Making a Journalism Game

I decided I wanted to toy around with the idea of making an educational game. My vision for this is to develop a series of mini-stories so that students can learn how to write news articles based on first-hand information... which I found REALLY hard to do when I first started FHN. I had commented on news stories before, but never was the reporter myself.

This is one level out of three (main FHN office, hospital where there was a gang shooting, and the streets that connect the two) that I have developed so far.

(Tech specs at the end. read: stuff for really smart people.)

This project took about twelve hours from start to finish.

This is the FHN lobby. Normally there'd be a big FHN sign, but for some reason the Deus Ex engine hates me. Let's talk to the receptionist.

Conversation goes as follows:
JCDenton: Hi, I'm here to talk to Alex Jacobson.
Receptionist: Are you JC Denton?
JCDenton: Yes.
Receptionist: He's not available right now, but head on back to the second cubicle from the right. Someone's expecting you.
JCDenton: Who?
Receptionist: Just head on back, sir.

Yeah, OK, fine, we'll head back.

Oh, wait, hey, what's this? Is this the meeting Alex is in? I wonder if we should go in. (At this point the player can choose whether to interrupt the meeting or not. I decided to go in.)

I bumped into the guard. He doesn't like me. Oops.

Oh. Hi everyone!

Let's talk to Alex.

Conversation goes as follows:
Hi JC. We're in the middle of a meeting right now. In fact, I thought there was someone guarding the stairs.

(at this point the player can choose how they want to respond)
CHOICE #1 - There was. I walked past him.
CHOICE #2 - Oh, okay. I guess I'll just wait outside.

If you're nice, Alex asks you to wait outside politely. If you're blunt, you get told to wait outside bluntly. It also has consequences when you talk to Alex later to try and pitch him your story. Anyway, I'm not gonna wait. I'm just gonna head back to the second cubicle on the right like the secretary told me to.

There he is. (See the basketball on the desk? You CAN throw that around, and it does bounce.)

Conversation is censored because I'm not giving away plot details. Turns out we need to go talk to Alex.

Head back, oh, hey, meeting is still going on. Guess he won't mind if we interrupt AGAIN.



Talked to Alex. He got nervous and told me to go check my email or something. Prick. He gave me an office on the second floor. I GET AN OFFICE, NOT A CUBICLE!! NICE.

Walkin' over to the office. Oh, hey, who's that?

Wh... wait, is that Matt Damon? (If you don't get the joke watch this first and this (Yes, it's real.)

Myeah, anyway, up the stairs to my office.

Yes, I know, it's pretty spartan. Let's read the datacube.

YES! I get to talk to KIKI! (See, Vic? I told you I'd name something after you)

Time to check email. Here's what I got (screenshots unavailable because the engine hates me)

From: Alex
To: JC
Subject: SPIES!!
Body:
JC,

They're spying on us. Also, I had to call in Laura from Women for Gender Sensitivity. Again. Hope you don't mind.

- Alex

and another...

From: Mom
To: JC
Subject: Hi
Body:
Hi sweetie,

I hope you're having a good time in NYC. I'm sorry for your brother's behavior last time you visited. He REALLY does hate it when someone sits on 'his' side of the sofa. Anyway, things have calmed down substantially since then. I just managed to get the spaghetti off the ceiling lights. Hope you'll visit soon!

- Mom

We'll deal with Alex's thing later. Grab the key, get out the door. Time to find Vic's hideout.

Wh... oh hey, there's a plant blocking a really suspicious grate. Maybe we should go check it out.

My key opens it.

Crawling through...

Hi Vic! Gee, I wonder what's on the computer that she doesn't want us to find.

-----------------------------------------

I'm debating with myself on what direction I want this to go in. I would really like to develop a series of mini-stories so that students can learn how to write press releases/blog entries about events/etc, but I also want it to be relatively entertaining.

Anyway, that's a wrap for me.

[End part for normal people]

[Begin part for really smart people]

As promised, here's some background on the technology I used:

Technically it's not a full game, it's a mod based on the Deus Ex engine, it will not run standalone. None of the textures are mine, and about half of the non-character models are mine. Level building and light design is all me, same with the dialogue and the script. I also made a bunch of custom classes and messed around with triggers a bit.

For those of you who aren't familliar the Deus Ex engine, it's based on an EXTREMELY modified version of the Unreal 2 engine, one of the greatest (and most flexible) engines around (and no, the Torque engine is not more flexible. In fact, the Torque engine has flexibility to be an MMO engine a la Serious Sam 2, and THAT'S IT. Torque can [this was copy/pasted from my Facebook note, so I'm gonna censor this part since teachers don't like sexual innuendoes. Let's just say that I use some bad language to describe the Torque engine]. It blows and I don't care what anyone thinks. Worst engine to develop ANYTHING in.)

How to Run a Live TV Broadcast

First of all, lemme just say that while I expected about two people to tune in... WE HIT 46 VIEWERS!!

Anyway...

