Past Projects

The following is a selection of game design projects created at or in collaboration with Northeastern University. Metaversal Studios, a commercial game development company, assisted with the creation of many of these projects.

Amazing Jellies

New England Aquarium in collaboration with NU Multimedia Studies (2004)

The New England Aquarium originally wanted a simple "drag and drop matching" game to teach children about the jellyfish life cycle, but we felt there was a much more interesting game in there. The result, "Lifecycle Catch," challenges players to catch 3d-rendered jellyfish in a virtual ocean through a series of increasingly difficult levels that convey all the material from the original matching game concept, reinforcing the concepts through repetition and variation of information on each level. A second challenge brought to us by the aquarium was to develop a game based on their classroom teaching materials that conveyed the effect of humans on aquatic life cycles and food chains. We combined multiple classroom activities into "Jellytown," a "sim" game that challenges the player on three levels: they must manage a small fishing town's growth, keep the ocean stocked with fish, or do both at the same time!

Geckoman!

Center for High-Rate Nanomanufacturing in collaboration with Museum Of Science, Boston

(2006-2008) Northeastern University's Center for High-Rate Nanomanufacturing, a National Science Foundation funded ERC, wanted an innovative form of outreach for junior high school students. After eighteen months of development by teachers, students, informal science educators, and game designers, Geckoman is now entering beta release.The final thirty-level game is to be released through science museums and entertainment web sites in early 2008. Geckoman game's roots are firmly in the old-school "beat-'em-up" and "platformer" genres, but its plot is all 21st century. In Geckoman, students play Harold, a kid whose science fair project has gone awry, shrinking him to the nano scale. Students learn about VanDerWaals forces (tiny forces that enable creatures like Geckos to defy gravity), capillary forces (tiny forces that make tiny objects "stick" to liquids), and electrostatic forces (tiny forces that attract or repel based on electric charge).

Hopeful Monster

Multimedia Studies Capstone in collaboration with NU Categorization and Reasoning Lab (Dept. of Psychology) (2005-2006, 2008)

The 2005 Multimedia Studios Capstone group teamed up with Northeastern's Categorization and Reasoning Lab to create a game that would entertain third and fifth graders while at the same time testing their ability to discern connections between a variety of species. The game, created with the Torque Game Engine, consists of three different environments -- desert, forest, and swamp -- and nine different fantasy creatures. The job of the player is to navigate his or her omivorous creature through the terrain, eating herbivores and plants while avoiding carnivores, in an effort to be reunited with the herd. This project combines experiential learning with on-the-spot testing. Kids learn about the environment and creatures, and their assumptions about the relationship between the creatures and their environment are tested through gameplay. Gameplay is tracked through screen recordings so that each child's experience can be replayed later. Students are also asked about the experience after playing the game, to see if they can put into words the connections they experienced through gameplay.
A video demonstration of gameplay can be found here.

R.O.V.E.R.S.

Center for SubSurface Imaging Systems in collaboration with Department of Visual Arts (2006)

CenSSIS commissioned Metaversal Studios and Northeastern's Department of Visual Arts to develop a game prototype to teach math and science skills to middle and high school students through simplified real-world problems. An Engineering Research Center (ERC), CenSSIS studies the diverse problems of "hidden worlds beneath the surface": everything from finding pollution in coral reefs to finding tumors in the human body to, most recently, landmine detection. We developed an initial prototype based on the distance formula and the Pythagorean Theorem, and then observed one of the CenSSIS PhD students teaching a group of 9th graders how to solve the problem presented in the game. We then took his chalkboard lesson and translated it into an interactive "handbook" which enables students to learn at their own pace. The three-level demo shows how we engage the students with a seemingly "easy" problem and then gradually increase the difficulty while still maintaining a sense of fun.

Play | Boston

The Boston Globe and City of Boston in collaboration with NU Department of Visual Arts (2006)

The City of Boston and The Boston Globe hired Metaversal Studios and to create a game with both a real-world and an online component for SIGGRAPH, the world's largest computer graphics conference, which was held in Boston in August, 2006. We worked with the game design company to create a treasure hunt that involved finding four postcards hidden around the exhibit floor as well as around Boston. Clues were also published in newspapers and online at Boston.com. Thousands tried to solve the puzzle; a few over 100 succeeded. One lucky winner got a video iPod!

Race for Your Future

FXPort in collaboration with Games for Learning at NU (2007)

FXPort worked us and a Northeastern University Biology professor to create a game about the science and politics of biofuels. Starting with their scientific data, we worked with them to develop a storyline and game mechanism that combines mini-games, social networking, street racing, and rock-and-roll! The game prototype was developed in 2007; the distributor and final release date have not yet been announced, so a preview can't yet be shown.

Shortfall

Northeastern University's College of Engineering in collaboration with NU Department of Visual Arts

(2001, 2005, 2007-2009) We worked in collaboration with the NU Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering on a National Science Foundation grant to explore expanding a student-developed game (which was part of her 2001 graduate thesis) into a networked computer game. The first step involved a complete redesign of the game: streamlining the mechanics, enhancing the simulation elements, and creating new original graphics and supplementary educational materials. This prototype was then used to study the group dynamics of the "millenial" students who will, in the future, be the audience for the computer game. A computer game prototype was built in Spring of 2007. In September, 2007, the project received a Phase II grant from the National Science Foundation, which will fund further development on the game over the next three years.

TRACE

Multimedia Studies Capstone (2003-2004)

The 2003 Multimedia Studies Capstone took on the challenge of creating an interactive narrative about an important social issue, weaving it in with a popular folk tale. The result, TRACE, inspired byelements of Robin Hood, deals with the importance of speaking out in a surveillance society. Using a simple "click to interact" interface, players of this game-like experience navigate through a unique collage-based world of characters and information. Issues of voting, privacy, and media saturation are brought up as the player navigates through the lives and memories of the inhabitants of Falls Points, experiencing their world through a rich tapestry of audio and video content. Ultimately, the player is left to decide the future of Falls Point, and to learn how sometimes positive and negative forces intertwine.