Interesting Snippets

In 2011 the two developers launched Toca Tea Party. The game is not all that different from a real tea party. The iPad functions almost like a tea table without legs, and the kids have to invent the rest by, for example, seating their own plushies or dolls, one on each side, and then setting the theater in motion. First, choose one of three tablecloths. Then choose plates, cups, and treats. The treats are not what your mom would feed you. They are chocolate cakes, frosted doughnuts, cookies. It’s very easy to spill the tea when you pour or take a sip, a feature added based on kids’ suggestions during a test play (kids love spills, but spilling is something you can’t do all that often at a real tea party, or you’ll get yelled at). At the end, a sink filled with soapy suds appears, and you wash the dishes, which is also part of the fun, and then start again. That’s it. The game is either very boring or terrifically exciting, depending on what you make of it. Ovemar and Jeffery knew that some parents wouldn’t get it, but for kids, the game would be fun every time, because it’s dependent entirely on imagination.

For three days now, players have complained of issues connecting with SimCity’s servers. … Some players who managed to get online have lost progress in the game due to connectivity issues… Players have also been kicked out of their games, and have been forced to wait 20 minutes after each failed connection…. Keep in mind that these issues are not limited to people who want to play online with friends. In the new SimCity, all players are required to stay connected to Electronic Arts’s servers, even if they want to play alone

Blockee… helps you pimp your street with “civic bling” – or, at least, begin to imagine what that might look like… Code for America have created the game… the app pulls in images of your block from Google Street View, then arms you with twinkling icons to reimagine these familiar spaces, with more trees or bike lanes or public benches.

Happy Hour, which will be unveiled to the public on May 28th, is one of several video games developed by Knack… They are designed to test cognitive skills that employers might want, drawing on some of the latest scientific research. These range from pattern recognition to emotional intelligence, risk appetite and adaptability to changing situations.

Researchers at UCLA have created an online crowdsourcing game designed to let players help doctors in key areas of the world speed the lengthy process of distinguishing malaria-infected red blood cells from healthy ones… So far mostly undergraduate UCLA volunteers have played the game, and have collectively been able to accurately diagnose malaria-infected red blood cells within 1.25% of the accuracy of a pathologist performing the same task, resesarchers said.

There was a time, not that long ago, when games lived in the game cabinet. The canon included Monopoly, Scrabble, Risk, a deck of cards and a backgammon set. Over the last 25 years, the game cabinet has been slowly replaced with the game console, the computer, the smartphone and now the tablet. Games became ubiquitous, but they were still mostly for fun. Now games are trying to make another big leap, from the world of recreation to the world of deadly serious. A rash of new games seeks to help you lose weight, save energy, cope with your chemo or cut back your drinking.

Taking in responses from some 15,000 U.S. consumers, the company found that 96 percent of them said that they play mobile games at home at least once a day, and among those, 53 percent said they played them in bed — with more than 52 percent playing for over one hour per day and 32 percent playing for more than three hours per day.