By: Flynn De Marco

I must admit that when I agreed to cover the Living Game Worlds symposium at Georgia Tech I had no idea what I was getting myself into. As I came in, I was surprised to see a few people I knew milling about in the crowd so I made my greetings and went to scout out a place to ensconce myself. I hadn't been in an educational setting in many years, yet I immediately found myself reverting back to old ways - taking a seat at the back of the room so I could take copious notes yet still be away from the ever-watchful eye of the symposium moderator.

As I settled in, I looked around at a rather diverse crowd. Some groups of college students, some older people, and a scattering of press folk. All-in-all a nice crowd of about 100 or so. The event kicked off with a keynote speech by Katie Salen, the Executive Director of the Gamelab Institute of Play and an Associate Professor of Design and Technology at Parson's School of Design. She described games as a collaborative effort between the designer, publisher, content specialists and players - and made the point that while games may seem like a mindless form of entertainment to some, they are in fact direct representations of aspects of the real world. For instance: the capitalism of Animal Crossing; the social networking of MMOs; and the chance to become a rock star in Guitar Hero.

Ian Bogost is someone I had always wanted to hear speak. I didn't get to see him at GDC so this was the perfect opportunity for me to see what I had missed. Ian's Persuasive Games produces flash games based on current events and news stories. He spoke of these "news games" as a cross between simulations and political cartoons. His games Oil God, Ecoli Spinach Food safety game and Extreme Christmas Shopping all spoke to pertinent topics of their time. But what makes a really good "news game"? I'm sure you all remember the myriad "Zidane Headbutt Games" that appeared everywhere after the famous incident at the 2006 World Cup. These "whack-a-mole" type games are common on the internet and spring up regularly to put a spin on various topics; these are news games in their simplest form. What's missing from these simpler versions, however, is an editorial element, something that Bogost feels is important. Timeliness is also a factor. These games must be current to bring their message across. His games take about two weeks to make and the result is a topical game that can be picked up and completed quickly, while still delivering an important message.

One of the more interesting games discussed in this section was Tactical Iraqi, a tactical language-learning and training program developed for the U.S. military by Tactical Language Training LLC. Created in answer to the lack of American Arabic speakers in the combat environment, Tactical Iraqi includes a speech-enabled arcade-style game, a skill-building game that teaches language, social interactions and cultural details, and two mission-based games. The mission-based games are a bit different than what you might imagine: no weapons are used at all and the player/student must accomplish such tasks as rebuilding a water plant with the Shiites and rebuilding a girl's school using only language and gestures.

The next panel delved into something I had been looking forward to since I signed on to cover this event, a discussion of one of the biggest game controversies of last year - the pulling of Super Columbine Massacre RPG from the Slamdance Guerilla Game Competition. I had read all about the incident and followed it closely when it was happening, but I was anxious to hear the story directly from the source. I was also secretly hoping for some kind of wrestling match and hair pulling, but unfortunately, it was not to be.

Sam Roberts of Slamdance was on hand to give his side of the story, which was a mixture of policy and apology. He stated that the festival itself has no policy against edgy content but that the game was pulled because it was a threat to the Slamdance Festival as a whole. With corporate sponsors threatening to pull their sponsorships, the decision had to be made to either pull the game or face closing Slamdance's doors permanently. In its current form, Slamdance is not inherently a game competition, it is an independent Film Festival with a game competition tacked on. Roberts believes that if it had been purely a game related event, an issue would have never even been raised.

On the other side of this debate was Tracy Fullerton, Assistant Professor in the Interactive Media Division of the USC School of Cinematic Arts where she serves as Co-Director of the Electronic Arts game Innovation Lab. Tracy was the faculty advisor for Jenova Chen's amazing Fl0w, which was eventually pulled from Slamdance when the UC program yanked its sponsorship from the competition. In response to the "pull the game or close the doors" issue, Tracy stands firm. She feels that by protecting the existence of the show, Slamdance invalidated their mission as a whole.

