A ETC project during the fall 2010 semester at the ETC-SV campus has been featured on CMU's web site. The ETC team, Coco & Co worked on a game that focused on cross- cultural communication and collaboration through play, and provided a shared space for players to discover each other, progress together, and learn about each new person they meet.
This was the initial concept of WAY, a gaming experience with no shared spoken language.
The idea was developed by a team of students at Carnegie Mellon University's Entertainment Technology Center (ETC) to encourage cross-cultural communication and collaboration through play.
With their new online cooperative game WAY, strangers rely on each other to help solve puzzles, and interact via shared virtual body language.
"You and your mysterious partner journey from opposite ends of the earth, traveling toward each other while overcoming the obstacles that separate you," explained Walt Destler (CMU'11), co-programmer and co-designer.
"You each see the world differently, and, at times, one of you will know something about the world that the other does not — such as the location of an invisible trap or where to jump next — and so you must share this knowledge to progress."
To read more of the article on CMU's web page, click here.
At the end of the semester the team, Chris Bell ('11), Cynthia Jang ('11), Hugo Shih ('11), Katherine Rubinstein ('11), Walt Dessler ('11) and Paulwei Wang ('11), submitted the game The Way was submitted to many game competitions and won the Student Showcase and was a Nuovo Finalist at the Independent Games Festival as well as the Developers Choice award at Indicade.
Congratulations to Chris, Cynthia, Hugo, Katherine, Walk and Paulwei
ETC Press is excited to announce the release of the second issue of
Well Played: a journal on video games, value and meaning
http://www.etc.cmu.edu/etcpress/content/volume-1-number-2
BioShock and Portal: A Discussion of Poetics Yotam Haimsberg
We should be heroes… A case study of community building as a dominant strategy Simon Egenfeldt-Nielsen
Cracking the Code: Untangling Game Structure, Properties and Player Experience Elizabeth Goins
A Life in Baseball, Digital and Otherwise Abraham Stein
The Well Played Journal is a forum for in-depth close readings of video games that parse out the various meanings to be found in the experience of playing a game. It is a reviewed journal open to submissions that will be released on a regular basis.
Contributors are encouraged to analyze sequences in a game in detail in order to illustrate and interpret how the various components of a game can come together to create a fulfilling playing experience unique to this medium. Through contributors, the journal will provide a variety of perspectives on the value of games.
The goal of the journal is to continue developing and defining a literacy of games as well as a sense of their value as an experience. Video games are a complex medium that merits careful interpretation and insightful analysis. By inviting contributors to look closely at video games and the experience of playing them, we hope to expand the discussion, and show how games are well played in a variety of ways.
For more information, and to purchase or download a copy, visit:
http://www.etc.cmu.edu/etcpress/
http://www.etc.cmu.edu/etcpress/wellplayed
The ETC Press is an academic and open-source publishing imprint that distributes its work in print, electronic and digital form. Inviting readers to contribute to and create versions of each publication, ETC Press fosters a community of collaborative authorship and dialogue across media. ETC Press represents an experiment and an evolution in publishing, bridging virtual and physical media to redefine the future of publication.
All submissions and questions should be sent to:
drew ( at ) andrew ( dot ) cmu ( dot ) edu
For formatting guidelines, see:
http://www.etc.cmu.edu/etcpress/files/WellPlayed-Guidelines.pdf.
Twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/etcwellplayed
ISSN 2164-344X (Print) ISSN 2164-3458 (Online)
Good luck to Mike Honeck, Andy Ping Li, and Franz Mendonsa who travel to Los Angeles this week to present their work to Executives at Walt Disney Imagineering in the ImagiNations Design Competition Finals.
CMU grads put imagination on the moon in Disney competition
By Craig Smith, PITTSBURGH TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Sunday, January 29, 2012
Three Carnegie Mellon University grads who as kids dreamt of becoming astronauts will get the chance to lead an expedition on the moon, sort of.
Ping Li, Franz Mendonsa and Michael Honeck will be in Glendale, Calif., this week to pitch their concept of what life on the moon in 3011 would be like to a roomful of judges as part of Walt Disney Imagineering's 21st ImagiNations Design competition.
Read more:
http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/news/pittsburgh/s_778952....
The Fred Rogers Center for Early Learning and Children's Media at Saint Vincent College has launched Out-A-Bout, a new iPhone app for children between the ages of 3 and 5 to encourage physical activity, outdoor play, early literacy and parent-child interaction. The app, developed in part by the Entertainment Technology Center, is the first in a series of digital media apps being created through the Early Career Fellows program.
To see the ETC project Mad-Dash that launched Out-A-Bout, click here.
The following email was recently sent from ETC Alum Greg Lindley (06)
Hi All,
I apologize for this shameless plug.
My company and product, Peel, was recently selected as a finalist for the IxDA Awards. Today, they opened up a gallery of shortlisted projects for the People's Choice Award.
I'd really appreciate it if you could do the following to support us:
1) Visit http://awards.ixda.org/entry/2012/peel and vote for Peel. You'll be asked to sign in. I know it's a pain, but it takes just a few seconds. Please don't let that get in your way.
2) Once you've voted, please click on the buttons to Tweet, Like on Facebook, or +1. Here's a sample tweet if you need some inspiration:
I voted for @PeelTV in the @IxDAwards People’s Choice. Please register, vote, Tweet, Like, and +1! http://awards.ixda.org/entry/2012/peel
3) Go to your Facebook page, and post an update encouraging your friends to do the same.
Winners will be announced on February 3rd.
Thanks very much.
Good Luck Greg!
