Augmented Reality Gaming Kid Toys

In this article, game designer Sande Chen takes a look at various augmented reality gaming kid toys on the market.

Have you kept up with the latest tech-savvy gaming kid toys?  In the past, there were the little critters that had thumb drives and plugged kids into a virtual world of mini-games.  There were interactive toys that tried to talk with you, or through cleverly scripted questions, made kids feel like a doll or animal really knew them (especially after Mom or Dad inputted birthdates and fave activities).

Considering the popularity of Pokemon Go, it's not surprising that augmented reality has made its debut among educational and entertainment toys.  All of them require an app installation.  Here's a couple to consider.

In 2017, kids age three and up were introduced to Parker the teddy bear, whose owners can play teddy bear doctor by viewing Parker's insides and monitoring the bear's Happiness Factor.  The app also includes a number of math and science puzzles.

Hasbro's first AR offering came in 2018 with the Marvel Avengers: Infinity War Hero Vision Iron Man AR Experience.  The app is downloaded and the phone inserted into the AR goggles so that kids can pretend to be Iron Man and battle enemies in the living room.

The latest of note is LEGO Ninjago AR, which brings LEGO sets to life with animations and characters. Two players can team up and fight against hordes of Dragon Hunters, unlock power-ups, and post high scores.

So far, ratings on Amazon and the Apple app store have been mediocre. There's technical issues such as the app crashing or an ill-fitting helmet.  As more apps come to market and more devices become capable of handling AR, there's hope that these problems will get sorted out.  Despite the snafus, it's an exciting time for kids to be playing with these enhanced physical toys.

Sande Chen is a writer and game designer whose work has spanned 15 years in the industry. Her credits include 1999 IGF winner Terminus, 2007 PC RPG of the Year The Witcher, and Wizard 101. She is one of the founding members of the IGDA Game Design SIG.

The Holographic Classroom

In this article, game designer Sande Chen discusses what's available for teachers to give students immersive educational experiences.

In Ernest Cline's bestselling novel, Ready Player One, the main character Wade Watts describes his online lessons on the virtual planet Ludus.  Unlike the online courses of today, which mostly consist of videos, forums, and multiple choice tests, Wade's classroom is far from dull.  His World History class takes his avatar to Egypt where the teacher can flip through different time zones, showing ancient Egypt and then when King Tut's tomb is discovered.  He can walk through the chambers of the heart and the aorta or visit the moons of Neptune.

Though this seems like something out of the holodeck, we can already virtually enter space, go inside the body, swim underwater, and travel to distant lands.  Google Expeditions is available for teachers in VR and AR.  More than one million students in 11 countries have gone on these virtual field trips.

If VR and AR sounds too technically challenging, remember there's still MineCraft.  While the simulation won't be as immersive as VR or AR, students can still have the thrill of visiting different worlds.  Take a look at what the Tate Gallery did to showcase famous art movements like Surrealism.

Sure, none of these options have 100% sensory output or the classroom controls teachers would love that automatically warn disruptive students, but we can still bring excitement and immersiveness of virtual worlds to classrooms today.

Sande Chen is a writer and game designer whose work has spanned 10 years in the industry. Her credits include 1999 IGF winner Terminus, 2007 PC RPG of the Year The Witcher, and Wizard 101. She is one of the founding members of the IGDA Game Design SIG.

Podcast: IGDA GDSIG Mentor AMA Game Writing

Greetings!  Our 3rd IGDA Game Design SIG (GDSIG) Mentor AMA (Ask Me Anything) in conjunction with the National STEM Video Game Challenge focused on game writing and featured questions from mentors and students around the United States, such as:

• What is your biggest challenge in developing a video game, both in storyline and in general? 
• What are some key differences between a good and a bad narrative?
• Where do you see virtual reality and augmented reality going, and how do you think this technology will change games and storytelling?
• What are some ways a designer can tell a story in a game that gives the player opportunities to make real choices that genuinely affect the outcome of the game?
• What would you say is the #1 pitfall in the design of serious games?

A full transcript of the questions, transcribed by volunteer Jam Blute, is available on the IGDA Game Design SIG Facebook group Files section, as well as sample game design documents. The GDSIG group is a closed Facebook group, but free and open to everyone, provided you follow the guidelines.  The IGDA is an international, non-profit organization whose mission is to advance the careers and improve the lives of game developers.

The National STEM Video Game Challenge is a multi-year competition whose goal is to motivate interest in STEM learning among America’s youth by tapping into students’ natural passion for playing and making video games.

