Mr. X Mobile

Have you played the classic boardgame Scotland Yard/Mr. X.

A mobile game version is in development by the University of Bonn.

For more info (mostly in German) check out: http://qeevee.com/projects/misterx

The game sounds promising, hope I can test it soon.

Creating geotainment with teenagers

At the moment I am working on a pretty exciting project which I got funded by the City of Munich. Based on free www.gps-mission.com. I am enabling educationally disadvantaged teenagers to create, review and play geotainment.

During the two day course two groups of teenagers first scout the area to come up with riddles based on their surroundings. With these each group creates a "GPS Mission"which the other group tests and reviews.

We also discuss basics of game design and storytelling. Goal is not to have bare riddles but to decide on a story which link the places and objectives together. Nice examples groups came up with till now are a suspense secret agent story and a voyage to Harry Potters Hogwarts (with a Bus Stop standing for Platform Nine and Three Quarters).

The kids love that they can use an iPhone to play the mission and are very motivated. The geotainment aspects makes it easier for the kids to be creative as we are working not only in virtual but also real space and they can basically "touch" the riddles. One challenging aspect of the concept is that I only have a limited amount of iPhones and therefore don't have a smart phone per kid. In a week I will try the project with 5 kids per iPhone which I think is the upper limit.

I would like to thank some people who helped to get the project to where it is now:

• Mobile learning expert Chris Nash with whom I had an inspiring discussion in London
• Marike Schlattmann from Lern-welten is working with me on the project.
• and last but not least the City of Munich and Netzwerk Inter@ktiv which are open for innovative media education projects.

"Silver Gaming" in Germany

Videogames are more and more becoming a regular medium. Like older mediums (books, TV) they are increasingly being used by a variety of people (across gender and age barriers) for various different means (e.g. entertainment, learning). As part of this process different specialized markets emerge (this was one of the topics of my diploma thesis).

On the 25th of January 2010 the first congress about gamers exceeding the age of 50 took place in Germany. As project manager for the conference I was very happy we hit a nerve with the topic which we labelled "Silver Gaming" (we were sold out :-) . The next conference will most likely be taking place end of April in Nuremberg.

I especially liked the presentation by Nintendo. They mentioned the pressure of the strong ageing in Japan as a main reason for the development of alternative input methods for their consoles.

Other presentations included:

• Roland Weiniger (SpieleGilde (GamesGuild) Games Industry Association): Serious Games - A huge growth area for the cultural industry.
• Prof. Dr. Karl-Werner Jäger (Committee of Standard Practice (ANP) in DIN registered association (e.V)): Standard framework for the development and organization of user interfaces of interactive systems and games
• Guido Hunke (A.GE Bodensee agency for generational marketing, Ravensburg) and others: Games in the senior and generational marketing area
• Hermann Beißer (Head of the Käthe-Reichert-Nursing Home Workers' Welfare Association (AWO) Nuremberg): Video games in assisted living and nursing homes
• Prof. Dr. Helmut Herold, Prof. Ethelbert Hörmann, (Ohm-University Nuremberg): genesis – “nuts and bolts “ promotion/advancement with computer games

A first summary of the findings of the congress in German can be found in this press release. A more detailed documentation will be released on the website of the congress in the future.

If you are interested in the topic but Nuremberg is to far, you can meet many of the participants of the conference in the Xing (~German LinkedIn) Silver Gaming group.