You play as Mark Retro, fresh out of high school and ready for his first job. He can’t believe his good luck when Anderson Construction, the largest building firm on the West Coast, decides to hire him on the spot. He’s even more surprised to find out that his new mentor is none other than his estranged Uncle Al! In fact, he’s so estranged that Mark’s never even heard of him, thanks to a mysterious family feud. As you build up the business over Mark’s 60 year career, you also follow Mark’s life as he marries and raises a family with his wife Norma Jean. Being extra successful in the game unlocks different events that influence the course of his life.

If you’re a fan of the Build-a-Lot series, especially Build-a-lot 2: Town of the Year, you’ll already be familiar with the basic game play. Build in Time takes the same concept and adds to it a bunch of new challenges, power ups, and development additions.

If you’re worshipper of Build-a-Lot game series, this game is surely created to add more joy into your gaming experience. I would say that general distinction of Build in Time game is that you fulfill orders of common citizens to build this or that house or cottage. Surely lots of new powerups and buildings are added, your tasks become more difficult and time provided to their performance is shortened. Basically, Build in time is completed for about 4-5 hours of game play, all of the levels are available to complete with “gold” (I hate that “mission is impossible” levels), so time spent on it would bring you some fun and joy. As usual pay attention to time and especially in this game, because the quicker you build an ordered item, the higher your tips, customers are not a patient major!

Hire special personnel as receptionist who answers the phones and takes customer’s orders, or a home deliverer who automatically escorts the clients to their new digs.

• Travel through 6 decades of U.S. history
• Buy observatories, pirate ships and more
• Strategize home placement for bonuses
• Earn stars and awesome Life Rewards
• Upgrade buildings throughout the game
• Unlock new homes, garages and pools
• Serve hippies, movie starlets and more

Build in Time game video:

a.k.a. laying the foundation.

Google gives the following definitions:

• Game-based learning is a field of research and game design based on observations that play, structured or unstructured, conditions the human brain for transformation and learning. (Wikipedia)
• A form of learner-centred learning that uses electronic games for educational purposes. (from Wee Hoe Tan’s research glossary on the Warwick University website)

So it is a field of research and design as well as a form of learner-centred learning. Actually I like Wee’s definition quite much. I would add that it is not necessary to use just electronic (or digital) games or just games to qualify as game-based learning. The defining factor to me is that the use of games is an important factor in the learning process and environment.

There are a number of examples of game-based learning (GBL from now on), games used to support learner-centred learning and reports of use of game-based learning in authentic learning settings. I’ll outline a few as examples of GBL:

Business schools have used business games as part of the education for dozens of years. One of the state-of-the-art business games is the RealGame, developed by Timo Lainema. RealGame is a business simulation game to support learning of decision making in the environment of managing a manufacturing company. Realgame has mainly been used by large and middle-sized Finnish companies as well as several universities as a part of their management training programs.

RealGame casts the players as managers of a manufacturing business. The game provides a real-time simulation of the operating environment of the business in question. The players make decisions as managers and get real-time feedback on how their decisions affect the company. The game can be tailored to simulate different kinds of markets.

RealGame provides the players’ an experience of making management decisions and getting feedback of their consequences. The simulation works in real time so the players can adjust their strategies on the fly.

It is important to see that the game provides learning experiences in at least two levels. The first, self-evident one is the simulation environment allowing the players to practice performing the duties of their future occupations. It is important to notice that in this function the representation that the simulation provides and its verisimilitude to the ral-life environment is important.

The other way of producing learning experiences is experiencing the simulation environment itself and critiquing its verisimilitude. Every simulation is a subjective representation of reality. The aspects (units) of the simulation make statements on the world (Ian Bogost’s book Unit Operations deals with this perception). Through experiencing the game the players can assess the representation provided by it and contrast it with the relevant theory they have studied and case studies from the field.

The first type of learning occurs predominantly within the game but the latter one involves contrasting and discussing the experience of gameplay with other presentations of the same phenomena. It is to be noted that although GBL focuses on the use of games to support learning, playing games is not the be-all and end-all of learning activity in the model.

