Sims and Games at Learning Technologies #LT10UK

I do like Learning Technologies – as an exhibitor, you feel right in amongst it. It is always busy and productive. For Caspian, outside of the Military specific shows, it is the standout exhibition. Sims and Games always attract great interest and visits to the stand. The 3D wow factor drags in the punters as an easy differentiator from the mass of LMS providers, web 2 and translating services.  But also the insight of participants appears higher – re: sims anyway, which is all I am qualified to talk about. At the recent Online Educa and ELearning Guild shows the queries were at the level of ‘why 3D’ and ‘what 3D’ – very much at the early stage of discovery, and a few steps away from knowledge of application and an intention to use in learning development. The conversations we had at the stand, around the show and in the conference were more focused about the how and when.

The Show for Sims

Starting with Caspian. See below for an interview with Graeme Duncan, the Caspian CEO, on the stand.

There was also a great talk by Scott Hewitt from Real Projects. This was very well attended and Scott took us through the nuts and bolts of actually producing Sims and Serious Games. The talk did not hold back, delving into the costs, timeframes and skills requirements for different sims developments. Many different sim types and options were highlighted ranging from Flash, to mobile to Wii to, of course, Thinking Worlds. Scott demo’d real projects (pun) that they had delivered and talked through nuances and decisions in their design, such as when and where to utilise a ‘hidden object’ approach.

Kevin Corti and the team at Pixelearning had a stand. Kevin walked me through a multiplayer leadership game that the Pixel team had just developed for a large corporate. I loved it. Very innovative design, using real game mechanics and social elements to effectively target leadership skills. It takes best practice from games such as Myst and I even saw a bit of Zelda in there, not to mention, puxxle mechanics from The Crystal Maze. Fantastic job – take a look for yourself:

Aswell as this I saw some great Flash work being developed by Tata Interactive and also KTM from France. All in all, a great experience. Less hype and fluff around sims, but much more in the way of substance. Long may it continue.