First meeting Academische Jaarprijs

December the 15th, 2006

Present:

Pier Vellinga

Merlijn Draaisma (Dienst Communicatie)

Winu Bhikharie (Guest, Master student Multi Media)

Anton Eliens (Guest, Multi Media)

Frans-Jan Parmentier (Geo-Milieuwetenschappen)

Peter van Bodegom

Frans Berkhout

Alex Halsema (Phd Milieu-Economy)

Evelina Loberg (Ecology & ERM)

Pieter Pauw (ERM)

Anne Martens (Milieuwetenschappen)

Charlotte Spliethof (Master Geology)

This report was written by Anne Martens

This meeting was supposed to get to know each other and as a first brainstorm session.

Planning for the Academische Jaarprijs:

January: Go / No go

May: present our plan

June: finale & presentations, selection of three best plans

June the 15^th: presentation of the winner

-Merlijn says that it is almost sure we will be selected from the other VU-Academische Jaarprijs-teams to go to the next round. This idea for the game suits how the VU is in society, it’s not meant to gain students.

-Pier says that even if we will not win the Jaarprijs, it might be possible to find a commercial game-maker to make the game anyway.

-Anton says it is too soon to look for a commercial partner now to make the game. But he knows an X-Box company that might be interested in making our game.

-Charlotte’s experience about the Academische Jaarprijs of last year is that it is very important that the research in the plan should be especially from the university.

-Anton and Winu and the rest of the members are willing to be active in this Academische Jaarprijs-team.

The first ideas about the game are:

-there is a ‘first person’, an actor.

-the climate will be the factor where the actor has to deal with. The actor has to make decisions about environmental problems. He has to negotiate and gain information about how to make the climate better (reducing CO2 emissions, built dams, etc.)

-there has to be a story in this game

-bad guys are necessary (a neighbour, Russia, USA, Arabs …etc)

During Christmas everyone has to think about:

-who will be the actor

-what will be the situation of the actor, what does he have to do, is he just a person in a local situation or is he a prime minister and has to decide about a whole country… (Or is the actor someone/something completely different…)

-what will be the peer-group of the game (!!!)

-how will the VU-research be part of the game

-will the game be online or just for sell in the shops

The next meeting will be in January, after we know if we will be selected from the other VU-teams. We will decide than if we will form a ‘core-team’ with a bigger team around it.

Note of the writer: I think it’s important that everyone should talk to gamers, find out what they like about games, what happens in games, what has been done in games, and play games yourself. At this moment the sky is still the limit!