This concludes the first part of this on-going introduction to game-based learning. There’s too much to say to fit it in just one article, so I’ll continue describing the field of GBL through other examples in later articles.

Saiu hoje no Mercado Web Minas um post falando sobre um business game feito pela produtora O2 GAMES, chamado “A Pequena Grande Crise”. Apesar do screenshot meio feiozinho, resolvi clicar pra experimentar. É de grátis, então vamo ver de colé!

Entrando no link http://www.apequenagrandecrise.com.br/ você se depara com a interface do game. Insira seu nome e comece a jogar.

Os gráficos são realmente feinhos e um pouco confusa a interface. Mas eu achei legal a iniciativa. Precisamos realmente de usar melhor a mídia GAME – apesar de ser óbvio, digo isso porque ainda tem gente que, quando pensa em propor um game para um cliente, logo imagina um link “JOGOS” no site do sujeito, com um pac-man estilizado ou um jogo da memória. E apesar de não ser exatamente original, “A Pequena Grande Crise” é uma das poucas propostas de Business Games com jeitão de arcade que eu vi nos últimos meses. Ou talvez nos últimos anos, sei lá.

De toda forma, leia o post original AQUI. Eu aproveitei pra dar uma dica genial pra quem quer fazer um Business Game fandásdigo usando CRIATIVIDADE e poucos recursos visuais. Vale a pena!

What do we need to do to thaw out our innovation processes ready for the Spring?

What happens to innovation when times are tough? Are we all concentrating our dwindling resources on trying to make things better, cleverer, slicker?  Or are we simply turning off the tap and hoping for the best – riding out the storm waiting for things to get better.

A recent mail from a client of mine reveals all…  “Innovation is on hold for the moment”.  I find this very worrying.

It is clear looking around at the current business environment that things will never be quite the same even after the recovery kicks in at some point in the (indeterminate) future – should we not be using this opportunity to look at how we do things and come up with new ideas?

Another very innovative and forward thinking  client recently observed “The old ways are broken, we need new ways to do things better” just before he was made redundant in the latest cost saving drive.

It is my belief that innovation will be one of the most critical keys to open up the new world that will be the post crunch economy and that those organisations that have reviewed their innovation strategies while things are quiet will be ready to leap ahead when conditions ease.

What do you think?  Is now the time for radical thinking and being bold in identifying things that need to change?  Or shall we all continue just tightening our belts and hoping for the best?

What can we do?  How do we approach it?  What tools are available to help us?  Are there new ways of thinking about innovation that can kick start the creative process?

Get involved in the debate!

Simon Evans, Innovoflow Ltd

What do we need to do to thaw out our innovation processes ready for the Spring?

What happens to innovation when times are tough? Are we all concentrating our dwindling resources on trying to make things better, cleverer, slicker?  Or are we simply turning off the tap and hoping for the best – riding out the storm waiting for things to get better.

A recent mail from a client of mine reveals all…  “Innovation is on hold for the moment”.  I find this very worrying.

It is clear looking around at the current business environment that things will never be quite the same even after the recovery kicks in at some point in the (indeterminate) future – should we not be using this opportunity to look at how we do things and come up with new ideas?

Another very innovative and forward thinking  client recently observed “The old ways are broken, we need new ways to do things better” just before he was made redundant in the latest cost saving drive.

It is my belief that innovation will be one of the most critical keys to open up the new world that will be the post crunch economy and that those organisations that have reviewed their innovation strategies while things are quiet will be ready to leap ahead when conditions ease.

What do you think?  Is now the time for radical thinking and being bold in identifying things that need to change?  Or shall we all continue just tightening our belts and hoping for the best?

What can we do?  How do we approach it?  What tools are available to help us?  Are there new ways of thinking about innovation that can kick start the creative process?

Get involved in the debate!

Simon Evans, Innovoflow Ltd

BT Group, the so called “the oldest telcommunications group in the world”  has got a business niche focused on making dreams plausible. Among many tools, they offer a business simulation to measure the capacity of the investor and the chances of being well- succeeded. All the steps are scored and the result can take you by surprise. Play it here.

