Group items tagged

The game is not linear, but dynamic, meaning that the user is able to begin from different starting points. The game continuously captures and reflects the user's choices and actions while she or he plays.

the macro environment is the internet, drawing on its immense resources.

Information, challenges, and new tasks can be found around the elements presenting the symptom, where the learner will be provided with knowledge about the external real-world source of the symptom or change. In most cases the learner cannot solve the problem on location and will have to travel the animated body to search for and analyze other symptoms, as well as search for specific information via the Internet or other resources in the platform surrounding the game itself.

We have been investigating the impact of anonymity provided by avatars on emotional communication and self-disclosure. In a recent study done at the Institute for Creative Technology, University of Southern California (Kang, Watt,& Gratch, 2009), researchers found that increasing the levels of anonymity from none (full visual identification), to intermediate (a graphical avatar), to full (providing no visual representation at all), had two opposing effects: it decreased the sense of emotional connection while at the same time increasing the amount of self-disclosure of intimate information that an individual was willing to share.

the overall effect of increasing anonymity is to increase the communication of intimate information.

This should promote group cohesion and honest communication, even though anonymity also somewhat decreases the emotional connection with the other group members and thus might decrease the motivational effectiveness of social interaction in a game. This is a bit of a quandary, as we would like to have both emotional connection and self-disclosure.

In 2011, we’ll start to see the first successful examples of game mechanics used for health — largely around big data streams and mobile, building off Fitbit, Nike+ GPS and other monitoring and measurement ecosystems

We’ll see the first “gamified” textbooks from publishers while federal and state governments will continue to innovate and support initiatives in education

Required and enabled concentration, Challenges that are neither too easy nor too difficult, Development of individual skills and mastery, A sense of control over personal actions within the game, Clear goals for succeeding at the game, Reception of specific feedback on individual success, Effortless immersion within the game, to the exclusion of time awareness, and Social interaction opportunities.

Achieving a balance between skill and challenge, as well as between fitness and intensity, determines the success of an exergame. The difficulty of creating these two perfect balances can help explain the wide variety of successful and unsuccessful exergames in today’s market.

a clinical case simulation game for doctors, medical students and nurses