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Obama launches national STEM game design challenge
Announced late last year, the National STEM Video Game Challenge is now underway. The challenge asks both established developers and middle schoolers to come up with a video game design that incorporates STEM concepts (science, technology, engineering and math) and encourages learning in its areas of study. The youth competition offers a prize pool of $50,000, while the developer prize pool offers $100,000 in seed money -- $50,000 for the best developer submission and $25,000 each for the best graduate and undergraduate submissions. Both competitions will begin accepting submissions on October 12. Hit the source links below for more information on both the developer and youth prizes. [Image credit: Pete Souza]
NASA challenge searches for a solar-powered 'Night Rover'
NASA regularly opens up challenges to foster development of new and exciting space technology, and it looks like it's come up with a particularly challenging one recently -- it's asking interested parties to develop a solar-powered "Night Rover" that can store up enough energy during the day to continue to work throughout the night. That's as opposed to the more recent crop of rovers that must do most of their work during the day, which NASA says forces them to pick and choose what tasks the rovers perform, thereby greatly reducing the chance for discoveries. It also notes that simply adding more batteries isn't an option, since every tiny weight increase significantly adds to the cost of sending something into space. Think you've got what it takes? There's a $1.5 million dollar prize in store for the winner.
Party like a rock star in Final Fantasy XIV
There are players out there who might be dreading parties in Final Fantasy XIV. Well, not precisely; they might well be dreading that the mechanics will be similar to the parties from Final Fantasy XI, where some classes could seemingly wait for ages without a trace of a group. Mercifully, the fine bilingual team at FFXIVCore has continued its apparent tradition of translating information to coincide with the new beta testing, with the newest translation being a guide to getting a working group in the game. Guildleves are the game's core leveling mechanics, but new ones can only be accepted every so often, and they can be hard to complete on higher settings alone. By grouping up, players gain access to more guildleves from other players and more support in tackling the game's bigger challenges. The full translation has information on everything from the interface to form a party to the game's battle regiments, the equivalent of Final Fantasy XI's skillchains. (We're guessing they meant regimens, but that's the challenge of translation.) Final Fantasy XIV fans are advised to take a look at the article to start gearing up for the game's release in two months.
Box.net's 20 iPads arrive at D7 Consulting
A few months back, Box.net launched its effort to deliver 20 brand new iPads to a business that could make use of Apple's tablet and the cloud sharing service in an innovative and interesting way. Box.net eventually chose D7 Consulting, a construction consulting company in Newport Beach, California, to receive the iPads. Yesterday, I drove down to the company HQ to see the beginning of the project. Over the next 12 months, Box.net will provide not only the free iPads but also free service to D7's employees. Together, the two companies hope to get a good look at, as Box's Marketing Communications Manager Sean Lindo put it, "the possibilities and realities of cloud and mobile devices for how people need to work today." TUAW will be following up periodically with Box.net and D7 to see how the project is going. As you can hear directly from D7 CEO Joe Daniels in the second half of this post, the next year is going to be an interesting experiment, not only to see how his employees are able to use iPads with their work on construction sites but also to see how Apple's tablet can be used reliably and well in the workplace. In the gallery below, you can see yesterday's unboxing. Read on for more on how this all came about and what challenges Daniels expects to face in the coming weeks. %Gallery-97114%
The Mog Log: The trial of Chains of Promathia, part one
When the news first came out about the removal of the level cap in several Chains of Promathia areas, Sera and I had a bit of a disagreement on the news. Or, more accurately, we had a bit of a disagreement regarding the expansion as a whole. Sera was of the opinion that it was quite possibly the best expansion in the game's history. I, as has been stated before, feel somewhat less positive about it -- which is to say that I've usually regarded it as one of the worst. The comment thread to that news showed that this divide was not unique to the two of us. Comments were sharply divided between those who would happily blacklist Chains of Promathia and forget it existed, and those who were heartbroken at something so wonderful being toned down. So I decided to go ahead and take another look at the expansion as an aggregate, both the good and the bad. Out of all the Final Fantasy XI expansions, this one was the most unique. Was it a good experiment, or was it a failure?