In the end, Roberts admitted that the decision was perhaps not the best one and that the handling of the whole situation was definitely botched. Because of this, a new policy has been instituted wherein if the judges choose to include a game with questionable content into the competition, that particular game will get a private showing for interested game industry people, so it can be appreciated by people who really understand the medium.

After a delectable catered lunch of watercress finger sandwiches , tea and petit fours, Tracy Fullerton returned to kick off the second half with a sort of "Mini Keynote" on The Game Mechanics of Reality. Game mechanics, she explained, are the building blocks used to put games together and each of the genres of gaming has their own particular groupings of game mechanics that define them. Then Tracy let us in on one of the dirty little secrets of game design - Most designers don't design new game mechanics, instead choosing to work with known quantities and genres.

When trying to create a game based on real life events or dealing with current topics in a serious way, traditional game mechanics can't always effectively convey the artist's point of view; so the creators take those common game mechanics and twist them to suit their needs. In Tracy's opinion, creating original game mechanics like this is the most effective way to deal with the new issues that are popping up every day in the world of game design.

One of the people I had seen wandering around in the lobby earlier was my friend Mathew Weiss. I knew he worked on games, but I didn't really know a lot of the details, so I was very interested to see that he was speaking here. Matt, working with MIT, has created an educational game called Colonial Williamsburg Revolution. It's based on the Neverwinter Nights game engine and focuses on events surrounding the American Revolution. NWN models were skinned with new faces and Colonial costumes, but the basic game mechanics remained. One of the things he found lacking, however, was what Matt called a "knowledge ecosystem." In many games if you kill someone in a room and then walk outside, other NPCs will already be aware of the killing. Obviously, this is not how things work in the real world. So to further create a sense of realism, they created a game mechanic in which knowledge passes between NPCs just as it would spread among people in the real world. Once again, a new game mechanic is built on to an existing game engine to help the creator more effectively communicate his message.

Health and Environmental issues are two things you might not equate with games, but the next group of presenters used games to their advantage in a variety ways.

Virtuallybetter.com utilizes virtual reality to help drug addicted people fight the cravings for marijuana, alcohol, crack and nicotine. In the case of marijuana, a virtual pot party is created and a smell machine pumps the smells of pot and pizza in to the air to further the realism. By studying the responses to the virtual stimuli they have successfully learned how to turn off the cravings in long time drug users.

Do2Learn uses games to help educate children with various mental and emotional problems. The observe a certain group of children, such as the autistic, to discover what they respond to and then create games that cater to those needs. Many times these kids cannot be reached by conventional means so worlds must be created to accommodate them. These games can cover a range of topics from simple personal safety to more complicated social interactions.

Whyville is a free, fully realized virtual world for teens and pre-teens where players can come to play educational games and learn a bit of what it's like to live in the real world. In an effort to educate Whyville's citizens about inoculations, a virtual disease was introduced into the system. Avatars affected by the disease would start breaking out in red spots and some of the words in their chat communications would be changed to sneezes. Players were then given the opportunity to receive a vaccination to get rid of the disease. Those who didn't opt for the inoculations found themselves ostracized by other players who didn't want to "get sick" again, eventually leading them to seek the treatment.

The EcoRaft Project explores the realities of deforesting in the Costa Rica rainforests by having kids participate in restoration ecology. Portable computers or "rafts" are given to the children which can be used to insert plants and wildlife onto a barren island which lives on a stationary central computer. Every new plant and species of animal affects the island's eco system and the player must make them work together in the correct order to restore the island to its original state. Once the island has been restored the various species interact to form a thriving ecosystem.

I wish I could detail everything that I experienced at this event, but the result would have been a five page article that still wouldn't have been able to sufficiently cover everything. And now as I sit behind my desk transferring my notes from my Trapper Keeper and listening to Journey on my giant headphones, I think about how far games have come. Not too long ago I was bumping a square back and forth between two sticks and now games are teaching kids history and making social commentary on current events. Projects like the ones presented here will go a long way towards bringing the positive aspects of games into the public consciousness and hopefully one day we will see them gain the kind of respect they deserve.

Photos by Rob Felt