Adam Creighton, Computer and Video Gaming

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Monday, September 17, 2007

Serious games I'd like to see: Anthropological MMO

"Serious games" are a genre of interactive entertainment designed to not "just" entertain. They should provide instructional or simulation benefits, often beyond just "edutainment" -- more along the lines of equipping users with skills they need before they actually need them in the real world.

Companies like Maryland-based BreakAway Games and Austin-based Online Alchemy provide serious games (or AI for serious games) for clients such as first responders and the Armed Forces.

Other companies, like Total Immersion Software (also based in Austin), provide game engines for creating serious games in addition to mass-consumption games.

Sites like Ian Bogost's Persuasive Games create games that "influence players to take action through gameplay", because games "communicate differently than other media; they not only deliver messages, but also simulate experiences. While often thought to be just a leisure activity, games can also become rhetorical tools."

So, here's a game I'd like to see -- an anthropological Massively Multiplayer Online game.

I'm calling it AnthopoMMO(TM) (partially because it's apropos; partially because it makes me grin).

Below is basically a formal concept document for the title:

CONCEPT:

Platform:
PC (at least)

Target Demographic:
Male/Female 14-55
Students and Academics

High Concept:
World of Warcraft meets the Mayans. And the Aztecs. And the Inuits. And the Aka. And ...

Details:
The game will leverage research and assets from partner universities and secondary education sites around the world to create a free-roaming massively multiplayer online (MMO) game. Rather than just traditional MMO fighting (or "grinding"), the game will let you pick a member of included tribes, peoples, and cultures to grow within your culture. You also be able to explore other cultures -- including your impact on those other cultures. In this sense, the game would be more of a "World" MMO, as opposed to a "Quest" or "Player-versus-Player" (PvP) MMO. However, it would have elements of all of those types of MMOs.

Where you start out in the game depends on what people you choose, and your purpose in the game.

The game will have three avenues for exploration:

Leveling up within your chosen people (leveling and interaction is restricted to those within your chosen cultural and geographical restrictions).
Interacting with other groups, peoples, or tribes (creating a powerful "what if" simulator) for academic research and exploration.
Spectator mode for "untouched" peoples (largely for research and observation).

The goal is to work your way through the "ranks" of your chosen society, but that may include testing interactions in a simulation manner to model possible inter- or extra-societal impacts.

Every group, tribe, people group would have two versions. The first is a "Control Group" that would be untouched by MMO players, but can be visited in a non-impacting way in a "spectator" mode (popularized by some shooter-style video games). The second group would be an "open" group that could be used for likely interactions (say, the Aka hunter-gatherers visiting Ngandu farmers), and unlikely interactions (the an Aka tribes member mixing with the Inuits).

Each playable character will have personality and attributes of its own, attributable to the chosen people group. Models will be "balanced" based on anthropological input to take advantage of their culture and physicality, while constrained by real-world physics, weather, climate, terrain, and the like.

Play modes are to be determined, but may include versus AI (NPC), online adversarial, online co-operative, and "online exploratory" (for joint research of "Control Groups"). Player models are marginally customizable, depending on the chosen people. Customization may be randomized to a simplified subset of inputs.

Art style is in keeping with 3D simulation MMOs, and more realistic, as opposed to cartoony or characterized.

Input can be provided and updated by top-tier anthropological and related disciplinary programs (archeology, etc.) throughout the world. These organizations would be recognized through formal partnerships, to constrain input and development.

I'm pretty intrigued by this idea, and if anyone else out there is, too, let me know. We can address a quick non-disclosure agreement, and I can share a somewhat lengthier formal Proposal Document.

Labels: game design, serious games