Back from NASAGA

My experience at NASAGA last week was incredible. I have never experienced such an intellectually-stimulating two and a half days, nor have I ever enjoyed meeting new people as much. Perhaps because this was one of the smaller NASAGA conferences as far as attendance numbers, I got an opportunity to have a meaningful one-on-one conversation with nearly every other attendee. This is normally difficult for me as I am very shy, but the conference is designed to enhance participation and encourage communication, both on a professional and personal level. And while at other conferences I am impressed with some sessions/people and feel others are less than impressive, every session was well worth the time. Indeed, I usually wanted to be at multiple sessions at once, so the chance to talk with others afterwards meant I got a taste of the sessions I couldn’t go to. I really can't rave about it enough.

I got a ton of ideas. A few I will share here include:

• Games are an experience more than a thing
• Games should strive to empower players
• Debriefing is CRITICAL
• Collective intelligence is infinitely better than individual intelligence
• We should strive to promote oxytocin (the cuddle hormone) in the brain, not cortisol (anger, stress hormone)
• Got some ideas for pirating other people's games for work purposes

More to come as I continue to make sense of what I learned there.

Chronicle of Higher Education Post

ProfHacker's blog, part of the Chronicle of Higher Education has an interesting post today on games in the classroom. It's just the first part of a series. I look forward to the related upcoming posts. I also want to read Kurt Squire's new book that is referenced. I've read several of his articles and he is often cited in the articles I read.

I took advantage of the last few weeks of summer to write an article on online games in libraries. I included most of the links in the previous post. I asked for more on two library listservs and got one more good one to add to the article. I have submitted it to Reference Services Review, so please cross your fingers for me!

I recently learned that I got a scholarship to NASAGA this year. That covers registration. It's just over a month away and I can't wait. I may be going with a friend from high school who teaches game studies or game design (got to figure out which!). She recently moved to the broader region and is only an hour away from the conference. It's funny (and humbling) to "see" our primitive library games through her eyes.

I think I will be presenting at NASAGA, though that's not 100% sure yet. I will also be presenting at ALA in June. Pauline Shostack spent a sabbatical looking at games in libraries (not just online games) and asked if I would co-present with her and possibly one other person. It's hard to turn down such a great opportunity, and again I'm taking advantage of a professional conference to see some family I haven't seen in a while.

Now I just have to finalize the second game for NASAGA. It's the big game for our bicentennial. I'm meeting with the Web developer at our college to see if there's a simple way to use a single online map and smart phones for teams to compete to fill in a map of the present and past buildings on campus. We've even got a student worker hunting for cornerstones and plaques that show the years the present buildings were built.

I love that I get to do such fun things at my job.

Comprehensive List?

I have created a fairly comprehensive list of the ONLINE library games mentioned in the literature and thought I would share them. I may post this list on one of the library listservs to see what I'm missing.

• Benevolent Blue from the University of Calgary
• BiblioBouts from the University of Michigan
• Bioactive from the University of Florida, partially available to non-UF players at http://www.uflib.ufl.edu/games/bioactive/
• Blood in the Stacks from Trinity University
• Defense of Hidgeon: The Plague Years from the University of Michigan, fully available at http://www.storygameproject.org/, however it links to UM’s resources which are not available to non-UF players
• Dustin King in Locked & Literate, and Searchlight from Champlain College
• Find the Future from the New York Public Library, fully available at http://game.nypl.org/
• Goblin Threat from Lycoming College, fully available at http://www.lycoming.edu/library/instruction/tutorials/plagiarismGame.html
• Head Hunt from the Ohio State University, fully available at http://library.osu.edu/headhunt/
• Information Literacy at University of North Carolina at Greensboro, fully available at http://library.uncg.edu/game/
• Library Adventure Game from Appalachian State, fully available at http://www.library.appstate.edu/elearn/libraryadventure/traingame.html?cfg=imctrain2
• Nightmare on Vine Street from the University of Tennessee
• Planet in Peril from California University of Pennsylvania, fully available at http://www.coe.iup.edu/thinkingworldsgame/
• Project Velius from the University of Alabama, materials available at http://www.projectvelius.com/, however, it links to UA’s resources which are not available to non-UF players
• Quarantined: Axl Wise and the Information Outbreak from Arizona State University
• Secret Agents in the Library from Lycoming College, partially available at http://www.lycoming.edu/library/instruction/tutorials/secretAgent.html, however it links to Lycoming’s resources which are not available to non-Lycoming players

Library ARG using Social Media sites

I just read a really good article from the University of Alabama on how they used social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, and blogs to create an alternate reality game that would require players to use the library resources. The citation is:

Battles, J., Glenn, V., & Shedd, L. (2011). Rethinking the library game: Creating an alternate reality with social media. Journal of Web Librarianship, 5(2), 114-131.

