I've started documenting the "magic" I experience day to day. Coincidences, serendipitous encounters that aren't completely impossible, but their timing is pretty sweet.
One of the most striking was when I was telling III at GDC how I'm in awe of
Jane McGonigal's work. III pauses for a moment, pulls out his conference schedule and asks casually, "oh, so you're going to her talk this afternoon?" As a n00b, I had no idea she was going to be there, let alone keynote. Thank goodness I caught the talk, it was one of the most memorable.
In it, she highlights 5 trends she sees as shaping the course of humanity. She then proposes 5 design challenges for how we can channel these forces to influence the future. Here are the design challenges and my first attempt at each of them (hopefully this will inspire you to come up with others!)
Make one person measurably happier. Who would it be? What game would you make for them?
You know how Toscanini's has that twitter board in their restaurant? If we installed those in hospitals and set up a # channel, people could send their regards even if they weren't able to visit in person. Research indicates that if you believe folks are praying for you, you recover faster and are less likely to get sick. It seems like this is an even more tangible way to see other's concern and support for you.
If you could change what one person does every day or how one group thinks about one thing, What would you change and how would your game do it?
We need to rethink the scope of personal versus shared facilities. I used to live in a studio apartment and believed that my bedroom, bathroom, and kitchen were all private. It would be so much more effiencient and social to combine these spaces. For instance in my transition to sharing The Hen House facilities to the even more dramatic relying largely on the gym locker rooms for shower and exercise needs. My game would challenge people to create and share their vision of communities (live, learn, work, etc.) which push the envelope on shared services. They could use design tools like CAD, visio, even The Sims to help us visualize. I'd ask them to anticipate where they might encounter resistance and how they would address this.
If you could get 100 people to do one thing online, what would it be and what would it add up to?
It seems like one of the biggest unaddressed tragedies is the lack of communication between generations. I don't think we take full advantage of the wisdom of older folks or fully consider the ramifications of our decisions on the world of the next generation. I'd like to convince 100 people to spend at least 15 minutes communicating with someone in a different generation (at least 20 years older or younger).
If you could make a game by imbedding 1 micro-controllerboard or 1 sensor into 1 physical object, what would it be? How would you play with it?
One of the big opportunity areas is connecting our physiological responses to our psychological ones. I would embed sensors into clothes to capture biometric data which people could download to discover what drains their energy and what recharges them. Ultimately, it might be cool to share this data with others to better help folks take care of each other (i.e. not give someone really stressed out a hard time when they inadvertantly do something antisocial).
If you could create a game which connects 2 unlikely communities to do 1 extraordinary thing together. Who would it be? What would they collaborate on?
Back on intergenerational collaboration. I'd like to get the young and old to work together on a "Scouts expansion pack" or use the martial arts belt color-leveling system to define lifeskills that may not necessarily be taught in class and develop age agnostic, mission-based curriculum for mastering these skills.