The job market at the moment is tough, and it seems tougher for some people than others, and in particular World of Warcraft players seem to have been singled out.

Gamesindustry.biz reports today that employers are specifically requesting recruitment consultants not to send them World of Warcraft players.

The post, spotted cites a recruiter working in the online media industry as saying that employers think WOW players are too sleep-deprived and distracted to be effective in the workplace.

“Employers specifically instruct him not to send them World of Warcraft players,” said the poster. “He said there is a belief that WOW players cannot give 100 per cent because their focus is elsewhere, their sleeping patterns are often not great, et cetera.”

This seems to fly in the face of many recent articles which focus on the positive of MMOG games such as World of Warcraft, where the skills necessary to persevere and suceed in the game are the same types of skills that can develop a hardworking and diligent employee.  Infact President Obama’s cabinet advisors even include WoW players.

But in the meantime, unless you’re after a job leading the country, it may be best to keep World of Warcraft off your CV.

Online Game, Fantasy Couriers, is to be launched into the education market at BETT 2009.

Visit us at Olympia, Stand SW108, from Wednesday 14th January til Saturday 17th January.

Register Here, for a free ticket to the show

Solo una cosa: cliccando sul tuo nome si arriva ad un sito collegato all’Università degli Studi di Udine, dalla cui lettura si evince che ti occupi di (vado di copia-incolla):

‘Sta minchia…
Trovarti un lavoro serio, no eh?…

Dottordivago

An article in the Ecomomist, recommends that businesses encourage their employees to get gaming.

“ In a forthcoming book called “Changing the Game”, David Edery and Ethan Mollick argue that many skills and lessons from the gaming world are applicable in the business world. The smartest firms, the authors argue, will not only allow game-playing in the workplace, but will actively encourage it.

To MDs & CEOs who throw a tantrum every time they catch someone playing solitaire on an office PC, or who consider video games to be the exclusive preserve of pasty-faced teens, that may sound like daft advice. It may also smack of bias coming from Mr Edery, who happens to be in charge of game planning for Xbox’s Live Arcade online-gaming system. (Mr Mollick is an academic at MIT’s Sloan School of Management). But there are good reasons to think that he’s right.

According to Messrs Edery and Mollick, by making work more fun and by allowing firms to tap into wisdom beyond their walls, game playing can dramatically improve both productivity and bottom lines.

To see why, consider one of the things it takes to become an ace at, say, World of Warcraft, a hugely popular online fantasy game inhabited by griffins, trolls and other mythical creatures. To make progress inside the game, players must engage in “grinding”—gamer-speak for performing a repetitive task, such as slaying a monster, many times over.

What makes people, both young and old, want to sit for hours in front of a screen, clicking away on their consoles? The answer, say the authors, is status and friendly competition. Games that track players’ progress against their previous achievements, or against those of others, can make grinding seem like—well—less of a grind.

Gaming also promotes community building. Popular games can attract hundreds of thousands of user-group members, who swap notes and develop their own modifications (or “mods”). In many cases, such as The Sims—the most popular computer game of all time (in terms of copies sold), which allows players to control a household full of people with very human attributes—these mods have deepened customers’ attachment to the product.

The authors argue that firms in other industries should look to video-gaming companies for inspiration when it comes to managing their own communities. They point out that good gaming firms must learn the language and rules of different customer groups, appointing staff to engage with them. They also offer prizes that encourage creativity, as well as tools and support that make it easier for users to come up with mods, while discouraging unwanted innovation. The resulting software can help predict what future products might succeed.

The evolution of gaming technology has definitely given companies the ability to create virtual sandboxes that can provide a competitive edge. So executives who still insist on all work and no game play won’t just be running dull workplaces; they will also be running less profitable ones too.

Exert From The Economist – Playing for Profit – 26^th August 2008.

All copywrite to The Ecomomist.

