FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact:
cont...@tiltfactor.org
603.646.1007

Dr. Mary Flanagan, director of Tiltfactor Laboratory and Sherman Fairchild Distinguished Professor in Digital Humanities at Dartmouth College, will deliver several talks this summer and fall on such topics as critical play, games as an art form, and games as a medium for social change. Scheduled venues include the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York, the Games for Change Festival, and the IndieCade Conference.

At MoMA, Dr. Flanagan, along with other artists, critics, curators, and scholars, will take part in the Contemporary Art Forum regarding Critical Play. Panelists will take on “The Game as an Art Form,” discussing how games influence art practice, and how they have changed the way audiences engage with and learn from art. The forum will take place on May 17th.
http://www.moma.org/visit/calendar/events/13985

Dr. Flanagan will also deliver a lecture at the Games for Learning Institute Day at the ninth annual Games for Change Festival, the largest games gathering in New York City. Games for Change aims to “catalyze social impact through digital games.” The festival will run from June 18th to June 20th.
http://gamesforchange.org/festival2012/

In fall, Dr. Flanagan will deliver the keynote address at the IndieCade Conference in Los Angeles. The conference aims to bring together the “freshest, most innovative and creative minds and works in independent game design.” It runs parallel with the IndieCade Festival, the nation’s only stand-alone, independent-focused game event, described as “the videogame industry’s Sundance” by the Los Angeles Times. The conference will take place from the 5th to the 7th of October.
http://www.indiecade.com/2012/conference/

Follow Dr. Flanagan @criticalplay

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Tiltfactor
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cont...@tiltfactor.org

This Friday, Dartmouth is proud to welcome alumni in the gaming industry back to Hanover!

One experiment found that people who went through “experience-taking” while reading about a character who was revealed to be of a different race or sexual orientation showed more favorable attitudes toward the other group and were less likely to stereotype.

According to Kaufman, when people are able to forget about themselves, their own self-concept, and self-identity while reading, they merge their own lives with those of the characters they’re reading about. ”You have to be able to take yourself out of the picture, and really lose yourself in the book in order to have this authentic experience of taking on a character’s identity, ” argues Kaufman. For example, researchers found in one experiment that most college students were unable to undergo experience-taking if they were reading in a cubicle with a mirror.

One experiment found that people who strongly identified with a fictional character who overcame obstacles to vote were significantly more likely to vote in a real election several days later.

When participants read a story told in first-person about a student at their own university, the students had the highest level of experience-taking. When asked later, 65 percent of these participants reported they voted on Election Day.

Meanwhile, of the participants who were in the condition of reading a story told in first-person about a student from a different university, only 29 percent of them reported voting. The researchers argue that sharing a group membership with a character from a story told in first-person voice facilitates the “experience-taking” of the character’s life events. After, the act of experience-taking can affect the individuals for days afterwards. The researchers argue that experience-taking is different from perspective-taking, in which readers may understand what the character is experience while maintaining a separate sense of self. The act of experience-taking is much more immersive, and unconsciously replaces the self with the character.

Congratulations Geoff — fascinating work, well done!

Currently, Geoff is applying his work on experience-taking to research that compares the effects of a game narrative on systems thinking, and in our bias and stereotypes research at Tiltfactor with founder Mary Flanagan. Stay tuned for these results!

References Science Daily http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/05/120507131948.htm

Because many people already lug mobile phones, apps such as SlimKicker may be the easiest to “level up your body.” Striiv bills itself as a “Smart Pedometer” that creates personal challenges on the fly as you go about your day. The Fitbit, is the least obtrusive and sturdiest made of the standalone movement tracking, calorie-counting devices, but it does not tie into later game systems (one model does, however, track your sleep, so if you play a lot of games, you may be shocked to see FitBit’s real assessment of how long it takes you to fall asleep and how much shut-eye you actually get.

These many  exergame products, if not specifically gaming, use gamification point structures as key motivational factors. Designed to track steps, stairs, and distance and motivate players to become more fit, I think the range and quality of these systems will continue to increase this year until we have some serious wellness device wars on our hands. Tiltfactor folks are interested, not only because we always pay attention to games as catalysts for behavior change, but also because we are embarking on some new games for wellness and health care delivery. Stay tuned!

…muaharhar…

THURSDAY // APRIL 19^TH // 5-7:30 PM

NORTH FAIRBANKS HALL ☜ green entrance behind Tucker

This Thursday, come greet the ✿spring✿ with the folks behind Tiltfactor, Dartmouth’s game design and research lab!

See what games we’ve been cooking up, as well as some science-themed classics. Meet our diabolical student interns, staff, and founder Mary Flanagan. Participate in a study and get a treat!

To participate in the study you must be at least 18 years old. There are a limited number of slots so please RSVP @ geo...@tiltfactor.org.

Be there or be ❒.

Hey gamers!

This weekend, almost 70K people will be gathering in Boston at the Penny Arcade Expo (PAX) for the ultimate gaming event. Game lovers of all forms–digital to analog, casual to hardcore, serious to playful–will be represented and you’ll play your socks off nonstop for three days. Are any of you attending? Sukie will be there, with Buffalo and other prototypes we’ve been cooking up this year. If you want to play some Tilt games or just meet up and chat with Sukie (he’s a cool guy, I promise), be sure to shoot Sukie an email at suki...@tiltfactor.org.

Tonight at 7pm in Silsby 028,  come learn about the mathematics behind the game SET with Professor Liz MacMahon from Lafayette College! If you haven’t played SET before, be sure to do so! Play online at www.setgame.com. Explore the card game through combinatorics, probability, linear algebra and geometry.  See how to use the geometry to explore the game and, even better, how to use the game to understand the structure of the geometry. Sure to be an interesting talk!