With Felix Wilhelmy as moderator, the guest panelists for the 3rd GDSIG Mentor AMA were Sheri Graner Ray, Bobby Stein, and Sande Chen.

Sheri Graner Ray is an award-winning game designer and CEO of ZombieCat Studios and worked for such companies as Schell Games, Origin, Sony Entertainment, and the Cartoon Network.

Bobby Stein is the Associate Narrative Director and Narrative Design Lead at ArenaNet, the maker of Guild Wars.

Sande Chen is a writer and game designer best known for her work on titles such as The Witcher and Wizard 101.

We are continually striving to improve the Mentor AMAs.  Let us know if you have any feedback or if you'd like to participate as a volunteer or mentor!  Follow GDSIG on Twitter @IGDAGDSIG or on YouTube.  We will be moving to video soon.

Listen to the full AMA panel below or on Soundcloud.

The Future of AI NPCs

In this article, game designer Sande Chen describes what happens when players have a supercomputer for a mentor and what this development means for games in the future.

Showcased in last week's session "Playing Medical Minecraft with IBM Watson" at the Games For Change Festival, Medical Minecraft is more than just a student mod of Minecraft transformed into a first-person shooter with disease enemies like malaria.  Players get a strong ally in the form of a NPC powered by IBM Watson. IBM Watson is the computer system known mostly for beating its human competitors on "Jeopardy!"

IBM Watson By Clockready via Wikimedia Commons

Using AI for NPCs has been done before, most notably in the game, Facade, whereby the player can interact with a couple on the brink of divorce. YouTube is littered with examples of players messing with Facade.  The funniest tales are when the players refuse to role-play the domestic scenario and instead type in outlandish inputs such as impending global thermal nuclear war or a grisly car accident.  The couple continues on with the conversation without acknowledging the dire circumstances.

In Medical Minecraft, players can quell their curiosity about various diseases.  IBM Watson playing the knowledgeable mentor character answers the questions not by doing a massive brute force search of the Internet, but by relying on its training in determining what is the most likely answer.  Moreover, players do not have to confine themselves to certain phrases or words as in previous computer games.  They can carry on a Q&A conversation with IBM Watson.  It isn't like the classic game ELIZA at all, where the computer played a psychotherapist and tended to repeat words back to the player. 

What does this mean for the future of games?  Instead of a limited script from a NPC or a database the player must search through for information, the player can interact with a NPC in natural language.  Although the example above is limited to medical knowledge, it very likely could be expanded for history or other sciences.  And that's truly exciting stuff.

Sande Chen is a writer and game designer whose work has spanned 10 years in the industry. Her credits include 1999 IGF winner Terminus, 2007 PC RPG of the Year The Witcher, and Wizard 101. She is one of the founding members of the IGDA Game Design SIG.

Educational Games: The Big Picture Part V

The final article in the educational game development series on Games + Learning, "The World According to Edu-Larps: The Analog Learning Games," explores meta-gaming, the activities and fandom surrounding a game that promote self-directed learning, and how meta-gaming is expressed in analog games and informal settings like museums. Analog games include card and board games, tabletop RPGs, and edu-larps.

Students participate in Mesopotamia Edu-larp

For schools with technological challenges, these types of games may be a more affordable option.  Moreover, analog games provide a social aspect that can't be replicated in digital games and allow educators to change parameters to suit the particular classroom.  Analog games have proven to be especially effective with struggling students and students with disabilities. 

Informal schooling in after-school programs, summer camps, and museums provide children with the opportunity to pursue learning at their own pace and according to their own interests.

In particular, check out the audio interview, which covers material not included in the article. 

Mega-gaming also happens with digital games and it begs the question:  Is the true essence of learning outside of the game rather than inside?  What do you think?  If so, then all those on-board assessment tools may not be uncovering the true state of a student's educational progress.

Sande Chen is a writer and game designer whose work has spanned 10 years in the industry. Her credits include 1999 IGF winner Terminus, 2007 PC RPG of the Year The Witcher, and Wizard 101. She is one of the founding members of the IGDA Game Design SIG.

