Comments for Digital Worlds - Interactive Media and Game Design

Comment on Our World in 3D… by Tony Hirst

Tony Hirst — Wed, 14 May 2008 12:00:53 +0000

Looking through an old back issue of Edge magazine (issue 177, dated July 2007), I came across a brief review of a 3D adventure game set in the English Heritage property Belsay Hall, in Northumberland (map: http://tinyurl.com/5pnkyu ).

“The Middleton Mystery is an adventure game in which players must explore a 3D recreation of the hall and its gardens in order to relocate seven treasures. …
“The game focuses on the history of the hall, using videos of ghostly inhabitants to tell the story, from World War II soldiers to members of the family that lived there, the Middletons.”
Edge 177, July 2007, p18.

The game - “Middleton Mystery” - is still available for download at http://www.picturehousebelsay.co.uk/middletonmystery/ (Windows only).

If you know of any other interactive 3D models developed bu English Heritage, please post a link back here…

Comment on Perplex City Exposed by ARGs, Serious Games and the Magic Circle « Digital Worlds - Interactive Media and Game Design

Wed, 14 May 2008 10:07:32 +0000

[...] If you aren’t particularly familiar with an ARG, see if you can identify features of the ARG Perplex City that correspond to the categories listed above. To what extent do you think these “essential [...]

Comment on ARGs Uncovered by ARGs, Serious Games and the Magic Circle « Digital Worlds - Interactive Media and Game Design

Wed, 14 May 2008 09:26:35 +0000

[...] Makes or Breaks Them?“, a blog post reviewing the rise of alternate reality games (ARGs) (see ARGs Uncovered for an into), Muhammad Saleem suggests several characteristics that a successful ARG should embrace: - [...]

Comment on Friday Fun #11 Moshi Monsters by Tony Hirst

Tony Hirst — Wed, 14 May 2008 08:18:30 +0000

Hi Rebecca -

Thanks for posting that - and thanks for commenting back, Jacob:-) Do you like the Moshi Monsters quizzes? :-)

I didn’t know that Club Penguin made donations to charity? I did see that that they let players give some of the money they had earned in the game to charity just before Christmas last year ( http://www.massively.com/2008/02/10/club-penguin-kids-turn-mmo-fun-into-1-million-for-charities/) )

Comment on Friday Fun #11 Moshi Monsters by Rebecca

Rebecca — Tue, 13 May 2008 19:12:48 +0000

Jacob (8) has just been trying out Moshi Monsters. He comments:
‘I liked Moshi Monsters. I like it better than Club Penguin because it has a Quiz Time. I like Club Penguin better because it has its own blog and you are allowed some pets. I like the activities, downloads and drawings on the Club Penguin blog. In both of the games you get friends. At school, I know 11 people who go on Club Penguin. I don’t know any who go on Moshi Monsters - I only found out about it today.

If you want to go on Club Penguin, type http://www.clubpenguin.com and there’s a film you can also watch about it. Club Penguin is a website that you create your own penguin, its colour and its name. You can go to shops, buy things, do games, get pets and, mostly, have fun. Club Penguin is also a fundraising company, so when you pay money it goes to a kids’ charity [really? query parents]. Also when you are a member you can get more stuff, get more food, upgrade your igloo, buy new igloos - like the castle version - show yourself off to your mates, enter spy missions, have secret gadgets and make your mates laugh.’

Comment on Have You Got a Second Life? by The Virtual Worlds Universe « Digital Worlds - Interactive Media and Game Design

Mon, 12 May 2008 11:36:16 +0000

[...] Published May 12, 2008 3D Worlds , GM Free , Info skills Tags: business In Have You Got a Second Life?, I introduced the 3D social network Second Life, and hinted that this was just one of many such [...]

Comment on Video Channel by Our Heavens in 3D… « Digital Worlds - Interactive Media and Game Design

Sat, 10 May 2008 14:45:21 +0000

[...] Video Channel « Friday Fun #10 3D Modeling with SketchUp 3D Worlds Fitness Test/Checklist » [...]

Comment on Searching for Games and Interactive Media Content on the Web by Game Reviews from a Design and Development Point of View « Digital Worlds - Interactive Media and Game Design

Sat, 10 May 2008 10:42:41 +0000

[...] to the following questions as you do so; feel free to search the Only a Game blog, or use the Digital Worlds custom search engine, to explore the questions a little more [...]

Comment on Friday Fun #11 Moshi Monsters by Kate

Kate — Fri, 09 May 2008 19:26:28 +0000

Looking more seriously, these games are interesting - I like the parental bit on Moshi Monsters better than Neopets. I’m not sure how their moderation would work though and how do they know if the parent’s email address is the parent’s?

