Ninjacational - Bad ass name for our future game company!

Just soak in all the corny goodness of Ninjacational - Ninja + Educational.  Basically a name for the type of games we want to make.  Both fun and deceptively educational.  Maybe the tagline could be "Did I just learn something?" or "You just got Ninjacaded!"

Brain Seeds just launched on Kickstarter.com

BIG NEWS!

We just launched our Brain Seeds project Kickstarter.com and now we have to start asking for donations and backers.

If you would like to support use with Brain Seeds you can donate through Kickstarter at

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/964679488/brain-seeds-seed-learn-win

We're shooting to raise $1000 by February 20th and I'm confident we can do it.

Brain Seeds Screen Shots

Here's some Brain Seeds screen shots to feast your eyes on

Brain Seeds is alive and kicking (at least in alpha-ish form)

Quite a while since I've posted, but quite a bit happened this past half a year.

Here's a short recap of the awesome-ness that is Gamers of Action and Brain Seeds

1) Started the project using Flash and created an ugly artless prototype that functioned.

2) Hired two awesome art/animation interns that worked with Kat, David, Sophia and I to get the game all arted up and looking good. They did an amazing job over the 2.5 month summer internship.

3) David made some cool music for the game and is still working on some more cool stuff so we can add more variety.

4) Integrated all the art/animation/music into the game and added more functionality that users usually take for granted like emailing lost passwords, emailing prize notifications, tool tips and dynamic sponsor information loading.

5) The game is now ready to be tested on a much larger scale so I can find out how our web server turned game server actually holds up. I'm hoping we don't loss too many PHP requests because if we do I might have to migrate everything over to a dedicated game server which is going to be quite costly.

Now after all that technical hype you can now check out the alpha-ish version of the game at

http://www.gamersofaction.org/Games/BrainSeeds/BrainSeeds.html

If you're reading this post and would be like to be part of the beta test please let me know at tim@gamersofaction.org or join our Gamers of Action facebook group.

Shit like this makes me really sad

Reading this article about how Obama and his administration are now backing out of releasing the latest batch of Abu Ghraib and other US detainee prisons torture photos, makes me really sad.  To think that our country has sunk to such disgusting and evil acts in OUR name.  Those photos really need to be released so the truth has a chance to come out and the perpetrators are brought to justice, both those who commited the torture and those who ordered them.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/5395830/Abu-Ghraib-abuse-photos-show-rape.html

As a gamer developer, my first instinct would be to make a game (not even sure that's the right word to use anymore) about this, but I'm not sure the general public would be ready for something like that which is extremely sad.  

Games are not being used to their full potential as a medium for education and critical thinking and honest reflection.  In my mind, if you can write a book about it or make a movie about it, there is no reason a game could not be made about it.

Brains Seeds For the Win

After some friend polling and some more discussion we've finally decided to use Brain Seeds for the game.

O yeah!!!  I finally got a name that I can consistently use in my game code :)

The game tech is about 80% done at this point so we're actually interviewing interns in a couple weeks for the Flash artist position.  It's time to make our game look cool cuz right now it's totally programmer art-ed up which looks like crap.

I'm hoping the interviews go well and we'll have an artist on the team by mid June.  It's pretty weird having people take our little venture seriously because in my mind it always seems like just my pet project, but I'm happy that it's finally growing into something more serious yet more useful and concrete as well.

Factoids?

It looks like we're finally close to having a actual game title for our community quiz.

Right now the currently reigning title is Factoids and the second favorite is Brain Seeds.

Both are cool names in my opinion, each with it's own strengths.  Factoids has a catchy name that embodies the gameplay, while Brain Seeds has a more academic(some might say nerdy), yet educational vibe similar to the Brain Age series.

Once we finalize the name we'll be choosing an art direction which will be important going forward as we unveil the game and start recruiting community members.

On the tech side of things, things are progressing nicely.  I didn't realize how much database and php programming would be required to keep track of all the player data.  I've got a good handle on it now so I'm just finalizing a lot of the little database requirements that pop up when I'm implementing some new feature.

What I really need to lock down is the actual size of the game screen because right now its 800x600 but I'm running out of screen real estate especially when images and movies are used.

I'll have to figure out something...

O yeah I've been following the upcoming game Six Days In Fallejah because I'm thinking that my future company would want to do something similar except less American centric.  I think putting the player in the shoes of an Iraqi citzen during the battle would be a compelling way of showing the audience what it feels like to be a helpless citizen caught between two forces who have been instructed to conduct the battle assuming you the normal citizen is acceptable collateral damage.