Video games are often iterative beasts, evolving through multiple sequels. A game comes out, the players react, and developers go back to make things better with Game No. 2 (and sometimes No. 3, and so on). That process isn’t an ideal environment for comedy, though. A joke doesn’t work as well the second time around, even if it’s been polished since the first telling. It needs to take its audience unawares to work, and it needs precise timing. It takes craftsmanship to make a game that’s funny, but a miracle to make a sequel that’s just as good.
Portal 2 achieved that miracle. Last year, Valve’s sequel to the hugely popular Portal returned players to the subterranean depths of Aperture Science, where a series of “tests” present increasingly complex spatial puzzles. Amid these sci-fi trappings, there’s a core of humane comedy, embodied in the first game by the sociopathic supercomputer GLaDOS (voiced by Ellen McLain). Portal 2 added the idiotic bot Wheatley (Stephen Merchant) and visionary Aperture founder Cave Johnson (J.K. Simmons) to the cast. The Gameological Society talked with Portal 2 head writer Erik Wolpaw about starting with a clean slate for the sequel, steering clear of memes, and his work in the early 2000s at the satirical game-criticism site, Old Man Murray. (Note: This interview discusses the ending of Portal 2.)
In order to adapt to changing conditions, humans need to be able to modify their behavior successfully. Overriding the rules we adhere to on a daily basis requires substantial attention and effort, and we do not always get it right the first time. When we switch between two or more tasks, we are slower and more likely to commit errors, which suggests switching tasks is a costly process. This may explain why it is so hard to learn from our mistakes when rules change.
For each natural number n, we draw a periodic curve starting from the origin, intersecting the x-axis at n and its multiples. The prime numbers are those that have been intersected by only two curves: the prime number itself and one.
Below the currently highlighted number, we also show its sum of divisors σ(n), and its aliquot sum s(n) = σ(n) - n, which indicate whether the number is prime, deficient, perfect or abundant.
Based on Sobre el patrón de los números primos by Omar E. Pol.
Speed is killing our decisions. The crush of technology forces us to snap react. We blink, when we should think. E-mail, social media, and 24-hour news are relentless. Our time cycle gets faster every day.
Yet as our decision-making accelerates, long-term strategy becomes even more crucial. Those of us who find time to step back and think about the big picture, even for a few minutes, have a major advantage. If every one else moves too quickly, we can win by going slow.
No one understood the challenge of time-pressured decision-making better than military strategist John Boyd, arguably the greatest fighter pilot in American history. Boyd developed a decision-making framework that our best leaders use today, in military and in business. It is known by the acronym OODA, for observe, orient, decide, and act.
The ultimate goal of OODA is to act fast, but not necessarily first. This applies to lots of things beside armed conflict. In general, we make better decisions when we minimize the time it takes to decide and act — so that we can spend more time observing and orienting.
Psychology uses scientific methods to help us better understand and predict things about the world. To me that makes it a science. Not a perfect science […] but then again the “hard” sciences got a few centuries of head start.
Want to be more creative? Pick a problem you care about and get to work. If you don’t care about anything, your problem isn’t creativity, it’s apathy. If you start things and give up, your problem isn’t creativity, it’s dedication.
The evolution of Teach With Portals shows that right now, commercial games that have already had their success can be altered to energize educators to use their game mechanics to make students more enthusiastic about math and science lessons, with relatively little additional investment on the part of the game designers.
SuperBetter is a hearty effort to put research on pro-social, pro-health games to use in an interesting and engaging format. Its mechanics allow the player to use the game to achieve whatever health goals they set for themselves. McGonigal decided to create the game after suffering and recovering from a head injury two years ago.
These two games show the current state of the games for change community: Commercially successful game publishers are becoming more involved in health and education games without having to change their primary focus of producing entertainment. At the same time, engaging, well-designed games are being created with backing of the medical community, a research-driven development model and a clear health outcome as their goal.
Sociologists call them moral panics — when a population pins its unanchored fear in uncertain times on a selected demon, whether or not the target is really a threat to society. Drugs are a frequent focus of these societal anxiety attacks, but this week, _Newswee_k tries to foment a classic panic against a more universal foe: the Internet.
In truth, the research linking Internet use to addiction, depression or other behavioral and psychiatric problems simply cannot determine whether being online causes these ills or whether people who are already prone to such problems tend to go online more. In fact, there’s better evidence (not mentioned in the article) that the Internet can be used to treat anxiety and depression than there is suggesting it causes these problems.
The truth is, we really don’t know much about how our online lives are affecting us. It’s quite possible that Internet use has the deleterious effects critics suggest — certainly some people do have difficulty controlling the amount of time they spend online. […] [B]ut not necessarily because we’re addicted to it. And creating a moral panic based on flimsy evidence isn’t going to help, no matter what the real cause of our problems.
What makes Apple’s approach to user experience superior to others? I think the answer is simple – everything Apple does, including how it deals with user experience decisions, is driven by Purpose. Readers of this blog will know that GSD&M’s core focus when engaging with a client is to help them find their Purpose and excel. The Purpose Institute defines Purpose as “… A definitive statement about the difference that [the company] is trying to make in the world.”
Outline:
- For the love of god, put on some clothes
- Regular hours
- Office Rules
- Separate work environment and minimise distractions
- Don’t limit human interactions