Here’s my question: What is the ideal list of 16 games that, if you played them, would give you a picture of all that is possible in gaming? Oh, yeah, and they have to be fast, quick-to-learn, and mostly free (hence the “casual” in the title).

I’ll be teaching a course next Fall at the University of Michigan entitled “Play and Technology.” It’s an advanced seminar that surveys the social science and humanities literature on the idea of “play,” then applies that literature to computer-mediated communication, video games, and other kinds of what we’ll call “playful technologies.” It requires both a midterm and a final project that each require students to craft a conceptual design for a playful technology.  Hopefully we’ll learn something about people and something about designing play experiences.

Still curious? Here’s a printable flyer for the course (PDF).

In the past I’ve taught a similar course. A serious problem with it has been that people come to the topic of play and new media from such a wide variety of practical perspectives. Since it is an elective, usually everyone who enrolls likes games or play or technology — likely all three. And people like particular games A LOT. But… everyone’s a fanatic about a different thing.

So student #1 will let loose in a class discussion with what is probably a brilliant analysis of Aristotle’s Poetics as applied to Escape from Rungistan which he/she plays religiously every evening on an Apple II emulator.  But after they’ve finished speaking, since no one else in the class has ever played Escape from Rungistan (or heard of it)* there is an awkward silence.

Escape From Rungistan, c. 1982

(*Okay actually that’s not 100% true.  I’ve played Escape from Rungistan.)

Then after a long pause, Student #2 will try to explain Piaget using an example from Farm Town. Farm Town is the game that FarmVille ripped off, by the way. So no one else — maybe no one else in this state — has ever played it except for student #2.*  But student #2 knows every nuance. Every vegetable.  And student #2 wants to get down and dirty in the details. Student #2 is talking about growing Chamomile vs. Quinoa and their implications for the ontological trajectory of developmental psychology, which is totally a level 112 kind of debate. Since no one else has any idea what he/she is talking about, there is an awkward silence.

Farm Town, c. 2009

(*Okay actually that’s not 100% true.  I’ve played Farm Town.)

So what’s the solution? In the past I’ve asked students to try a specific game that we all play together.  It has often been a recognizable game (e.g., once, a long time ago, we played a version of Quake). That’s useful but it really does an injustice to the great diversity of kinds of play that are possible. We get stuck in one play mode (FPS, in this case). It also feels unfair because many students are already experts in any given mainstream title, and I find the novices resent it.

What students seem to need is a variety of ideas that they can use to template their own projects, not an in-depth, semester-long study of a mainstream title. And many mainstream games are LONG. I once required that an undergraduate class play Civilization IV. I thought it would be great (bestselling, award-winning game, right?), but a lot of students absolutely hated the fact that it was so involved.

One student summed it up by saying: “If you assign a game instead of a reading, I don’t know how to skim a game.” It takes hours and hours of work to get anything out of Civ IV. Come to think of it, it takes hours and hours of work to finish a single game of Civ IV.

So here is my challenge to you, dear reader. I have sixteen weeks in the semester. Let’s say we assign a game a week. For the reasons specified above these games would have to be short (“casual”) or at least you should be able to get the idea in the first level (or in a demo). Honestly I think these games should ideally be obscure so that everyone starts on the same page. The set of games as a whole, as befits a syllabus, would emphasize the diversity of different kinds of games that are possible.

Being required to do something can completely drain the fun out for some people. So this isn’t supposed to be a list of super fun games, since as soon as I require them I will drain the fun out (at least for some students). Instead, each game should have something unique to say about the art and science of game design. Each should have something to say about human behavior. If the game isn’t particularly fun (hello, Ian Bogost’s brilliant Cow Clicker), so what? It’s required. It’s important. There’s something to learn from it. We can have a productive conversation about it.  This is not a “T0p 16 Cazual Games EVAR!!!1!!1!!” blog post.

The games would have to be free or cheap. Just as I try to keep assigned textbook costs down, I want to keep assigned game costs down. I would feel OK if a few weeks of the class required a game purchase — we can set the game up in a computer lab for those unwilling or unable to pay. But a console title per week? Impossible. That’s a $700 textbook budget for one class.