Latest Game News Here! Press Any Key Games Podcast

Hi!  I had so much fun with the Geeks World Wide Year in Review podcast that I'll now be appearing semi-regularly on the Press Any Key Games Podcast!  If you don't have a chance to catch up on your daily or weekly game news or just want to get a perspective on what others find important, take a listen to the podcast or watch the livestream at the following places:

When we're livestreaming, it'll be on Twitch: http://www.twitch.tv/thegww

If you want to listen, there's GWW Radio on SoundCloud:  https://soundcloud.com/gww-101643494

Or you can subscribe through iTunes:  https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/gww-podcast/id462109667?mt=2

Videos are posted on the GWW Web site:  http://thegww.com/category/podcasts/games-podcast/

Finally, if you want to subscribe on YouTube, there's the Geeks World Wide channel 

Show Notes (if you want to check out some of the news stories yourself)

PSA: Amazon Prime gives 20 percent discount on new/pre-release games. (http://bit.ly/1Q6FUzx)
HTC says Vive preorders to start on February 29, with shipping in April. (http://bit.ly/1Q6Dxg1)
VR sticker shock: How Oculus failed to prepare the world for a $599 Rift. (http://bit.ly/1Q6DEbg)
Will Supreme Court tackle 1st Amendment issue in Madden NFL litigation? (http://bit.ly/1Q6DDEn)
Major piracy group warns games may be crack-proof in two years. ( http://bit.ly/1Q6DIIc)
Analyst thinks the Nintendo NX will ‘cannibalize’ 3DS and Wii U sales. (http://bit.ly/1Q6DX64)
2015 was the Japanese games industry’s worst year on record. (http://bit.ly/1Q6DUXQ)
Norwegian high school puts e-sports and gaming on the timetable. (http://bit.ly/1Q6FQQc)
Sony tried to trademark ‘Let’s Play’. (http://bit.ly/1Q6DQau)   
“I am not a terrorist”: Muslim man barred from playing Paragon beta. (http://bit.ly/1Q6G9dR)

2015 Gaming Year In Review Podcast

It's that time of the year for wrap-ups, top ten lists, and remembrance. What were your top gaming stories of the year? I participated in the Geeks World Wide 2015 Gaming Year in Review Podcast where we discussed upcoming trends in VR, open worlds vs. linear narrative experiences, and of course, awesome games.

Show Notes (if you want to check out some of the news stories yourself)

Confirmed: Kojima leaves Konami to work on PS4 console exclusive [Updated]. (http://bit.ly/1Oi4HuF)
Survey: “Gamers” are poorer, more male, less white than “game players”. (http://bit.ly/1Oi4F5Z)
Nintendo touchscreen controller patent offers clues about upcoming NX. (http://bit.ly/1Oi4HuP)
BioShock creator: ‘gamers want an experience that lasts more than 10-12 hours’. (http://bit.ly/1Oi4Iip)

How Technology Is Changing Storytelling

Last weekend at the launch of Immersive Edge, a hypergrid story, I had a presentation in-world about how technology is changing storytelling.  I can tell you that doing a presentation in-world can be as complicated as a movie shoot!  There needs to be someone in charge of sound and someone in charge of camera.  There are worries about lag.  The event was livestreamed as well, since a limited amount of avatars can be in the amphitheater at the same time.  And of course, there's no Microsoft Powerpoint in-world.

Afterwards, I had a tour of Immersive Edge, which is a puzzle game-story that spans over several chapters, i.e. worlds.  If you've ever wanted to know how it feels to traverse the metaverse, hopping from one world to the next, this is what it's like.  Because Immersive Edge is a product of many minds, each world has a distinctive flavor.   At the same time, you follow the protagonists through their manifestations in each chapter, learning more and more about their story.   You aid them on their journey.  If you're interested in going through this immersive experience, let me know.  It's definitely worth checking out.

Upcoming Events: NY Comic Con and Immersive Edge

I'm finally making some virtual appearances, though you can catch me in person at New York Comic Con tomorrow, October 8! I will be there with colleagues Caitlin Burns, Steele Filipek, and Matthew Weise on a panel about Writing for Video Games.  It'll be broadcast live on NYCC Livestream.  Just go to Twitch and check out NYCC's Live Stage.

New York Comic Con
Writing for Video Games
Thursday, October 8, 2015, 11:30 AM

Secondly, I had a great time at the first installment of Game Writing Portfolio Workout on September 28.  We didn't have time to practice quest writing and interactive dialog, but definitely can during the second class on October 20.

Tickets are available here through PlayCrafting NYC and of course, there's still the early bird price if you sign up early.  The first workshop was sold out, so make plans to come soon!  No virtual appearances for this one because PlayCrafting believes hands-on attention and interaction is what makes its classes so valuable.

