[games_access] GDC deadline in less than 8 hours and help isneeded!

[d. michelle hinn]

No problem! With 45 minutes left to go I think 
we'll get the ones in we need to and then we can 
look at the indie and serious summits.


>Hi,
>
>I just submitted the AudiOdyssey Post Mortem. I 
>made a bunch of changes so it shouldn't overlap 
>that much with what everyone else is submitting 
>(hopefully). I've attached it below in case 
>anyone is interested.
>
>Michelle and Eelke, thanks so much for all your 
>help and feedback. Everyone, please let me know 
>if there's anything I can do to help your 
>submissions before the deadline.
>
>Eitan
>
>----------
>Title:
>AudiOdyssey Post Mortem - How to Make a Wiimote Controlled Accessible PC Game
>
>
>
>Track, Format, Theme, Audience Level:
>Game Design - 1st, Vision - 2nd
>60 Minute Lecture
>Experimental
>Open to all experience levels
>
>
>
>Session Overview (50 words):
>AudiOdyssey is a downloadable prototype rhythm 
>game which is usable by both sighted and 
>non-sighted audiences. This session covers what 
>went right and wrong in AudiOdyssey's 
>development, why industry should care about 
>disabled gamers, and tips for rapidly 
>prototyping similar games.
>
>
>
>Concise Presentation Description (100 words):
>This past year, a small team at the 
>Singapore-MIT GAMBIT Game Lab created 
>AudiOdyssey, a prototype accessible video game 
>designed for the visually impaired. A PC game, 
>it opens up new, expressive interfaces to the 
>blind by allowing for multiple control schemes, 
>including the Wiimote. This session details the 
>research behind the project, the production and 
>design challenges the team faced, pitfalls and 
>how they were (or weren’t) overcome, and 
>provides advice for others looking to create 
>similar games. The talk includes a live 
>demonstration.
>
>
>Intended Audience and Prereqs (40 words):
>This talk is focused on design and intended for 
>game designers, producers, academics, and people 
>interested in experimental game design. No 
>experience is required.
>
>
>
>Session Takeaway (40 words):
>- It is possible to make games that are both 
>accessible and still enjoyable to mainstream 
>gamers
>- Rapidly prototyping innovative game design 
>ideas with a “less is more” philosophy 
>ultimately leads to better, and more original, 
>video games
>
>
>
>Extended abstract (500 words):
>
>Until recently non-casual gaming has been 
>dominated by young men, with other groups 
>comprising a relatively small portion of the 
>market. Over the past few years, though, there 
>has been an industry wide push to bring 
>traditionally non-gaming demographics into the 
>fold, with concerted commercial efforts to make 
>and market games for women, the elderly, and the 
>very young. However, the disabled have 
>consistently been left out of such growth, and 
>today there are few accessible games. This is 
>curious, as a huge percentage of people suffer 
>from disabilities - according to the 2000 US 
>Census, 18.6% of citizens aged 16 to 64 suffer 
>from some form of disability (granted, many of 
>these individuals are in the higher segment of 
>the age range).
>
>This is bizarre – how can the industry ignore 
>such a large potential market share? Many game 
>developers rationalize this trend by arguing 
>that accessible games tend to perform poorly in 
>mainstream audiences, as the games are generally 
>inferior to non-accessible productions. The MIT 
>GAMBIT games lab doesn’t buy into that 
>reasoning. Believing there is a huge demand for 
>accessible games, the lab created AudiOdyssey, a 
>prototype game that is accessible to BOTH the 
>visually impaired and the sighted mainstream.
>
>AudiOdyssey's development had four research goals, namely:
>
>- Implementing a game design that allows 
>visually impaired and sighted users to play the 
>game in the same way, with the same level of 
>challenge, and share a common gaming experience.
>- Designing online multiplayer that allows for 
>identity masking, at least in the sense that 
>users in remote locations should not be aware of 
>the visual status of their gaming counterpart.
>- Designing alternative control schemes for 