I have some key dimensions in mind that it would be great to explore with this list: e.g., social vs. not social, narrative vs. non-narrative, violent vs. non-violent, historical vs. contemporary, etc.  But I think rather than giving you an exhaustive list I’d rather hear what you are thinking and adapt this to my own purposes.

However, to get things started here is a draft of what I am thinking about. What are the areas that I’ve left off?  What are the games that are better exemplars in their category — however you define their category?

Example Syllabus (DRAFT)

1. Passage. A free art game that defies simple explanation and takes just 5 minutes to play.
2. World of Tanks.  Quick online team combat with strangers. Likely they’ll be some weird lobby talk (“Hetzer gonna Hetz!”). A standout in the freemium realm, it would helps people experience an FPS-like game even if you suck at shooting and running around — just pick a slow tank.
3. Escape From Rungistan. (You saw that coming, right?) The text/graphics split screen adventure game has died out. Playing it via an emulator would be an interesting way to comment on history, genre, and technological limitations of a platform. Not a particularly fast game but we can play just the first few screens and get an idea of things.
4. SpaceChem. We have to have a puzzle game, and I think it would be interesting to put in one game that is just terribly and intentionally hard for most people. It’s a great game but it’s an interesting design choice to make a game that most players will never be able to finish. Also there’s a free demo.
5. (or 4.5?) Lego Junkbot. Another ingenious puzzler. Could be paired with SpaceChem so that there is a simple puzzle alternative to SpaceChem’s insanity. However I can’t find Lego Junkbot online anymore. Is it dead?
6. Diner Dash. Classic. Quick to play and you get to experience the real time management genre.  I see that I’m on a bit of an Eric Zimmerman theme now but that’s only because he is brilliant. It looks like you can play it for free with a trial subscription.
7. (or 6.5?) Atom Zombie Smasher. Also a real time management game but quite a different take on things. And so much style! It has a free demo, at least on Steam.
8. Façade. Fast to play, free — and great way to talk about narrative. Can be paired with an article talking about the game.
9. (or 8.5?) Thirty Flights of Loving. Oooh, this could be assigned along with Façade. Another interesting take on narrative. Another art-y, indie blast of freshness. Now I’m on a Brendon Chung roll here. But I may have to repeat some game designers due to their absolute brilliance. 
10. Electro City. Simple and obscure city simulator that has a green power agenda. Free online, quick to learn, quick to play, and speaks to G4C and simulations.  Not a great game though — maybe there is something better?
11. Some sort of children’s game that is supposed to teach you something? My gaming repertoire is too antiquated to know what to put here.  Lemonade Stand anyone? Not sure.
12. Something from GWAP (Games With a Purpose)… maybe The ESP Game – a free online multiplayer anonymous guessing game that serves the strict master of human computation.
13. Some kind of game of chance or gambling.  Hard to think of one that would be unfamiliar and not illegal, but this is such a big domain of human play it seems important to include.
14. Some kind of multiplayer game with really simple rules that leads to very complex gameplay, so that we can talk about how to write rules. SiSSYFiGHT 2000 would be perfect if it is finished in time. But that would be my third Zimmerman.
15. Habbo Hotel or another social environment without much gameplay per se. Hopefully class members will not be arrested as stalkers.
16. Maybe another classic game included because it was historically significant in the development of games?  Hard to think of one right now.  A kind of “this was the first game to do X” kind of game. Not sure.  You can see I’m running out of ideas at #16!

I pledge to you that the most useful response submitted will receive a prize of my choosing, entirely at my discretion. I will actually mail it to you. It will be a physical object. You are welcome to submit a thought, an idea, a criticism, a single game, or an entire syllabus.

If you’d like, please include your suggestions as a comment to this post. Or if you’d prefer to do this privately, email me at casual-games@umich.edu.  Let the syllabus writing begin!

[This post was also cross-posted to The Social Media Collective.]

Noted freedom of expression scholar Cherian George has been denied tenure by the Singaporean government against the wishes of his faculty. His error was explaining basic tenets of political philosophy in an editorial.  I’m writing about it because this is an American problem.

Like Prof. George, I am also a professor working in the area of Internet policy. I first encountered George’s work on the subject in 2003 as guest editor for The Communication Review, where I published his research on Singaporean and Malaysian approaches to Internet censorship. I was fascinated by his comments about what happens in Singaporean Internet forums when the government is criticized. He is well-known in my circles for his 2006 book Contentious Journalism and the Internet.

