Recreation Time

On Sunday June 14th, college students, White House staffers, The House Budget Committee and Treasury Department competed head to head in a national Budgetball tournament on the National Mall – a game designed by PETLab and Area/Code to create awareness around the Nation’s budget deficit. US Secretary General Tim Geithner congratulated participants and praised the game, saying “…I support initiatives like Budgetball which seek to broaden public awareness of the need for responsible financial behavior in our private and public lives. A more fiscally and financially fit public is important to a healthier economy and more prosperous future.”

PETLab + Area/Code (NYC) designed Budgetball with expertise from the National Academy of Public Administration (DC).

check out http://www.budgetball.org/ for more!

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YouTube – Have Fun Little Big Planet Trailer.

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An article in the NY Times yesterday, “Whiffle Hurling? Bag Tag? Hey, It’s Art”
talks about the growing phenomenon of “art sports”. This is particularly coincidental since today I’m going to go playtest an “art sport” designed by Eric Zimmerman called “Grid Ball”. It will be making its debut at the Come Out and Play Festival this June. The primary question for today’s playtest, in hipsterama Williamsburg: should I wear my skinny jeans?

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NPR did a nice piece on the recent Budgetball tournament at University of Miami. Budgetball is a fast-paced sport designed by PETLab in collaboration with Area/Code for the National Academy of Public Administration to raise awareness and understanding about the Federal deficit.

Give it a listen: University Uses Game To Teach Money Skills : NPR.

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Barbara Campagna, chief architect of the National Trust, wrote a really nice post on my visit to Philip Johnson’s Glass House for a “conversation” and lunch I will remember for a very long time. I’m the professor of “game design” she mentions ; )

The day, despite a misty rain, was incredible! We had an amazing tour led by Dorothy Dunn, Director of Visitor Experiences followed by lunch prepared by Nils Noren, Executive chef of L’Ecole, and VP of Culinary Arts for the French Culinary Institute. Wow. What a lunch. The discussion, focused on the theme “Transparency”, was also incredible. It should be up on the Glass House website soon!

In the meantime, Barbara’s thought provoking post:

True Green / The Burden of Masonry – And the Democracy of Glass « National Trust Historic Sites Blog.

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From Offworld, a link to news games done in Processing. Very cool mini-games!

At PETLab we’re working on a set of projects called “DataPlay” that interpret “serious” information with playful game mechanics. More on this soon…

Boing Boing: Offworld.

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The Lost Tribes of New York City from Carolyn London on Vimeo.

The Lost Tribes of New York « Sweet Nectar.

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This is a really nice presentation by Trebor Scholz with lots of great resources for social-mediatizing your classes. And — Trebor just joined The New School this semester — score!

Social Media for Higher Education.

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It’s really nice to hear the giants talking about these things — and from what I’m hearing from friends returning from GDC, social games, indie games and new models for distribution are the big thematic takeaways. I sense a revolution on the way…

Gamasutra – News – GDC: Wright, Molyneux, Gordon, and Lanning on Games and Social Change.

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