In March we launched a ten-week episodic adventure game – Battle for Planet Science. The online game was designed to engage young people and develop their interest in the different aspects of Science. The game delivers over half an hour of science driven fun, combining clever panoramic visual and problem solving gameplay to create an enjoyable educational experience.

Released alongside a ‘Design a Superhero and Villians’ Schools competition, all characters were designed by Pupils and the winners redrawn by a professional comic book artist. The game was designed to match the comic book theme and if you complete the game and you’ll even be able to print your own comic book based on your in game choices.

We developed Battle for Planet Science using Adobe Flash. We believed it to be an excellent game and it appears Adobe agree. Battle for Planet Super Powers made it to the semi-finals of the Adobe Max 2009 awards. Though it’s a shame we didn’t make it to the final, recognition in such a high profile award shows we are making massive leaps in the quality of our development.

Try the game out on Planet-Science (www.planet-science.com/psp/battleforps/psp.html) and let us know your opinion.

The quality of the ideas was amazing, they really knew about technology including quite modern advances such as Bluetooth 3 and Active RFID. Additionally, some groups had functional prototype to demonstrate the software components of their ideas. Even the Graphical Design work was also far beyond what I had expected for that age group; I would be happy with them designing some of our marketing materials!

In the evening everyone was given a chance to relax with a quiz and I’m proud to say that my team won BOTH ROUNDS :-) but unfortunately I can’t say it was because me. My general knowledge has much room for improvement but fortunately they made up for my weaknesses.

On the Second day the judging began with each team delivering a 20 minutes pitch and they were all excellent: well structured, well delivered and covering all the key points – better than many pitches I have seen by real businesses. After some difficult judging the winners were selected and prizes awarded (laptops, a trip to Microsoft, and a trip to BT). Regardless of which group won, I honestly believe they all have bright careers ahead of them and I think the future is in good hands.

It was quite interesting for me to look back from the path I’ve taken all the way from A-level to being involved in the serious games industry. Children have a much wider range of subject material that’s more related to computer games then when I was in school and the college even have software such as 3Ds Max and Adobe After Effects installed for the student to use. It is very impressive to think that when they coming out of the college and into university, they will be more than ready for the steep learning curve ahead. I wish I had 3Ds Max when I was in school. 

During the workshops we introduced the group to the games industry, some of the games we have made, and gave them a general insight in to how we, and the games industry work. The pupils were then introduced to the Microsoft platform PopFly, which is a great interface to learn the basic logic and behaviors simple games have. After playing some of the games and ripping them apart, the pupils then looked at planning and creating their own game using the platform.

The final session was spent polishing the game, and talking about how publishing and marketing works in the industry with some real life examples of our games. The pupils seemed to really enjoyed the sessions and the school plans to introduce similar workshops to more pupils in the future.

GameHorizon Conference 09

 The North’s premier games development conference returned this year with some more insights into the future of the games industry. Technology wise, Andrew Oliver of Blitz Games demonstrated their developments into stereoscopic gaming with a Ninja themed platform game; unfortunately it requires you to wear polarised glasses but worry not 3D TVs should be available in a couple of years.

We were treated to demos of APB from Realtime Worlds and Guillaume de Fondaumiere of Quantic Dream demonstrated the amazing looking Heavy Rain for the PS3. So a lot of great insights into traditional gaming but  the key focus of the conference was the advancements in online/download markets including Facebook and the iPhone – online/download is really allowing smaller developers to break into the games market.

What Comes Next?

Channel 4 Education’s summer conference opening with a fantastic keynote from Zenna Atkins, who you would almost not believe was the Chair of OFSTED. Zenna had an excellent insight into the challenges faced by the UK education system and the need for teachers and people in education to just be brave and innovate. 

Shaun Bailey, Mary Sharpe and Yvonne Roberts gave a great panel, demonstrating the need for more creative and digital solutions to help level the educational playing field especially for those from low income families.

Matt Locke & Alice Tayloralso demonstrated the great projects they have been working on over the past year including BattleFront and Routes. A great conference and no doubt we’ll see some more great projects from Channel 4 next year.

Showcomotion

I returned to the Showcomotion conference for the second year after realising it is about so much more than just TV. Showcomotion is a children’s media conference bringing together people from all sections of children’s media (TV, web, games, etc) and giving them a platform to share ideas. Peter Salmon the newly appointed head of BBC North opened the conference, talking about his passion for the North and excitement about the BBC move to Salford. The conference then continued for 2 days of exciting talks and rather than reinvent the wheel you can check out some great blog posts about on the Showcomotion website.

I believe that is all the conference I will be attending this Summer, so it’s back to the office to begin work on an exciting new project… more news soon.

video games can stimulate learning of facts and skills such as strategic thinking, creativity, cooperation and innovative thinking, which are important skills in the information society.

The report recommended schools and parents to take an interest in games and consider them as for educational purposes. With so much being learned from just engaging with games, it really highlights the potential for focusing them further on specific learning needs.

Hopefully this will make game based learning even more mainstream!

Read an article on the guardian ( http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2009/feb/12/computer-games-eu-study )