Unlike Prof. George, I am an American academic with no particular connection to Singapore. And yet – strangely, unexpectedly – the Singaporean government routinely appears in my professional life and in American academia. While in Singapore for an international conference, my taxi driver asked me what I did for a living. When I said that I was a professor, he asked when I was relocating. He explained that “Singapore buys the best American professors.” He went on to highlight two specific professors in science and medicine that had been lured to Singapore.  (“What a place!” I thought, “where the average taxi driver cares so much about science!”)

While at my previous position at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign the university accepted a $75m grant from the Singaporean government to establish The Advanced Digital Sciences Center at the Fusionopolis Complex, Singapore. An annual group of Singaporean Ph.D. students now visit Illinois for two years and ultimately receive an Illinois Ph.D. As a part of this program, Illinois faculty were offered the opportunity to as much as double their faculty salary and research budgets in exchange for spending a significant amount of time in Singapore and signing the intellectual property they produced over to the Singaporean government. Some faculty who considered participating jokingly called the incentives “danger pay” but that joke doesn’t seem funny to me anymore.

Just last week, while attending the annual conference of information schools in Texas, a colleague stood up and pitched the faculty attendees to consider the possibility of research funding via the Singaporean government instead of through our usual funders. If we went with Singapore, our grant amounts would be 2x to 5x more.

I had little sense that anything was at stake in Singapore’s periodic but insistent appearance in my American professional life until this week’s revelation that Prof. Cherian George was denied tenure there at NTU. Yes, when I visited the country in 2007 all of the Westerners joked about the official ban on chewing gum. Someone nervously pointed out to me that possession of 15 grams of a controlled substance will get you mandatory death by hanging. But research collaboration with Singapore seemed to be a great opportunity.

The case of Prof. Cherian George has made me revise my opinion, and I suggest you do as well. The case poses the question: what does it take for an academic there to incur the wrath of the government? The answer is remarkably little.

In 2005 George published an editorial in the Straits-Times explaining some of the basic political philosophy of Hannah Arendt. When I found out it likely played a role in George’s firing I read it expecting a fiery polemic. It reads… like an editorial explaining some of the basic political philosophy of Hannah Arendt.

Arendt was a genius and yes, she was no friend to oppressive regimes. (She famously wrote: “To substitute violence for power can bring victory, but the price is very high; for it is not only paid by the vanquished but it is also paid by the victor.”) If this is the kind of writing the rulers of Singapore consider dangerous, a liberal education there is simply impossible, as is a modern university. George’s editorial received a direct rebuke from the Prime Minister’s office.

Prof. George is a distinguished, productive, and well-respected scholar with degrees from Cambridge, Columbia, and Stanford who has repeatedly asserted that Singapore should abide by international standards of human rights, and this latter point was his downfall. As a researcher working in the same field I can say that his research record is exemplary. It is beyond question.

In 2009, George was promoted to associate professor, told that he had met all of the academic requirements for tenure, but that his tenure had been blocked by the board of trustees for what the university told him were “non-academic factors.” George reported that in a 2009 meeting the president of the university asked him to explain what reasons the government might have to block his tenure. Last year George was asked to re-apply for tenure. It has just been denied. This is supposedly on the basis of his “research and teaching,” but this is an outrageous falsehood.

In fact, the claim is so outrageous that protests against his firing are being led by his external tenure reviewers. (At least, those based in countries that have protections for the freedom of expression.) George is an academic “superstar” according to external reviewer Prof. Karin Wahl-Jorgensen at Cardiff University in the UK, and the case for tenure was “watertight.” Prof. Philip Howard at the University of Washington, a fellow of the Center for Technology Policy at Princeton and another external reviewer, writes in protest that George’s career is being “derailed by the political elites” in Singapore. I agree.

The George case is important for all American academics. The dire financial situation at the University of Illinois made lucrative research deals with authoritarian governments more attractive, and these sorts of collaborations have already been covered extensively in the Western press. I see now that this coverage has missed the mark. It has emphasized the growing trend of international campuses and the reliance on international money in American higher ed, but the coverage has failed to specify the sophisticated Singaporean higher education strategy of targeted bribery and the Singaporean danger to freedom in the American academy.