TUAW's Daily App: Theseus
Theseus isn't for everyone -- it's a little slower-paced and more thoughtful than a lot of apps in the store, and the puzzles included get hard fast. But if you're looking for a challenge and a little bit of brain-teasing on your iPhone, Theseus will provide just that. It's a puzzle game based on the myth of Theseus and the Minotaur. You control Theseus, represented by blue dot on a series of mazes. Your job is to try and get away from the Minotaur, the red dot, and make it to the exit on each screen. The catch? You only get to move one square each turn, while the Minotaur gets to move two. But he will always try to move toward you, so with a little clever planning, there's always a way to evade him and escape the Labyrinth. That can be fiendishly tough, but the game is solidly built, with a whole slew of ways to undo and reset the game if you run into problems. Trial and error can get you far, and if you get too frustrated, there's a hint button that will help you get through the game's over 80 levels. There's a free version to try out, and if you enjoy figuring out ways to get around the Minotaur, Theseus is on the App Store for US$1.99.
Behind the Mask: The Ironman Challenge
Back in the ancient days before real mainstream gaming, there was a dearth of good titles to play. It was a cultural phenomenon at that time to extend gameplay for the few good games that existed by creating emergent challenges for themselves. This is where the concept for the speedrun came about, although the speedrun changed dramatically after that time into something very unique. Still, gamers have been artificially injecting challenge into games ever since the '80s. A game like Champions Online has a fair number of factors, including a smaller endgame and a lower overall difficulty level, that make it ripe for injecting some artificial challenge.
Project 72: An iPhone game made in 72 hours
Remember Super Ramen Bros., the iPhone App that a team of developers crafted in just 24 hours? Have you ever wondered what that game might look like with an additional 48 hours of polish? The folks over at casual developer Dogtown Studios recently provided sustenance for your curiosity by challenging themselves to create an iPhone title in just three days. The result was Project 72, a simple, arcadey space flight game which, according to iPhone news site AppAdvice.com, is actually pretty good. You can check out some off-screen footage of the game after the jump. The game, which is currently available on the App Store for $.99, was designed, developed and submitted between the hours of 8 p.m. on January 5 and 8 p.m. on January 8. We're pretty sure we spent that time poopsocking our way through the entire series of Lost on Netflix Instant Queue. Man, we feel unproductive.
LittleBigPlanet Contraption Challenge finalists clear gaps in style
Providing further proof that LittleBigPlanet is more than just an engine for the creation of rocket-propelled genitalia, Media Molecule [Update: We've been informed by Sony that this is a completely community run event, which makes it all the more cool, in our opinion. More info is available here.] has released a video showing off the finalists for its latest Contraption Challenge. This time around, entrants had to build the most convoluted machines they could think up in order to cross hazardous gaps. The developer's favorite bridgebuilders can be seen in the video above. Check out the video after the jump, and think about how much more interesting your morning commute would be if these people were real-life civil engineers.
MIT-based team wins DARPA's Red Balloon Challenge, demonstrates power of social networks (and cold hard cash)
DARPA would have you believe that it's the brilliance of modern day social networks that led an MIT-based team to win its red balloon challenge this weekend, and while there's no doubt that the presence of the internet assisted in the locating of ten randomly placed floating objects, we're crediting the bright minds at the university for their strategy of soliciting team mates. The challenge was constructed in order to "see whether social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter should be seen as credible sources of information," not to mention investigate new ways to react to various threats that need instant attention. Less than nine hours after the contest began, MIT's team had deflated the hopes of around 4,000 other teams by finding all ten, though it's hard to say exactly how many members were out looking. You see -- MIT established a website that promised hundreds, even thousands of dollars to individuals who sent in the correct coordinates of balloons, noting that the $40,000 in prize money would be graciously distributed should their efforts lead to a win. DARPA may call it a triumph of the information superhighway; we're calling it victory in numbers.
Breakfast Topic: Running progression raids blind
BoK brings up something I've thought a little bit about lately: their guild will occasionally run an encounter "blind," which means they'll go in without researching or learning any boss strategy ahead of time. This is generally something that only the highest-level guilds often do, and even then only on the PTR -- by the time bosses hit the live realms, their abilities are usually posted online somewhere. But some guilds enjoy a challenge, and doing a raid without knowing what's coming definitely keeps you on your toes. A lot of raiders think that's actually the "right" way to do it -- Blizzard's game doesn't come with strategies installed, so if the designers created the fight correctly, it should be clear, just from watching buffs and boss animations, what to do during a fight. So today's query is: have you ever run something blind, or would you like to? I haven't run any raids blind -- my guild raids so little already that when we do, it's best to be fully prepared. But I did run the new 5-mans blind on the PTR, and it was an interesting experience. You really have to stay alert and try to analyze the fight as you're doing it, look for buffs and balances and try to position yourself as best you can, all while running your usual casts and abilities. It's a fun challenge, though as the fight gets tougher, it's probably less fun -- we were running with premades on five-mans, and I doubt a high-level raid would be as easy on us. Still, some of you must do it regularly, or at least be interested in going blind. What say you?
