

Stay on after the screening as scientist Robert Lovell-Badge and ethicist Anna Smajdor take on the issues raised by the film and discuss whether artificial eggs and sperm are likely to play a part in our future.

If you're interested in attending, the event is at the Dana Centre in London on 13th October at 7pm.

A Serious Game about Waste and Water

We've been working alongside ToolBox Design with Wessex Water on a game to help people understand what can (and can't) be put down the drain. Tomas has written a little about the project:

Above is an image of two critters in the most recent Wessex Water magazine that dropped though my letterbox. They are the stars of a new iPhone/iPod game that I've been working on along with the nice people of ToolBox Design. This cute little bundle of digitally-smelly fun is a game that as well as being enjoyable, also teaches the player about what waste you should and shouldn't put down the drain or flush down your loo. The serious message behind the game is that putting the wrong stuff into the sewer system not only risks creating a blocked drain for you (eew!) but can also have knock-ons that waste lots of water and could cause environmental damage. See here for more information.

Notes from Charity Comms Talk on Games

Tomas did a talk today on games and charity:

From Wii Fit to Farmville, games are now common currency for millions of us; the average social gamer is a 43-year-old woman and 8 out of 10 UK homes have one or more games consoles. But they can offer more than fun, research found 52% of players report games help them think about moral issues. Sega raised $250,000 to help with the Japanese earthquake in a week. This session introduces the gaming sector and explores its potential for charities.

The notes with lots of links, from the talk are over on his blog. Thanks to Charity Comms for the invite to speak and also to those who attended!

Deus Ex: Medical Revolution

Tomas has an article over on the Wellcome Trust's blog on the game Deus Ex: Human Revolution:

If, like me, you’re a gamer then you probably already know of the release of the hugely anticipated action game ‘Deus Ex: Human Revolution‘. If you’re not quite so geeky then let me introduce it – the game is a prequel to one of the most highly rated video games of all time, ‘Deus Ex’. Both games are a fusion of concepts; the cyberpunk ideas of William Gibson’s Neuromancer; age-old conspiracy theories; global pandemics; dystopia futures; and the upheaval of rapid technology development.

The original game received huge praise for the depth of its narrative and the excellent game that allowed players to solve problems and puzzles by means other than combat, such as stealth or dialogue. This game also featured a number of overarching biomedical themes, including a deadly virus called ‘Gray Death’ that had ravished the human population and the shortage of the vaccine that fights it.

Crucial to both the gameplay and story of Deus Ex was the idea of nanotechnologically-augmented human beings. The exploration of transhumanism and augmenting the human body far beyond our genetic heritage – with its technological ‘hows’ and the ethical ‘whys’ – are also critical elements of the current game. ...

Read the full article here.

MyUK Launches to Teach Parliamentary Democracy

Tomas has written about a new game expereince amied at young people;

There is an interesting game/experience application by the Parliamentary Education Service and Preloaded called 'MyUK' just gone live.  Its aimed at young people and is about teaching them the core ideas of parliamentary democracy.  I did have a look at a beta version of this while doing a bit of work with the PES, so its great to see it out in the wild.  It has lots of fun little mini-games within a wrapper about running your own political party.  One of the things I like about it, is that there are elements of compromise in the overall experience, something important in the democratic process but that rarely feature in games, which are about winning or losing.

Develop Panel Post on Wellcome's Blog

Tomas has written a follow-up post about the Develop Conference event for Wellcome's blog:

Our panel brought together an eclectic group of people representing different facets of gaming. We had the outgoing Channel 4 Commissioning Editor for Education and founder of Makielab, Alice Taylor, Demis Hassabis, games developer and neuroscientist (and Sir Henry Wellcome Postdoctoral Fellow), Phil Stuart of Preloaded and industry veteren Jez Harris.

We looked at how games can talk about the bigger questions, morality and mortality. Preloaded gave us a preview of their new game The End, which looks at the biggest question of all: death. The panel also explored the issues around how the brain deals with the new technologies of games and gaming and what impact it might be having on development (though we reached no clear consensus on this).

Also discussed was how best to design games that are more than just fun – that impart knowledge and question assumptions. The consensus was that this is already being done with many games, but fun must still be the driving force! Games are a good way to talk with an audience about such topics, in part because they are interactive and so give the player an opportunity to explore.