Feb 27, 2015

TCM

Last Thursday, we had the incredibly enriching experience of getting to meet with our partners, The Children’s Museum of Indianapolis (TCM). Specifically, we met with Cathy Hamaker who is a TCM Exhibit Developer. We presented and played our current version of Collaboration Station, and discussed design questions that we are facing in the production of the game. It was rewarding to get fresh insight into the design questions we face from someone who faces these issues on a daily basis.

TCM is dealing with the same major design question we are: How do you make a game that is collaborative by its nature? During our discussion of this, Cathy said something incredibly profound: “Collaboration and Cooperation are not the same thing.” Their dictionary definitions are almost identical, but the connotation differs. Collaboration implies the desire to work together to achieve something, whereas cooperation can be begrudging. We want to make a game experience that is collaborative and exciting, in which one player's success is beneficial and praised by the team, while still allowing the game to be played by a single player. Design is hard, but it is good to know that our partners are invested in the success of our endeavors and wish to learn from our work.


Above, Dr. Gestwicki, Kaleb, and Cathy play through the third version of Collaboration Station (the version complete at the end of sprint three).

We are still attempting on finding the best solution. So, do you have any insight? Let us know! We welcome an open and intellectual dialogue of our work and any suggestions on how to improve or solve design dilemmas.

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