Equipment

Video
- Two video cameras
- One tripod
- One very very large economics textbook (used as a makeshift tripod)

Computers
- One broadcast desktop computer
- Two monitors
- One remote broadcast laptop
- One feed monitor laptop

Audio
- Two firewire cords
- One lapel mic
- One handheld mic
- One backup mic

Software
- uStream
- CamTwist
- WebcamMax

Crew
Producer (That's me!): Writes script, controls tech, deals with logistics, sets stuff up, remote-controls feeds via tech director.
Tech Director (Clerel): Controls cameras, switches feeds, switches audio, does mic checks.
Camera Operator (Jake Vizzini): Moves camera. Zooms in.
Reporter (Dillon Williams): Talks. Fills time. General all-around super-man.

What Happened
In case you hadn't heard, I decided to take a day off my spring break and run a TV show.

About a week before Monday's broadcast I recruited about eight people for crew three slots. I divided them into three categories; I'd-love-to-come-but-will-flake-out-at-the-last-minute category, the reliable category, and the backup-crew category.

Once that was done I applied for press passes with State Police. Called 'em up, told them I was a producer with First Hand News, begged for the right to broadcast. Called the Senator's office, had them vouch for me, then got a permit from State Police faxed over.

Two nights before, I'm writing the live script, that gets done pretty quick. I love writing. Makes me feel good. Next day, we meet over at Panera, go over the script, go over pickup times. Here's my typed notes from that meeting (including the first line of the broadcast!):

------------------

March 9 Coverage – NJ Senate

-60.00 Twitter pre-message: “Reporting on NJ Senate Confirmation Hearings LIVE at 10:00 AM. Please RT.”

-15.00 Start broadcast @ studio, preview VTR on screen one.

-10.00 Roll VTR countdown

-5.00 Send Twitter message: “Beginning 5-min countdown to LIVE coverage of NJ Healthcare Hearing”

-3.00 Studio team standby. Connect phones (DIRECTOR->PRODUCER, REPORTER->ANCHOR)

-2.00 Final phone check

-1.00 VERBAL WARNING: "Sixty seconds live!"

-0.30 VERBAL WARNING: "Thirty seconds live!"

-0.10 VERBAL WARNING: "Ten seconds live!" - finger countdown

0.00

Good morning, thanks very much for being with us. It is Monday, the 9th of March, I’m Dillon Williams, and you’re watching First Hand News. It is a bright and early 10:00 AM here in Princeton, New Jersey and we’re preparing to cover two bills in the New Jersey Assembly that could not only push an unfair burden on taxpayers, but also destroy the New Jersey medical system for good.

------------------

Anyway, late Sunday night, I was setting up the studio until around midnight. Got the camera in place, set up chairs, got a preview screen and a live screen set up.

Next morning I was supposed to pick up Clerel from his house at 8:10 AM and be back at the studio by 8:30, which was when Dillon was gonna meet us. I left the house on time, but about halfway through the ride I got a flat tire. Yes, of all days to get a flat tire, I get one on the day where we're doing a live broadcast.

I hop out of the car, change the tire myself in about 45 minutes (yes, I have big muscles). Drive over to Trenton, park, pull the equipment out of the car, get inside the Statehouse, show ID at security, pop on my press badge. Sprint to the elevators, ride up to the 4th floor, and get all the equipment set up.

Jake starts pointing the camera at people while they're talking, I get the laptop set up for live broadcasting. I get on the phone to Clerel:

"OK, we're ten minutes out from broadcast. Roll 10-min VTR, cue Dillon. I'll send the Twitter message."

At about the T-minus 2 mark I get a phone call from Clerel making sure the feed and phones work. LITERALLY the second I OPEN MY MOUTH, Jake pulls me inside and shows me that the feed isn't working properly. We're not on the air. Whip out the cell, tell Clerel to roll another 5 min on VTR. Jake works on the computer, trying to figure out what the hell is wrong.

After about 20 minutes of troubleshooting, it turns out our cell-modem was too far away from the computer. I glance at the feed, and Dillon is still somehow filling time. Amazing. Anyway, Clerel's back on the phone. I'm ready to go on air:

"Feed two standby, preview now."
*5-sec pause*
"OK, we're good. Push feed two on air."

... and of course, it works on his screen, but doesn't show up on ours. Dillon, being a superhero, fills for another five minutes (he's already filled for thirty) and puts in a plug of "We're experiencing technical difficulties, when we're back, we'll switch to the statehouse feed."

Clerel yanks him off air, Jake and I take their place, and immediately pick up seven viewers on top of the 22 that we already have. Yay. We broadcast for 15 minutes, then the studio team steals our feed. Then decide to pack it up and head in. That was a wrap for the day.

Two words that describe today's crew: extreme professionalism. Dillon somehow managed to fill for 35 minutes straight while we were sorting out technical difficulties at the statehouse. Clerel managed to get the feeds sync'd up for a good fifteen minutes, and then got us on the air once Dillon was done talking. Jake somehow nailed every single pan and zoom he did, which I didn't think was possible.