These people really did their research before designing their game and their assessment felt honest (a few articles I have read included more enthusiasm by the authors than the project seemed to merit). I hope they continue to do such projects. It sounds fascinating and I'm glad they shared their experiences with us.

Online Games

I'm working my way slowly through Casual Game Design by Gregory Trefry. I'm a big fan of Trefry after listening to his presentation at ALA Techsource on Big Games in libraries. I'm about halfway through and so far, this is a fantastic book. I'm really interested in literature that focuses specifically on casual games, and I'm not finding much in the scholarly databases. But I think these will be the most successful types of online games in libraries when ones like Michigan's and Arizona's aren't successful.

One of the most useful (and distracting!) pieces of this book are the example games that are mentioned briefly or discussed in-depth. I wanted to share the online ones, some of which I have been sampling. Some are easily available without signing up or downloading anything, but many require you to download a trial version. I will include a brief note on why it was mentioned in the book.

• Peggle- plays Bethoven's 9th Symphony at the end of each level with stars and rainbows and glitter, gives the player a feeling of accomplishment


• Bloons- fun game on computer, but doesn't translate well to mobile phones as player must use finger, which blocks view


• Plants vs. Zombies- they made the zombies almost as cute as the plants to keep the game light (I'm totally addicted to this one, it's a nice balance of strategy and action)


• 4 minutes and 33 seconds of Uniqueness- an art game where the point of the game is to just be the only person in the world playing it for that long


• Cooking Mama and Snapshot Adventures- turning everyday activities into a game


• Mystery Case Files- Huntsville - I don't remember why this was mentioned, but I enjoyed it and it has potential for a new library game


• Solitaire- first casual computer game, most widely played casual game, example of a sorting game


• What to Wear- a Facebook game that uses opinions of many players for score


• Snood, and Luxor- Matching/sorting games


• Memory- object game


• Bejeweled- object/matching game, very simple but fun


• Tetris- object game, sorting game


• Diner Dash- little role-playing (in comparison to Dungeons and Dragons, which is lots of role-playing


• Azada- lots of mini-games, different types of puzzles, has created a developed world with beautiful graphics and story


• Lego Fever- he talks about being involved in its development and how not having enough rules doesn't work


• PuzzleQuest- matching and role-playing


• Drop 7, Scrabble, Bookworm, Wurdle- sorting games

Two local game conferences coming up

I'm diving back into work after three wonderful weeks of, spent with my parents in Georgia, and 8 days in Paris/French Riviera with my former host family.

A post from Scott Nicholson on the ILI listserv is asking for proposals for the NASAGA annual conference, which is to be held in Valley Forge, PA, only 3 hours from here. I definitely plan to submit a proposal and am considering paying for at least one day myself. This looks like it's so focused on my interests, it would be so nice to meet some of the people attending.

The NASAGA (free to join, just did) Web site also pointed me to another local game conference, this one is next week in Harrisburg. That organization is called LEEF. They have an option to pay just $50 for the Friday afternoon teaser, which is tempting.

I've got lots of other things I should be doing, but I started working on a new game for our college's bicentennial and I really want to get back to that. And reading. It has been such a busy academic year I'm eager to get back to the fun stuff this summer!

Games books

I'm finding some games books that look not only interesting, but very practical. I haven't read any of these yet, but hope to do a lot of work on games later this summer (after my vacation!). The titles are:

• Game On: Energize your Business with Social Media Games


• Games-Based Marketing


• The Gamification Handbook


• Game Frame: Using Games as a Strategy for Success


• Reality is Broken: Why Games Make Us Better and How They Can Change the World


• Total Engagement: Using Games and Virtual Worlds to Change the Way People Work and Businesses Compete