Full article; http://www.economist.com/business/displaystory.cfm?story_id=11997115

The bar keeps bumping up higher for quality animations in a videogame. Word came out this week that Afrika, a new safari photo hunt game for the PlayStation 3, would provide ultra-realistic shots of wildlife on the savannah and make good use of the PS3’s graphics capabilities. The game required a mere 25 developers, compared to the 100 or so that many big titles take, and Sony’s sales expectations are modest. Still, the possibilities revolving around photo-realism add to the expectations for future games: serious, educational, and traditional entertainment titles alike.

On the anthromorphological side of things, check out this video, She’s Not Real, from The Times Online in the UK. If you weren’t told ahead of time, it’s possible you wouldn’t know you were watching an animated human … at least at first. Toward the end of the minute long footage, the programmers give a taste of what they can do with an animated person, in a game for instance.

Wild West Quest

Go on an amazing hidden object adventure into the Wild West! Travel back 120 years to the old west to save Grandpa Willy from a gang of banditos and strike it rich as a gold prospector! Explore gold mines, saloons and stagecoaches while wrangling a stampede of horses and even becoming a gunslinger in a classic western shootout. Delve into 50 Wild West locations, play through 5 unique game styles and meet dozens of iconic western characters on a Wild West Quest like no other!

I’m in Austin, Texas for five days, spending three nights at the Hilton near the Austin Convention Center, and two nights at the Lake Austin Spa Resort, which I am really looking forward to (last two nights). As you know by now, I don’t ever plan a business trip without a significant pleasure portion. I’ll really be busy this trip (not like my last trip to Jackson, Wyoming where I spent most of time out on the green), but of course have scheduled some time at the Barton Creek – Crenshaw Cliffside Course, which, coincidentally, I just wrote about in 10 Great Places to go for the Green, so that’s certainly a highlight.

Here are my goals for the week: Get work done, golf, eat some good BBQ and Mexican food, and get a few massages. That shouldn’t be too hard. One of my coworkers suggested the Bob Bullock Texas State History Museum—does anyone know if that’s worth going to?

• Arts and Entertainment in Houston, Austin, San Antonio, Padre Island and Southeastern Texas
• Cool and Fun Things to Do in Houston, Austin, San Antonio, Padre Island and Southeastern Texas
• Golf Courses in Houston, Austin, San Antonio, Padre Island and Southeastern Texas
• Luxury Vacations for Houston, Austin, San Antonio, Padre Island and Southeastern Texas
• Museums in Houston, Austin, San Antonio, Padre Island and Southeastern Texas
• Places to Visit in Houston, Austin, San Antonio, Padre Island and Southeastern Texas
• Spas in Houston, Austin, San Antonio, Padre Island and Southeastern Texas

Ancient Quest of Saqqarah

Restore the ruined temples in an ancient tournament of divine puzzles! Take part in the Ancient Quest of Saqqarah and descend deep below the sands to the magical underground oasis filled with puzzles, treasures and mysteries! It’s up to you to fulfill an ancient Egyptian prophecy and stop evil god Seth from breaking out of his arcane tomb prison. In order to succeed the chosen one will have to master 7 different types of puzzles plus mini-games! It’s the ultimate match-3 experience!

Here’s an interesting article from Clive Thompson over at Wired comparing Weight Watchers Online to MMORPGs like World of Warcraft. There are many similarities, Thompson notes, including leveling and rewards. He’s got a great point. I noticed the same thing about my kids’ tae kwon do classes. Of course the idea of designing work teams modeled after WoW guilds is not new, either. Here’s a closer look at the idea of “Corporate Warcraft.”

Beck and Wade pointed out, and are echoed by people like Karl Kapp, that young workers often approach work in a gaming framing of mind. Work objectives become “quests,” paychecks bring in “gold,” promotions equate to “leveling up,” and their bosses either become “guild leaders,” or “dungeon bosses,” depending on whether they help or hinder the employees (“players”) in attaining their quests.

So the idea of making other life goals into games, such as placing diet and fitness within a MMORPG framework, makes good sense. I agree with Thompson. Weight Watchers has something going there.