 

Finally, on November 8, I will have the unique pleasure of attending the launch of Immersive Edge, a collaborative Hypergrid story written, built, and produced by 25 persons.  My avatar will be there in the virtual world to do a short presentation about how technology affects storytelling.  Check out the trailer below to learn more about Immersive Edge.

Objects and Storytelling

In this article, game designer Sande Chen discusses the relationship of objects to storytelling.

Over the past few weeks, I've been participating in Sherlock Holmes & the Internet of Things. It's a worldwide experiment, a massive collaboration between creatives in different industries, to create an interactive storytelling experience for visitors to Lincoln Center. I think it merges technology, participatory theater, game design, and narrative.  It's been chaotic and strenuous, yet exciting.  At the end of it, I'm sure what comes out will be the work of many different minds and not a single author.

As a group, we've learned about enchanted objects, like umbrellas that notify owners of predicted rain forecasts.  As an owner of one such enchanted object, a Nabaztag that I dubbed magicbunny, I have marveled at its ability to connect me to other users as well as provide me with traffic, weather reports, indie music, and endless quips.  I have seen how others have programmed their Nabaztags for light shows, mechanical dance, and music.  Every time my Nabaztag spoke to me, I thought of how wonderful it would have been to be a writer for this device.  Such possibilities.

But it is not just connected objects that can speak to us.  All objects can have a story.  You may have heard of this as referred to as environmental storytelling and in games, it's not just about words scrawled in blood on a wall.  You see this in the rich detail a novelist uses to describe what a protagonist sees, hears, senses, touches, and smells.  When you realize that objects have stories, you begin to look closely and make deductions like Sherlock Holmes!  Perhaps that worn-out handle or chip means that this coffee cup holds sentimental value.  What does the rings of coffee on the counter tell you about the person's state of mind this morning?  As a writer, you can reverse-engineer these outward signs that evolve out of a character's inner turmoil.  I find it utterly fascinating that nature trackers could tell if an animal had eaten, urinated or had been frightened, all by looking at the animal's track.  Every object we touch leaves a trace of us.

Slow down.  Observe.  Look at an object and see if it tells you a story.

Sande Chen is a writer and game designer whose work has spanned 10 years in the industry. Her credits include 1999 IGF winner Terminus, 2007 PC RPG of the Year The Witcher, and Wizard 101. She is one of the founding members of the IGDA Game Design SIG.  

True Intelligence: Player-Led Narrative Design

In this article, writer and indie games developer C.Y. Reid describes a recent experiment with player-led branching narrative on Twitter and invites you all to explore the richness of impromptu branching narrative.

When considering how to lay out a branching narrative structure, it can sometimes become difficult to choose just how many parallel universes one wants to appear in the finished, playable world. However, one of the easiest ways to circumvent this, and indeed to establish which areas of each scene are the most interesting points of focus, is to allow players themselves to branch your narrative for you.

Last week, I tweeted the following:

“You are in a dark room. There are two doors. One is red, and one is blue. Which door will you open?”

I had almost ten responses within a minute or so. Out of those, five led the story through to its conclusion, but what was interesting was the variety of responses. One chose blue, one red, one turned the lights on, one opened an orange door, and so on. I responded to each by giving them a new room, a new set of objects to explore and people to talk to.

As the tweets continued, I began to interweave their stories. One player was trapped in a large iron room, and another had the key to a safe. Eventually, player two’s curiosity was peaked and they opened the safe revealing player one. Allowing their stories to mesh caused them to worry. Many of the players did not follow each other, and as a result, they were usually completely ignorant of the coming interweaving of their respective narratives.

It was exciting, both for me as a writer and for them as players. In giving them complete freedom of choice and acting as dungeon master for what became an interactive text adventure. Their story ended and all of them were happy, sated. “That was awesome,” said one, not long after they had been cast as a murderer and had the other four players turned against them. It was exciting to watch: Would they judge them, or would they check each other’s timelines and discover my manipulation of them into interesitng situations?

What I did afterwards was ran all their tweets through Storify, and I’ll soon be inputting their choices and the resultant scenarios I gave them into Twine, a text adventure engine available for Windows, Mac and Linux. Its visually straightforward flowchart and Wikipedia simple code allow even the most inexperienced game designer to output deep, complex adventures full of branching narratives, each easy to follow.

In a sense, I cheated the Twine writing process. Rather than coming up with which areas of the story to offer to the player as new roads to walk down, I gave players the option to point out which areas of each created scene they wanted to explore. It’s a lot faster than endlessly putting yourself in their shoes, and you’ll find it’s no different to level design.  You’ll only truly learn what innocent minds will want to see in your created universes once you watch them explore. Your omniscient knowledge of your own built narratives are the fatal flaw in learning where to take people next, if you’re aiming to reward someone’s curiosity.

