Handy Vandal's Almanac

University students in Guelph, Ontario will be showcasing their original games based on math and science:

University of Guelph engineering students have designed games for children and teenagers aimed at making math and science fun.

Area students will be able to test out 65 new games at the Guelph Civic Museum Oct. 18-29 [2010]. More than 300 students from Guelph elementary and high schools have signed up to visit the game displays. Members of the public are welcome to drop in, particularly Oct. 23 and 24.

The game design project is part of a first-year engineering design course on campus.

“This is the first year we have done this, and I am very impressed with the games that have been designed,” said engineering professor Khosrow Farahbakhsh, who teaches the course along with engineering professor David Lubitz. “The students all came up with original ideas.”

The only rule: no videogames. Most are board games, card games or another hands-on activity. Math and science components match curriculum levels between Grades 1 and 10.

“We chose children’s games because designing games is a sophisticated process that incorporates all aspects of design from sketching the design and building the toy to writing the game instructions and creating the box the toy comes in,” said Farahbakhsh. “Plus, games are something that all the students are familiar with.”

– Canada Views

This looks interesting:

“There is a single rule in the game, but it needs to be broken. There is a goal in the game, but when you reach it you die ….”

Frankfurt, Germany, 15 October 2010

During a glitzy ceremony at the Congress Center in Frankfurt, Belgian independent games developer Tale of Tales were awarded the Advancement Prize for Innovative Game Design by the European Innovative Games Award 2010 for their moody and mysterious Red Ridinghood-inspired exploration game The Path.

The Path turns game design conventions upside down. There is a single rule in the game, but it needs to be broken. There is a goal in the game, but when you reach it you die. There are many objects to be found in the large open environment of the game, but you need to let go of the avatar to interact. There’s 144 flowers that can be collected but no reward for doing so. And in the last part of the game, you can only move forward or stop. There are no options, no “meaningful choices”.

– Gamasutra

The Path story: http://grandmothers-house.net

The Path trailer: http://ThePath-game.com

The Path main website: http://Tale-of-Tales.com/ThePath

“The people of Bogota were more concerned about social disapproval than traffic fines, and so mimes [were hired] to playfully reproach drivers that crossed red lights …”

Traffic miming — the use of mimes to help calm and direct big-city traffic — is a kind of game design, and might prove a source of inspiration to game designers:

In 1995, the traffic in Bogota, Colombia, was so chaotic that drivers had long since given up obeying the rules of the road, resulting in a disorderly free-for-all that was a major impediment to the city’s economy. The recently elected mayor of the city, who came to prominence after dropping his trousers to silence a hall of rioting students, decided on a creative solution to this similarly vexing problem: a troop of mimes.

Antanas Mockus realised that the people of Bogota were more concerned about social disapproval than traffic fines, and so hired mimes to playfully reproach drivers that crossed red lights, blocked junctions and ignored pedestrian crossings. One cannot police by mimes alone and in a further measure to address driving behaviour, the mayor’s office brought in flashcards to allow social feedback. Each citizen was given a red card to signal to someone that their driving was poor and a white card to signal that the person who been particularly courteous or considerate.

– Mind Hacks

Via Boing Boing. This dates back to 2004 … I’m digging through old bookmarks, picking out a few favorites.

A giant elevated bus that drives above cars — a tunnel on wheels — too cool not to be in a game!

It’s for real; the Chinese are building it:

The idea is to make use of the space between regular-size cars and bridges, thus saving construction costs as well as minimizing congestion impact by allowing cars to drive underneath these jumbo buses.

– Richard Lai @ Engadget.com

Awesome!

Via Slashdot.

“Generally speaking, there are three types of bosses that appear in games, the cute-type, abominable-type and fantasy-type.”
– Ying Shi

Multiplayer Online Games Directory recently published an interview with Ying Shi, an illustrator working for ChangYou on such projects as Tian Long Ba Bu (”The most powerful martial arts experience of your MMO life.”)

MPOGD: How many concepts do you go through to get to the right one when developing the characters?

YS: We can use our own ideas to create an image, but if we want the person or player to like what they see, then we need to take some time to think about what it is we want to design. Generally speaking, there are three types of bosses that appear in games, the cute-type, abominable-type and fantasy-type. These are factors to think about when designing and, at the same time, we need to consider the story of the boss life, where does he/she come from, whats the background, the reason the boss is an enemy and how/why they became the way they are.

MPOGD: TLBB is widely known for its authenticity to the book (Tian Long Ba Bu). What key ideas and features did you take from the book in order to create what we see today?

YS: Its important to bear in mind that the game has a genuine ancient Chinese martial arts feel to it and so highlighted areas such as the 9 nine different classes, the cities, the skills etc. are very influential. Weve tried to maintain a genuine feel to the book also, hence why the NPCs are named after characters in the original work of Louis Cha.

- Multiplayer Online Games Directory

For more about the classes:
http://tlbb.eu.changyou.com/gameguide/Classes.shtml