The Daily Grind: How easy is too easy?
Difficulty in games is a contentious issue at any point. Brian "Psychochild" Green recently had a musing on the topic of difficulty as it applies to most games, but even that discussion stops shy of discussing MMOs, where multiple difficulty levels are rarely an option. Designers can make harder events, but if the rewards are the same as something easier, no one will bother making life harder on themselves. That makes the "hard mode" more than just an increased challenge, and sets up a hardwired and sometimes arbitrary challenge-to-reward ratio. On the flip side... well, it's not fun to have the game just hand everything to you. We want to feel as if we're accomplishing something when we play. So today, we ask you, what's too far in either direction? What sort of penalties or challenges make something so ridiculously hard it's not worth bothering? By the same token, how simple does something have to be before you're annoyed at the ease of it all? What levels of difficulty can be tinkered with without making the game unpleasant, and what elements of gameplay are best kept at a set level?
Challenge: Make your own Natal demo video, get yourself on The Engadget Show
We hope by now you've seen the video of Microsoft's Kudo Tsunoda demoing the latest software to undergo the Project Natal treatment -- Beautiful Katamari and Space Invaders Extreme. If you haven't, you really should, because there's nothing quite like seeing a man gesticulate wildly for seemingly no reason. In that post, a commenter of ours -- aardWolf -- made the genius suggestion that people do their own "demo" videos of Project Natal. We think that's a grand, grand idea... and we're going one better. If you make those videos, we'll put them together in a segment for The Engadget Show. Here's what we want from you, the reader: Film yourself "playing" a game "with" Project Natal Upload the video to YouTube, Viddler, or the video site of your choice tagged with "engadget natal contest" (with quotes, at least on Viddler), and specify exactly what game you're playing. Feel free to give details. Email us at engadgetshow [at] engadget [dot] com with "natal video" in the subject, as well as the link and any pertinent info you'd like to provide (or you can just leave a link in comments) Lather, rinse, repeat Once we get some good entries, we'll cut the whole shebang together in a segment for The Engadget Show (provided you guys aren't super boring or something -- though we don't think that will be an issue). It goes without saying that by submitting a video you're granting us the rights to use it on the Show and in any Show promotional materials we might produce. Don't worry, we won't sell you into slavery or anything. Probably. In case your memory is super bad, we've included the clip of Kudo after the break.
WoW Insider Show Episode 107: Fighting the fanboy
Here's our podcast from last weekend, when both Amanda Dean and Adam Holisky tuned in to join Turpster and I and talk about the biggest stories of the past week in Warcraft. Unfortunately, it was a bad day for Skype, so we had some rough tumbles with lag and audio problems, but we did manage to get in some good insight about Matt Low's thoughts on why you probably shouldn't play a Priest, the incoming lore reasons on why those new race/class combos are possible, Adam's challenge to Blizzard and their veiled release information, and what our faction transfer survey came up with in terms of conclusions. Despite the technical issues, I'm told it was still a pretty good show, so tune in below to hear it for yourself.This week, we're going live at a special time (and yes, apologies to the guy who last week that we were switching around times constantly -- this is only because I'm embarking on a cross-country move later in the week, and the rest of the year we should always be found on Saturdays). We'll be live this Wednesday evening, September 16th, 2009 6:00 PM EDT right over on our Ustream page. I know that's probably a little late for you EU folks, but the last few shows have been earlier than usual, so this one's for the Americans getting home from work. And of course if you can't make that time, we'll definitely have the show on the iTunes feed later on for your listening enjoyment. See you then.Get the podcast:[iTunes] Subscribe to the WoW Insider Show directly in iTunes.[RSS] Add the WoW Insider Show to your RSS aggregator.[MP3] Download the MP3 directly.Listen here on the page:
"Why do we play MMOs" series concludes
When we last checked in with Tobold, he was just starting up a new blog series looking into why we play MMO games to a greater degree than single-player games. That isn't to say that the MMO genre is bigger than the single-player genre, just that MMO gamers tend to focus on massively multi-player games more than single-player games. His first two articles examined Storytelling and Gameplay elements in MMOs and since then he has done pieces on Challenge, Character Development, Rewards, Social Interactions, and Learning.The series just wrapped up and Tobold wrote a nice summary of why he thinks we mostly choose MMOs over single-player games. He feels that while we may play single-player games that have strong elements of story, gameplay, or challenge, the social aspects of MMOs seem to be the trump card. MMOs can have many weaker core elements but social interaction (direct) or simply participating in a persistent game world (indirect) appears to make up for those deficiencies. It's a long series to get through but well worth the read if you're into these kinds of high-thinking philosophical discussions.