Doctors, Architects, and Entrepreneurs

Hi.

The media recently began paying attention to alternate reality gaming, and how it teaches skills that matter. I'd like to talk about a computer game that's been influential in teaching me basic entrepreneurial skills.

Characters in this game can specialize in: exploration, entertainment (read: dancing, playing music, acting, styling), city-building/politics, business building, land development, soldiering, assassinating, smuggling, or hunting.

First, I need to explain a little about how the game mechanics work. You start off by choosing the gender of your character, their race, and what they look like. You can tweak hairstyles, hair color, facial features, etc. You then choose their skillset. The beginning skillsets are entertainer, marksman, brawler, artisan, medic and scout.

You're dropped into a world with about 3,000 other human-controlled characters, and thousands more computer-controlled characters. If you've ever played Runescape (ew) or WoW (double ew), the concept is similar. Characters can choose from more than 30+ careers - ranging from architects to smugglers to doctors. I wanted to be a doctor.

I created a medic character because I believed it would lead to a promising (and profitable!) career as a doctor. Medics spend most of their time in hospitals treating minor and major wounds that hunters and soldiers come in from the battlefield with.

I began by specializing in treating minor wounds. Someone would come in, I would apply my beginner medicine to him/her, they tipped me a few hundred credits, and they would be off.

I quickly ran out of supplies so I asked around to find out where I could get more. Someone told me I could get medical kits from a store called Sammy's MedKits -- on the edge of town. I walked over, bought new medkits, and walked back. I soon got a text message from Sammy. "Hey, if you want to buy medkits in bulk I can give you a discount."

That was surprising. Normally when I buy something in a computer game it's from computer-generated characters. Normally it's not a real person. I talked to Sammy and found out that the price of derilium steel (which is used to make medkits) had recently gone up. A lot. This hurt his business, so he wanted to sell me a bulk order of kits to make some quick cash.

I didn't have a lot of money, so I declined. A few days later, I sent a text message to Sammy asking if he still had a shortage of derilium steel. He answered, "No, I'm gonna be fine soon. I have a friend over at Universal Steel who just opened up a new steel plant, and once that supply flows in, the price of steel is gonna bottom out."

I asked Sammy how his friend collected steel and he told me to go 1km north of the city. I walked up there and found massive structures, which, when I clicked on them, had names like, "Universal Steel Derilium Miner #4" and "Rora's Steel Harvester #2" It turns out that many people had discovered that derilium steel was rare and that they could make a massive profit out of it.

I walked back to the city. After a few more hours, I had practiced medicine enough to master the medic profession. I went off to a doctor trainer, left clicked on him, and became a novice doctor. I wanted to get into the action right away, so I went and bought some derilium steel and tried to craft a medkit.

Well, it turns out that you need a lot more than just derilium steel to make medkits. You need to collect ores and organic materials that are in different cities, and yes, even different planets than the one I was on.

These materials are very rare to find in one single area, so you have to hop around the solar system to collect them. After making a few medkits, I realized that while selling medkits is very profitable, collecting the resources that it takes to make them is a pain in the rear.

I had an idea.

I quickly ran off to an artisan trainer and learned novice artisan. I had collected a decent amount of money from my career as a medic (the tips add up!), and I jumped in my flying car to get to an architect's store to buy harvesters.

Over the next few days, I flew around to different cities and eventually different planets setting up my harvesters to collect the resources that doctors needed to make their medkits.

Eventually I had a good ten-thousand units of derilium steel, and another ten-thousand units of each of the organics. I had a choice-- I could either bring it to the commodities market and sell it there, or I could bring it directly to the doctors. I didn't have enough to sell it on the market, so I decided to sell it directly to doctors.

After a little trial-and-error, I discovered that the best marketing technique was to pay poor people to take off their clothes and run streaking through hospitals shouting "CHEAP MED RESOURCES! SEND A TEXT TO MARCUS DEHEAL!" (that was my character's name).

I soon had more customers than I could deal with. They snapped up my steel and organics within about ten minutes, leaving me with a 50,000-credit profit. With that money, I decided to invest in more harvesters, some real-estate, and two computer-controlled employees. This investment let me sell stuff while I was at school or at work. I also repaid a loan I had taken to cover travel expenses, and put some money away for a private jet.

That's it for this note. Lemme just show some pictures:

This is what a typical store looks like. This particular store sells tailored outfits. Everything you see (including the house, the display cases, and mirror) were all made by a person-controlled character, who had to buy resources from other person-controlled characters. The one employee that you can see is run by a computer, and sells stuff when the store owner is at work or at school.

http://files.hexagonstar.com/images/swg/swgremember_058.jpg

Here is a list of professions that you can be. And yes, as an entertainer, you can join a band/dance troupe/whatever.

http://img209.imageshack.us/img209/2020/swg1ca7.png

http://img11.imageshack.us/img11/6858/swg2eb4.png