I’m also wondering about the impact of these sites in the longer term. They seem to be introducing quite young children to the idea of social networking and I wonder where they will go after playing with these for a couple of years. They are still officially too young for the main sites such as Bebo, though the recent Ofcom report(http://tinyurl.com/2ep47b) seems to indicate a large proportion of the 8-11s are in there.

Is there a gap in the market there?

Can you tell I should be script marking?? ;-)

Comment on Friday Fun #11 Moshi Monsters by Tony Hirst

Tony Hirst — Fri, 09 May 2008 14:18:00 +0000

In one of those strange synchronicity things, the BBC technology site has just posted a story about “Boom times for virtual playgrounds” [ http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7390218.stm ], which describes the growth of online virtual worlds aimed at children (how many accounts do you think have been created on Club penguin, for example?), and reviews some of the commercial circumstances surrounding them.

It’s worth a read…

Comment on Friday Fun #11 Moshi Monsters by Kate

Kate — Fri, 09 May 2008 14:12:34 +0000

40 wpm

:-)

Comment on Friday Fun #9 Gaming in Google Earth and Virtual Earth 3D by Tony Hirst

Tony Hirst — Fri, 09 May 2008 10:06:53 +0000

Not Google Earth, but a fun Google maps game: the Amsterdam Helicopter Game (via Google Maps Mania) [ http://amsterdam.by-helicopter.com/ ]

The idea is “to fly a helicopter around Amsterdam visiting various bars and restaurants… The address of the bar you have to find is displayed on the screen and its location is shown by a little red dot on the map. When you find the bar another bar or restaurant address appears. If you can’t find a bar or restaurant you can use one of your three wild-cards and move onto the next bar. What’s more you can add any of the bars and restaurants to your list of favourites.”

Comment on Video Channel by Friday Fun #10 3D Modeling with SketchUp « Digital Worlds - Interactive Media and Game Design

Sat, 03 May 2008 23:16:24 +0000

[...] Video Channel « Our World in 3D… Our Heavens in 3D… » [...]

Comment on Our World in 3D… by Our Heavens in 3D… « Digital Worlds - Interactive Media and Game Design

Sat, 03 May 2008 12:00:53 +0000

[...] For the sake of completeness, as much as anything, I thought I’d just complement the Our World in 3D… post with a brief reference list of interactive online media and desktop applications that you can [...]

Comment on Video Channel by Our World in 3D… « Digital Worlds - Interactive Media and Game Design

Our World in 3D… « Digital Worlds - Interactive Media and Game Design — Thu, 01 May 2008 16:46:15 +0000

[...] Video Channel « Perplex City Exposed [...]

Comment on Friday Fun #9 Gaming in Google Earth and Virtual Earth 3D by Our World in 3D… « Digital Worlds - Interactive Media and Game Design

Our World in 3D… « Digital Worlds - Interactive Media and Game Design — Thu, 01 May 2008 16:36:54 +0000

[...] with 3D services like Google Earth to Virtual Earth, might I suggest you have a quick read of Friday Fun #9 Gaming in Google Earth and Virtual Earth 3D and follow a couple of the links from that post, before reading this post any [...]

Comment on Perplex City Exposed by Tony Hirst

Tony Hirst — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 17:50:31 +0000

I just noticed that a with the release of GTA IV (Grand Theft Auto IV), a Google map of the Liberty City, the setting of the game, has also appeared:

http://grandtheftauto.ign.com/maps/1/Liberty-City-Map

Comment on ARGs Uncovered by Perplex City Exposed « Digital Worlds - Interactive Media and Game Design

Perplex City Exposed « Digital Worlds - Interactive Media and Game Design — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 16:27:27 +0000

[...] Video Channel « ARGs Uncovered [...]

Comment on All the World a Game? by ARGs Uncovered « Digital Worlds - Interactive Media and Game Design

ARGs Uncovered « Digital Worlds - Interactive Media and Game Design — Sun, 27 Apr 2008 12:47:36 +0000

[...] Published April 27, 2008 Alternate Reality Games , GM Free , Info skills In All the World a Game? In introduced the idea of alternate reality games (ARGs) that merge fictional game world events [...]

Comment on Mapping plotlines…and coping with interactivity… by Tony Hirst

Tony Hirst — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 20:49:44 +0000

Here’s a short additional reading list on the use of story in game design.

“What Every Game Developer Needs to Know about Story” [ http://www.gamasutra.com/features/20050727/sutherland_01.shtml ] - an article that describes the importance of story in game design, along with a consideration of the basic structures of stories.

“The Seven Basic Plots” [ http://onlyagame.typepad.com/only_a_game/2005/10/the_seven_basic.html ] - a review of Christopher Booker’s book ‘The Seven Basic Plots’ that describes the seven archetypal stories identified in the book.

[via http://del.icio.us/truna ]