>improved accessibility to the visually impaired.
>- Creating a fun, engaging game that relies on 
>audio more than visuals to simulate an exciting 
>experience.
>
>Over a rapid, summer-long development cycle, a 
>small team of eight undergraduates and graduates 
>took AudiOdyssey from research idea to 
>implemented prototype. Overall, development was 
>very successful – Wiimote controls were added to 
>allow for a more expressive interface, spatial 
>sound output was used to give cues to the user, 
>and visually impaired users were consulted to 
>make sure the final product was usable by 
>everyone, regardless of their level of sight. 
>Unfortunately, parts of development proved 
>problematic, and the team was forced to drop 
>multiplayer, made poor choices about sound 
>formats, and failed to add adjustable difficulty 
>prior to release.
>
>Given by AudiOdyssey’s project lead, the GDC 
>presentation will be a lively discussion 
>covering how the research goals for the project 
>were picked, the experimental game development 
>process, and motivation for why similar games 
>should be created. Attention will be paid to 
>which parts of the process worked, which didn't, 
>and why they didn't. Pitfalls in accessible game 
>development will be explored thoroughly. The 
>talk will also cover formal testing results 
>(taking place in late October), and conclude 
>with a live demo of the game and a Q + A session.
>
>
>
>
>Presentation Materials (400 CHARS):
>QuickTime, Powerpoint & Projector
>Live Demonstration of AudiOdyssey (we will 
>provide laptop and wiimote, we only need AV 
>cables)
>
>
>
>Past Speaking Engagements (800 CHARS):
>"Immune Attack: Teaching Biology in a Video 
>Game", at Games for Health, May 9th, 2006
>"Immune Attack: Teaching Biology in a Video 
>Game", at Games for Health, Sept. 29th, 2006
>Contact for Games for Health Talks:
>Ben Sawyer, bsawyer at dmill.com, Co-Founder of 
>Digital Mill, organizer for Serious Games Summits
>
>"Immune Attack: An Educational Video Game", at 
>the National Science Foundation, May 31st, 2006
>No Contact Info Available
>
>Accepted Talks:
>"AudiOdyssey: An Accessible Game for Both 
>Sighted and Non-Sighted Gamers", at FuturePlay, 
>Nov 2007
>Contact: Dr. Bill Kapralos and Jim Parker, 
>Bill.Kapralos at uoit.ca and jparker at ucalgary.ca
>
>Recent CNN article on AudiOdyssey and GAMBIT: 
>http://www.cnn.com/2007/BUSINESS/09/02/video.blind/
>
>
>At 06:01 PM 10/1/2007, Thomas Westin wrote:
>>OK I've made some minor edits, most notably I changed, in the
>>extended abstract, "discuss" to "show examples" since I think that is
>>more what we are going to do, and running examples tend to attract
>>developers more than just discussion
>>
>>apart from that I think the text answers to all of the questions asked.
>>
>>/Thomas
>>
>>1 okt 2007 kl. 23.46 skrev Thomas Westin:
>>
>>>Hi Michelle
>>>
>>>I'm not certain exactly what you refer to with flesh out, but I can
>>>read through the Jedi thing once more and see if I can improve some
>>>things.
>>>
>>>Kind regards
>>>Thomas
>>>
>>>1 okt 2007 kl. 23.26 skrev d. michelle hinn:
>>>
>>>>So we have a lot left to tune up and flesh out before we can turn
>>>>in most of the proposals. Is anyone out there able to help? I know
>>>>Reid's on the case too.
>>>>
>>>>I've already been informed that the curriculum panel that already
>>>>went into the system will be automatically rejected because the
>>>>education people aren't associating at all with GDC...So we're
>>>>already down one and we've got 9 more to push through in the hopes
>>>>that we'll get some accepted so that we actually get those GDC
>>>>pass thingees that let us in. Remember...an expo pass for a booth
>>>>only lets us into the expo. And a lot of our institutions won't
>>>>pay for us to go to GDC and not give a talk. So if your name is
>>>>attached to any of the proposals help make sure it gets wrapped up
>>>>or it won't make it in. The server is SLOW on top of it so it's
>>>>taking me about 30 minutes to turn in each proposal...
>>>>
>>>>Michelle
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>>>
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>>
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