For instance, extensive media coverage of controversial Yale-N.U.S., “Singapore’s first liberal arts college” and a project of Yale University, focused on the threat to student freedoms. 

As a New York Times article puts it, quoting Ravinder Sidhu, “The main issue is whether students at the Yale-N.U.S. College will be able to engage in all of the activities associated with an education in the humanities — freedom of thought, the cultivation of the imagination, the ability to think critically about the arguments offered by those in authority, and the ability to fashion arguments and dissent in a civil manner.”

The important problem above is framed as: When Yale-N.U.S. teaches Arendt, will the students be able to talk about it?  But I predict that the problem may never come up.

Student freedom of expression is indeed foundational but this coverage leaves unmentioned the threat that these institutional arrangements are placing on the freedom of research and teaching. It leaves unmentioned the serious risks that any American academic takes when engaging in a Singaporean venture.

What if you went to Singapore and accidentally let it slip that you thought human rights were a good idea?  It is so clean and nice there, it’s easy not to notice that Singapore’s government is (I’ve just noticed) grouped with comparable Liberia, Palestine, Georgia, and Haiti by The Economist’s “Democracy Index.”

If your money has been doubled presumably that takes the sting off. One defense of Yale-N.U.S. was that engagement with countries like China and Haiti have generally been a good thing for Western institutions and the countries involved. But China and Haiti do not typically pay well. 

When I mentioned to a colleague that I was writing this, he shared the story of 75-year-old Alan Shadrake, an author and British citizen who wrote a book critical of the Singaporean justice system and its use of the death penalty. When visiting Singapore for a book launch in 2010, Shadrake was arrested for defamation and the offense of “scandalizing the court system” (a Singaporean offense). He was found guilty and jailed, despite the protests of Amnesty International. My colleague mentioned that after I publish this article I should not travel to Singapore again.

Yet I’d like to go back. I found Singapore to be a wonderful place. I’m a fan of international collaboration in higher education and I have many collaborators in Singapore. I want to stand in support of my colleagues – the faculty and students who have been overruled by the government in the case of Prof. Cherian George.

As an American academic, I think the best way to support Singaporeans now is to withdraw from any research collaboration involving the Singaporean government. We should not host international research conferences in Singapore. Stay out of Singapore until it is clear that quoting Arendt won’t get you fired (or jailed). Let’s hope that day will come soon.

(This was cross-posted to The Social Media Collective.)

Just a quick update about the ongoing museum renovation project. It is a struggle, and there are steps forward and steps back, but progress is being made.  Almost no sign of vermin of any kind for a few weeks now, so I thought I’d share this puzzle.

Here are two photos showing a view from a bedroom window across our yard, looking toward a neighbor’s house.

Can you spot the differences between these two photos?

Here’s the first photo, taken when we moved in about seven weeks ago:

Here is the second photo, taken today:

Scroll down for the differences I can find.

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SPOILERS PAST HERE!

Here are the differences I can find:

1. The window glass has been replaced with genuine antique window glass taken from salvage.

2. The roof has been replaced with an asphalt roof.

3. The roof vent (which was smashed, but you can’t tell really in this photo) has been replaced.

4. The roof is not covered with garbage.

5. The rain gutters have been replaced (they are not smashed).

6. There is a new apple tree.

7. There is a new white oak.

8. There is a new locust tree.

9. The seasons have changed (deciduous trees are now bare). We did not change the seasons. We take no credit for the changing of the seasons.

10. The lawn is not dead. We take no credit for watering the lawn, as we didn’t. See #9.

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Of course, as I look at this, I’m thinking: “That crappy protruding PVC sewer line vent still needs to be cut.  Grrrrr.”

This series seems endless. This is Part 5. (See also Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 and Part 4.)

Updates from prior episodes: Groundhog #1 (“Thomasson”), Groundhog #2 (“Wide Load”), and Groundhog #3 (“Baby”) are now living fulfilling lives in the county park, along with Opossum #1 (“Dignified Opossum”) and Opossum #2 (“Young Opossum Doesn’t Like It”).

