Ajax Hacks

Just got a copy of the book Ajax Hacks for review and it is awesome. I hope to definitely upgrade the coding in the game I'm working on and perhaps add some other cool functionality.

Like all the Hacks series of books, this one has loads of codes and spiffy projects to try. The only problem is finding enough time to try them all.

Game Maker

Some nifty (free!) software that I have been looking at is called Game Maker and (big surprise) you make games with it. It is fairly easy to use, at least at the admittedly easy tasks I'm attempting (I'm sure the learning curve will steepen quickly if I try to more than implement pong) and there seems to be a large user community that can help with support.

This may be another possible method of making an info lit game. Further reports after I have a chance to fiddle around with it some more.

Current Projects

I am currently working on an online board game in the style of Trivial Pursuit. I am hoping it will prove a useful addition to our current instructional program. The idea is that 2 to 4 players can play, answering questions about various aspects of information literacy. It is written using Ajax, meaning Javascript and XML.

After that, I would like to develop a sort of scavenger hunt game in some sort of virtual space like Active Worlds. The idea here would be to have students exercise various information literacy skills in order to solve problems in-game.

Newest Information Today

The June 2006 Information Today is out and there is an article entitled 'Gaming: The Next Hot Technology for Libraries?' by Donald T. Hawkins and Barbara Brynko, which is a good read. It is also where I learned about the Virtual Bibliographic Instruction world that Mark Puterbaugh has created.

Football fever!

Been doing almost nothing except watching the world cup really. Some fairly good matches and some fairly dull ones but its great fun. I love watching good teams play, but it does bug me when commentators say this game or that game will be a walk over; all the teams had to fight to get to the world cup in the first place, so they're all pretty good. Ghana proved that yesterday by beating the Czech's, it was a game that everyone assumed would be a dull walkover by the Czech's.

I also discovered my projector takes in a HiDef signal! And although its sampled down, still means I can a truly outstanding picture! The projector does 960x540, so the 1920x1080 progressive image is sampled down, but boy its cool. So I've stolen the Cable TV box from the Living room and put it beside the projector and been living in HiDef Heaven!! I wonder what a proper 1920x1080 image looks like once its been projected onto an 8foot screen...

Eastern PA's VBI

A cryptic title, yes. But I have been exploring the VBI (Virtual Bibliographic Instruction) world created by Mark Puterbaugh at Eastern University in Pennsylvania. Does that make it clearer?

This is amazing. The VBI uses the software and services of Active Worlds, to create a virtual reality world in which students can access databases, the catalog, virtual reference, and also take a virtual tour of the library.

You can be a virtual tourist in Active Worlds and take a spin around VBI yourself. You just need to download the Active Worlds browser.

You can also see a picture of VBI here and also read a little bit more about the project here.

I can't wait to start building a virtual library for Jackson Library.

Game Culture & Technology Lab

Found this great website, the Game Culture & Technology Lab, hosted by the School of the Arts at the University of California-Irvine. The site has a wiki, blog, lists of useful resources, and games. Registering gets you access to a great deal of content, with an interesting twist. You are ranked according to how much effort you put into helping to develop the site.

Points are assigned for various activites that you can do on the site, including suggesting websites to be added, contributing to the wiki, tagging, commenting, and playing games! You can even get negative points if you do badly at the games.

I've signed up and am at Slacker status. This is such a great site, I hope to improve my ranking.

First communion...

Its my daughters first holy communion on Sunday, and she'd been doing lots of classes and leassons in preperation for it. My mum had been so looking forward to this last year just before she passed away, so it'll be an odd happy and sad day for us all. We still haven't gotten my mums estate sorted out, but I have no idea how long these things take really. I promised my Gran that mum will pay for the dress Rebecca will be wearing since it meant a lot to mum to be the one to buy it. Frances got a chain from my mums collection for becca to wear on Sunday, so thats nice.

Its funny how we keep trying to include the ones we've lost in our lives, I'm not sure if its out of loss or knowing that she's up there watching and allowing her to take part in some small way. I suspect the latter. It's one of the reasons I don't feel the need to go to the grave very much, I feel like she'd not there, but is watching from somewhere else. When Nicholas was Christened, out of chance we ended up using a white scarf of my mums as well... I know lots of people would say thats just chance, but I don't think any of us see that.

Social Impact Games

Another nifty website I just found is called Social Impact Games. They have an index to over 200 'serious' games, divided up by category. The Education and Learning section has 37 games teaching a variety of topics, including Computer Science, Management, Physics, Chemistry, and others. There is also an extensive bibliography. I imagine I'll be spending a lot of time at this site.

Serious Games Source

The Serious Games Summit people have launched a website dedicated to building up the serious games community, called Serious Games Source. It includes message boards, a job board, and lots of extras. Unfortunately, much of the good content will require a paid membership.

Also, don't forget the Serious Games Summit is October 30-31 in Washington, D.C.

Future Play 2006

Found a new conference, called Future Play 2006. It will be held October 10-12 in Ontario, Canada. They are accepting paper submissions through July 28, poster submissions through August 18, and GAME submissions through September 8.

Maybe, just maybe, I could have a game put together to submit by then!

Back to normal.....almost.

I've just about recovered now, so I've been back at work adding to the latest Demo for Dave. Russell's been having a ball adding really sad effects, but it's all adding up to something that looks fairly neat. I'd love to see this for the first time again because I don't really see anything special most of the time. M ost folk seem to think it looks amazing, but I have to admit, I just don't see it. It looks cool, but not quite as amazing as everyone makes out... I can't tell if they really do think that, or are just being nice.

I did buy the large climbing frame thing for the kids, and I've spent most of the week building the damn thing. I'm almost done, I've just got the swings to add. Although, that looks like a job in itself. Still, Joseph was out playing on it tonight and had great fun, so I hope this will keep them out and help keep them active. When I was their age, I was never in the house, I was always out playing...I don't want them to become too lazy this early on - I've no idea what that'll do to them later in life when they have no choice in the matter....