Branching narratives are intricate, fickle things that can sometimes be the genesis of many a headache. At the same time, they’re also exciting ways to explore the mind of the player. So give it a shot, jump onto Twitter, throw out a starting scene and see where your followers take you. Perhaps follow your own path first and see how theirs diverges from yours. Don’t forget to invite me into the tale @failnaut - I wouldn’t mind doing a little less storycrafting on a social media platform, this time around.  

C.Y. Reid is a writer and indie games developer living and working in London. He has written games journalism for IGN UK and The Escapist, and has made games such as Hug Marine and Grindstar. You can find him at @failnaut or at failnaut.com.

The Coming AR Revolution

In this article, alternate reality game designer and writer Andrea Phillips discusses the near-future of augmented reality games.

Here in 2010, the sizzle is all about mobile games, social games, location-based games. I’ll forgive you if you’re a little tired of hearing about them. But you’d better get used to it; these trends are just getting started. Just wait until you see what’s coming down the pike for 2020! I’m talking about the coming revolution in augmented reality games.

These games will allow you to interact with real and virtual environments at the same time, overlaying visual or auditory data on your real-world experiences. If you’ve seen Minority Report or Iron Man, you’ve got the right general idea – gestural interfaces and computer-generated images floating in the air. Sure, there’s some Hollywood magic in there; hologram tech, for example, isn’t quite ready for prime time. But real tech companies are working on building devices that can deliver experiences just as amazing, if not more so.

Surprisingly, these Hollywood portrayals of AR don’t show you the real possibilities that come when you take the tech and make it mobile. Just imagine the games you could make with a system like that! (To get you started, you can take a look at some of the games I’ve predicted already. Or just read Rainbows End by Vernor Vinge.) I don’t know about you, but the game design possibilities make me positively giddy.

So how do we get there?

The biggest hurdle to augmented reality games are the same hurdles that mobile games have only recently overcome. The technology needs to be in the hands of a critical mass of potential players, which means it needs to be cheap, easy to use, and absolutely reliable. And it needs to be powerful enough to deliver a compelling gaming experience, of course.

We’re already on our way. Most smartphones are powerful enough to deliver great games already. The limiting factor in many mobile games is input/output -- screen real estate, not CPU. And these problems are well on their way to being solved.

Companies like Vuzix are already working on transparent AR glasses, so you can interact with the real world and the virtual at the same time. The MIT Media Lab is developing projects like SixthSense, which can turn the whole world – even your body – into input devices.

These may seem clunky and impossible right now, but in ten years’ time, the technology will become lighter, lighter, cheaper, and near-ubiquitous. Our precedent here is Bluetooth. It took about ten years for the now-common headsets to percolate into the mainstream; now, you can’t walk into a supermarket without seeing one.

The first warning shots of the AR gaming revolution have already been fired. Games like The Hidden Park, Kweekies, and Level Head all demonstrate some of the novel possibilities for games yet to come. And companies like Mirascape are building the gaming platforms of the future. As the tech gets better, the games will, too.

We’re not there yet; a lot of the AR work out there currently amounts to cunningly engineered party tricks. But the AR revolution is definitely coming, and I mean to be ready for it. Will you?

Andrea Phillips is a freelance alternate reality game designer and writer, and has worked on projects like the award-winning Perplex City, True Blood’s Blood Copy campaign, and Channel 4’s RoutesGame.com. She writes about games and digital culture at Deus Ex Machinatio.

August 2010: Design 2020: Imagining the Future of Gaming

August 2010's topic, Design 2020: Imagining the Future of Gaming, was submitted by game designer Ryon Levitt with contributions from game designer Josh Sutphin. 

Join us and discuss the possibilities of the next 10 years of game design.

What major innovations will this decade bring? What tiresome trends will stubbornly cling to life? What old genres will we see resurrected and which current ones will die?

Will there be a revolution against the current corporate models that will turn around what is mainstream and what is indie? Will we all be out of jobs? Or will we all be making Holodecks?

With all the new tech that keeps popping up, and the changes in view of what is a good game for value, what do YOU think will be the future of gaming?

Ryon Levitt is a programmer-turned-designer for TECMO KOEI CANADA, with about 3 years of credited design experience.  Ryon is one of the founding members of the IGDA Game Design SIG, and helped coin the acronym GDAM.