Story-Based Self Tests as an Instructional Tool

Read a brand-new article composed by co-author Nick Iuppa exclusively for this site, on some of the work he’s been doing for clients the past couple of years.

For more “tales from the trenches” like this new article, check out our books End to End Game Development and Story and Simulations for Serious Games, both published by Focal Press and available through Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

What Smart Companies Must Learn From Gaming

This informational video from eWeek argues that companies and institutions can learn from gaming: it then stands to reason that using game technology, design and aesthetics to aid business processes, training and problem-solving makes a lot of sense. End to End Game Development can help get you there!

Microsoft’s Productivity Games

We’ve rounded up several posts about Microsoft’s productivity games, for an overview of what the software giant has been doing in this important subspecies of serious games.

Productivity games are applications designed to increase work efficiency while also increasing job satisfaction through the application of game aesthetics and mechanics.  Virtually all jobs have some degree of repetitiveness — some more than others — and nearly all of us hate that aspect of work.

Yet interestingly, games require repetition — and find ways to encourage us to embrace the repetition. If we can find ways to build some fun into job repetitiveness, both employer and employee should win.

The games described include Microsoft’s Windows 7 localization game, and their current game encouraging usage and feedback for Office Communicator.

Scroll down towards the bottom of this post (included in the overall roundup), look for “Helpful Material,” and you’ll get a great set of links for the further study on the topic of productivity games.

Robots Playing World of Warcraft?

It’s safe to say that Georgia Tech is on the cutting edge of serious game and simulation development, and this article provides an overview of some of what the school is up to.

A particularly interesting direction is in the use of game engines and virtual worlds to help train and teach robots:  if a robot can navigate and engage in a virtual world simulation, it will likely do better when it engages in the real world.  In addition, virtual worlds offer an environment where robots and humans may jointly collaborate on situations, preparing them for collaboration in the real world.

Robots aren’t actually playing World of Warcraft yet, but they may take a shine to it in the future…

Read the entire article:  you’ll also find out about AI applications in the field of intelligent narrative technologies, an area discussed in both End to End Game Development and Story and Simulations for Serious Games.

Q&A with Christy Marx

Christy Marx is the editor of the new Focal Press book Write Your Way Into Animation and Games (with several chapters contributed by End to End Game Development authors Nick Iuppa and Terry Borst).  She was kind enough to answer a few questions about the book for our readers.

Q: Tell us a little about ‘Write Your Way…’ and its mission.

Game Writing and Storytelling

Before we worked on serious games, we worked on commercial videogames, including the blockbuster space adventure games Wing Commander III and Wing Commander IV.  Game-Central just completed a podcast with co-author Terry Borst about game writing and storytelling:  you’ll find some discussion about serious games, and a more general discussion of games, story and their intersection — along with the walk down Wing Commander memory lane.

Listen to the Game Central podcast with Terry Borst

Clark Aldrich – serious games & sims

One of the things we want to do with the End to End Game Development website we’re in the midst of launching is to develop it as a resource for information and the exchange of ideas about serious games and simulations.

To that end, we draw your attention to Clark Aldrich, and his encyclopedic compendium The Complete Guide to Serious Games and Simulations.