Brown said there have been 35-40 people involved in the project, all internally funded.\u00c2\u00a0 Project management, coders, writers, videographers, content experts, etc. <\/p>\n
Josh talked about the technology.\u00c2\u00a0 The movies were created with Maya, with 3D Studio Max too.\u00c2\u00a0 THey rendered out the scenes and used other programs to put the final movies together (Motion, Final Cut Pro, Soundtrack, music was done in house).\u00c2\u00a0 Adobe After Effects for some compositing.\u00c2\u00a0 After Final Cut put the movie together, it was all put together with Flash, which was the primary game engine.\u00c2\u00a0 FLV files instead of SWF files.\u00c2\u00a0 Audio syncing is better in FLV.\u00c2\u00a0 FLVs stream better, and presentations can be longer.<\/p>\n
THe back end was done with a MySQL database to record actions of the game players and their game states.\u00c2\u00a0 PHP server scripting and XML to talk to Flash.\u00c2\u00a0 Synchronous chat is enabled so you can ask advice or go over lessons in game.\u00c2\u00a0 Also professors can participate to “provoke conversation throughout the game.”\u00c2\u00a0 Audio is mostly MP3, pulled in dynamically.<\/p>\n
Putting a movie together is a non-sequential process – this doesn’t lend itself to sequential learning in class.\u00c2\u00a0 Reynolds spoke about where everyone is with the story.\u00c2\u00a0 A spaceship has crashed on a post-apocalyptic earth.\u00c2\u00a0 There were fatalities but some have survived.\u00c2\u00a0 You come from a planet that had no scarcity, but here everything is scarce.\u00c2\u00a0 You are identified immediately as the leader because your commander has died.\u00c2\u00a0 You have an ethical dilemma – you don’t have enough medical supplies to save everyone so you have to decide who lives.\u00c2\u00a0 You have a robot (‘bot’) that malfunctions but can access earth archives to help you (and be your guide).\u00c2\u00a0 Next you have a survival problem: not enough water or food.\u00c2\u00a0 In the process of developing survival techniques you will learn how to create a labor force.\u00c2\u00a0 Eventually you can create a surplus and you can then go out to find other pods that have crashed.\u00c2\u00a0 <\/p>\n
After climbing a mountain you learn another tribe exists on a shore and there is a possibility for trade (fish and rabbits).\u00c2\u00a0 A human city (and its diseases) is found, and another crisis occurs.\u00c2\u00a0 The other pod (Pod 51) will most likely be wiped out by a hurricane<\/a>.\u00c2\u00a0 Do you help?\u00c2\u00a0 You get some advice and you choose whether you’re going to be a democratic leader, soliciting input on the costs and benefits.\u00c2\u00a0 Each research option costs at least one hour of time, and the hurricane is coming.<\/p>\n The quest is interdisciplinary.\u00c2\u00a0 The giving of foreign aid isn’t always altruistic, and the advisors present different perspectives on the economic consequences for the giver.\u00c2\u00a0 The videos of the advisors are from historical footage from earth (a video of Zaire and Rwanda).<\/p>\n Students then do meet with the other advisors after the choice is made to hear their perspectives on what to do.\u00c2\u00a0 You are then faced with a refugee issue. Instructors can use Illiuminate, podcasting, etc. to communicate.<\/p>\n In Economics courses, there are typically two exams, a mid-term and a final.\u00c2\u00a0 With the game, there is constant assessment that opens new opportunities for faculty to communicate with students who have problems at different points in the game.<\/p>\n What happens if they’re not getting it?\u00c2\u00a0 We can see how much time they spend in the game.\u00c2\u00a0 Students are prodded, encourged, etc., but if there is a part that students really don’t get it, the production team meets with students to work out new content that could be dropped into the game (in the game metaphor) to help students understand these issues better.<\/p>\n At the end of every level there is a leadership rating which is essentially your grade for that level.\u00c2\u00a0 Average your level scores and you know your grade.\u00c2\u00a0 You also get feedback at the end of each quest.\u00c2\u00a0 <\/p>\n They spent 18 months working on it, about twice the time they thought it would take.\u00c2\u00a0 It also ended up being very expensive.\u00c2\u00a0 They needed more programmers in certain areas of the game, which created a project bottleneck.\u00c2\u00a0 Brown and Reynolds didn’t have a good idea of how long the technical aspects of the game would take to produce.<\/p>\n In the game, you have dreams where you are in earth game shows (Hollywood Squares) where you are tested within game.\u00c2\u00a0 <\/p>\n The final confrontation is where you have to unlock a series of gates by answering questions (random questions).<\/p>\n They played a promotional video for the class.\u00c2\u00a0 Here’s a shot from that (think Stayin’ Alive<\/em>):<\/p>\n Questions came up about cost (this was deflected).\u00c2\u00a0 They are also thinking about other gaming engines.\u00c2\u00a0 Every decision students make goes into their grades.<\/p>\n How do you prevent cheaters, just as there are in other games?\u00c2\u00a0 A huge bank of questions is one defense.\u00c2\u00a0 The game is not compliant with section 508.<\/p>\n My take is that this was very well done, but very expensive to do.\u00c2\u00a0 I’ve always thought that semester-long games are possibly more work than what you get from them.\u00c2\u00a0 I don’t know how long the game will be playable (as technology continues to progress), and how extensible the game really is as the overall effort is finished and the large team disbands.<\/p>\n That said, I’d love to play the game, and I’ll be visiting the UNC-G web site to see how the game is received.\u00c2\u00a0 They begin the first full round of game play tomorrow. Technorati Tags: EDUCAUSE2006<\/a>, flash<\/a>, gaming<\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Robert Brown, the Dean of Continuing Learning and Nora Reynolds, Assistant Dean at the University of North Carolina – Greensboro presented. Brown began by talking about his son’s passion for gaming.\u00c2\u00a0 Games are student-controlled, which is very different from your … Continue reading ![\"Gaming](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/kevincreamer.net\/panda\/wp-content\/uploads\/2006\/10\/Gaming_EDUCAUSE2-tm.jpg?resize=125%2C100&ssl=1\")
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