Namco's iPhone division considering... Tekken?
Actually, I'd play that. Namco recently announced that they were forming an Apple Games division to head up game development for Apple platforms like the iPhone, and in this interview, a producer for them who used to work for Apple says that they're excited to work on bringing great games to the handheld device. Like, for example, Pac-man, Galaga, and... Soulcaliber and Tekken. You heard that right -- fighting games haven't exactly made a splash on the iPhone, as they're primarily a button-based genre, and the iPhone, of course, has no buttons.But that won't stop Namco's guy from putting the old head gears into motion: "It's just the controls that are a challenge. We are thinking about that." Think away, crazy man -- I'd love to pull out Yoshimitsu for a few rounds while waiting at a bus stop. Obviously, the easiest way to try and port these would be to put overlaid buttons on the screen, but that doesn't leave a lot of room for the fighting (and not having the tactile feedback would probably be a problem as well). Maybe some gesture-based accelerometer movement? Sky's the limit, right?. Your call, Namco -- can't wait to see what you come up with.[via Joystiq]
The Daily Grind: What's your preference of difficulty?
Some people like it when the game challenges them for months on end, stopping them at the same battle over and over again until a group comes together and cooperates in a way that yields progression.Other people like to be able to sit down at a game, play it for a few hours, and feel like they've made some progress and accomplishments. They enjoy feeling rewarded after a small play session, instead of dedicating hours of work and thinking to their games.And still others would rather find extreme progress in less than an hour, being highly rewarded for very little challenge. It's not fun if it's hard, right?So today's grind question is as follows: what is your preference of difficulty? Are you the person who likes to be stumped for weeks on end, or are you more of the type who wants to get the maximum reward for the smallest effort? Speak forth into thy comment box, and let thy voice be heard! And hopefully you won't use a silly accent like us, but you can if you'd like to.
Design LittleBigPlanet golf course, capture glory
In celebration of Sackboy's jump to Hot Shots Golf: Out of Bounds, Media Molecule is holding a LittleBigChallenge to name the official LittleBigPlanet golf course.The challenge is for users to get their creative juices flowing and design, create and share their vision of what a LittleBigPlanet golf course would include. Players will publish their concepts within LittleBigPlanet and Media Molecule will select nine holes from North America and nine from Europe to help make their picks. The prize, you ask? Glory. Oh, and winners will get the ultra-rare crown item... if that's your thing. Entries are being accepted until 3am ET on April 14. Check out the official post for detailed instructions on how to post your entry into the LBP Golf Course Challenge.
How to stop worrying and enjoy games like Darkfall
While they seem to draw a fair amount of controversy and commentary, massively multiplayer online games that offer kick-in-your-ribs PvP aren't really a new thing. Darkfall is the title that everyone's talking about of late, but it's really cut from the same cloth as the progenitor of all MMOs, Ultima Online. Granted, Ultima Online wasn't and isn't purely focused on player killing, but the fact remains that when you log into games that allow for the possibility of being ganked, in some respects it is what you signed up for. While the no-holds-barred style of play isn't for everyone, it certainly is what some players want. Or at least think they want. MMO world celeb Sanya Weathers, writing for Examiner, says "Darkfall has been, since its conception, an unapologetic return to Ultima Online's original style of full metal ham kicking. The gang at Aventurine never pretended their game would appeal to a mass market, and certainly never pretended that the game would have anything but a vicious learning curve."
THQ Wireless releases Chop Sushi to the App Store
Chop Sushi is a brand new game from our friends at THQ in the App Store that combines a love of the Japanese raw fish dish with an interesting twist on the kind of gem-matching battle gameplay that Puzzle Quest made famous (and addictive) a few years ago. It's still a matching game, except you're matching wasabi and rolls instead of gems and skulls, and instead of choosing one gem to switch another, you choose a piece and then swipe it to the end of a row or column, making a match anywhere on the board (as the rest of the pieces fill in for the one you moved). It's hard to explain, but easy to pick up, and tough to master -- the different movements make this one worth a look even if you've played Puzzle Quest or any of its spiritual successors 'till exhaustion. Like other match-3 RPGs out there, there's both an adventure and a quick battle mode, as well as a challenge mode where you've got to match everything on the board together until it's all gone, so there's plenty of gameplay to go around. And the "slide" instead of "switch" mechanic keeps things fresh enough that you'll be looking for lots of new ways to make matches while playing. Chop Sushi is definitely worth a look -- it's in the App Store right now for $2.99.
