Serious game project by Playware Studios Asia for the Singapore WDA launches

On the 26th of July 2012, the Workforce Development Agency of Singapore officially launched the Creative Industries Virtual World, which is a serious game and tool to provide training and career opportunities for professionals in the arts and creative industries. It is essentially a virtual community for the industry to foster relationships and network for career development.

Maven (2011)

Maven is a Gamification tool for Educators. Developed for the Jurong Secondary School under the  Future Schools project. Maven is built as a gamigication and advanced GUI layer for the LAMS system.

LAMS is a revolutionary new tool for designing, managing and delivering online collaborative learning activities. It provides teachers with a highly intuitive visual authoring environment for creating sequences of learning activities. These activities can include a range of individual tasks, small group work and whole class activities based on both content and collaboration.

Maven also allows educators to transform LAMS lessons into rich adventure and role playing games. Maven brings, to LAMS, game concepts such as Spacial awareness, Avatar Personalization, skills and reward cycles, sense of progression etc.

3DHive

3DHive is a patented technology that was developed by Playware Studios under the Future Schools project.  It is developed  in collaboration with the Canberra Primary School in Sembawang, Singapore. Read more about the 3DHive @ Serious Games Singapore a blog dedicated to the project.

3DHIve features a powerful Game creation tool called Esoteric. This is a fully GUI based editor platform that requires no prior knowledge of art, design or programming.  

3D HiVe is an advanced online games and virtual world platform designed to be used for Education. It features integrated multimedia support, multimodal communication and secure online environments. It is a Standalone virtual world that provides all the strengths of the virtual worlds without the need for external hosting. It thrives on user generated content and provides easy to use tools for creation of content. The Following can be created on 3D Hive:

4Di

4Di is a patented technology that was developed by Playware Studios under the Future Schools project.  It is located at the Canberra Primary School in Sembawang, Singapore. Read more about the 4Di @ 4Diplay a blog dedicated to the project.

Classroom of the Future (2011)

Developed by the National Institute of Education,Singapore the Classroom of the Future - COTF Live! showcase is an initiative set up to demonstrate and model technologies for use in the learning of tomorrow’s students. The COTF demonstrates a student-centric learning environment where technology is used to support pedagogical and instructional approaches. During the 40 mins guided tour, visitors will be immersed in the learning environment of the possible future to experience how learning can be unlimited by the constraints of place and time.

Playware has developed the immersive technology featured in the COTF 3.0.  Students gather at the climate simulation laboratory where they are challenged to think critically as they take on various roles to solve energy supply and climate warming issues. They will then be transported to various future scenarios to experience the impact of their decisions in a visual and realistic manner, hence deepening their understanding and heightening the need to think critically and work collaboratively.

The Simulator features a panoramic wraparound simulation with a computer controlled ambient physical environment. 

Bakery Palace (2011)

Developed for the Ngee Ann Poly-technique this is a Cost and Managerial Accounting Game.

This is a turn-based strategy game played by teams of up to 4 players each, with a maximum of 12 teams at any one time.  Each team will be responsible for running a virtual bakery, studying the game's volatile economic environment to make decisions about the bakery's equipment acquisition, production output, and sales strategy.

Much like in the real world, the teams compete with each other on the game board to maximize their revenue, profits and brand value.  At the end of each turn, the revenue, profit and brand value for each team is calculated.

Mystery Matters (2010)

Developed for the Centre for Learning Innovation, Department of Education and Training, New South Wales, Australia. Link

How can you engage students in authentic learning while having fun in your classroom? How can you equip students with 21st century skills through fun online activities? You might find the answer in Mystery Matters. This new resource collection from the Centre for Learning Innovation targets middle years students, taking  them on an interactive journey where they gather information, solve puzzles, listen to and observe character interactions, hunt for clues, research answers and ultimately solve the mystery.

For CLI, Playware developed the the browser based game engine, the online portal, two learning games based on the engine, a graphics library and a GUI based editor and content management system.

Ecocity (2008)

Ecocity © is a multi-user game where each role is dependent on other roles to provide resources or to purchase the products of players’ own economic activities. Collectively, dynamic interactions between the individuals should ideally lead to overall economic improvement, with minimal degradation of the environment.

There are four roles for players to choose from.  They are: Farmer (representing the primary industry), Manufacturer (representing the secondary industry), Retailer (representing the tertiary industry) and the Government (representing the organisational structure of society).  Each of these roles is critical in achieving national development.

The game master (usually the teacher) can control how much natural and human resources to grant to the players. These variables include land, raw water, skilled labour, machinery, technology and even undesirable output of production such as pollution. This control allows scenario-setting which can be used to frame the environment that players have to work within. Conditions can be set to simulate environments within DCs (Developed Countries) or LDCs (Less Developed Countries).

Alternatively, the parameters for these variables can be amended during the game. Through this, game masters can create random events which require quick thinking and reflex action to test the responsiveness of players, the robustness of the economic system players have built as well as to reinforce particular messages such as the importance of environmental protection.

This Game was developed with Ministry of Education, Singapore, Curriculum Planning and Development Division. It was released to all Secondary Schools in Singapore.