Mr. Nonchalant Raccoon, trapped twice and featured in my last post, continues his carefree life. Here he has shown himself during the day standing on my neighbor’s decorative bench to indicate that he is not afraid of us in any way.

Chickaree has not been seen lately. Perhaps he will return in a future episode.

Episode 36. At twilight, two deer stop by to eat our bushes. Here is a dim picture of one of them.

Episode 36-a. Does this seem like a lot of wildlife to you? A colleague who has been reading this blog (you know who you are) said that they thought we lived out in the country.

Let me state for the record that we live in the center of town. We are on Washtenaw Avenue, certainly one of the busiest streets in Ann Arbor. It is a 20 minute walk to the campus (medical center side). The problem is not that we are out in the country, the problem is that our house is infested with groundhogs.

Episode 37. We are re-doing our roof and the Critter Control guy advises me of the delightful news that squirrels have probably been nesting in our old roof vents. I have a discussion with the roofer about roofing materials that hinges on whether different roofing materials are easily eaten or not. 

Episode 37-a. What a strange conversation that was. I never thought I would have this kind of conversation with anyone.

Episode 38. After we return from a week away we bait the traps with fresh apples and re-set them. Within just a few hours, there’s a ruckus at trap #1. It turns out to be our new friend, Aggro Groundhog.

Aggro Groundhog is difficult to photograph because if you approach the cage he strikes at your face. He is always moving. All of my pictures are at least slightly blurred. He mostly looks like this:

Episode 39. In case you’ve lost count, this makes Groundhog #4. How many can there possibly be? This is ridiculous. I have decided to open an office pool. $1 per entry. The bet shall be: How many groundhogs in total will we capture in this 30-day period? (That’s the term of the Critter Control contract.) No house take or vig! Let me know if you want in.

This is Part 4 of a series. See also Part 1, Part 2, or Part 3.

Here we go again, dear readers. Whew, this series of posts is even longer than my exhausting blog series on Comcast and number portability regulations. And there are more cute wildlife pictures.

Episode 32. Mr. Nonchalant Raccoon (from Part 3) was released from Trap #2 and immediately walked around the building to be caught by Trap #1.  We signed a contract with Critter Control promising not to touch their traps (we have two traps, they own two traps) so he’s in there overnight at least until the guy comes around again. And Raccoon ate the apple.

Check it out — he doesn’t even care that he’s locked up.

Here he is reclining on his back and staring boldly at me.

(Sorry about those vertical lines — this is the best photo I could get through the bars.)

Episode 32-a. I put it to you that this raccoon has been institutionalized. This raccoon has a prison mentality. According to Bartol & Bartol’s “Psychology and Law” (or at least these random notes from it that I found on the Internet when I searched for “prison mentality”), this raccoon has entered the stage of institutionalization syndrome where he “loses interest in the outside world.” He exists only within the confines of his incarceration. He lives only for our apples. Maybe.

Episode 33. Indeed, we release Mr. Nonchalant Raccoon and he doesn’t exactly try to go back in the cage, but he does saunter slowly around the house, even coming toward us at some points.

Sorry this is blurry but you see what I mean.

Finally Mr. Nonchalant Raccoon walks (slowly and deliberately) to a nearby grove of trees.

According to Bartol & Bartol, this raccoon may be “longing for jail.” He may miss structure. He may be considering ways to re-offend so he can “get back inside.” Stay tuned.

Raccoon sits in the bushes and stares at us. It feels like a “If you’re going to watch me, I’m going to watch you too” thing. Specifically, he watches us catch another groundhog. Raccoon is learning the system.

Episode 34. Yes, just as soon as Trap #2 was vacated by Mr. Nonchalant Raccoon, it caught another groundhog. This is groundhog #3 and he is a young little groundhog.

The Critter Control guy says he estimates this groundhog at less than 1 year old. This little guy is quite cowed by the experience and mostly just pauses to consider the apple.

Episode 35. I am becoming somewhat tired of writing about this but the opportunities to take my own close-range animal pictures are exceptional and that keeps me going. Also the groundhog trapping seems to be getting us some pretty nice goodwill with our neighbors.  The super fat one from a few posts ago was apparently public enemy #1 on our block. He was widely known for his habit of sunning himself lazily on his back while eating your each of your ripe tomatoes, one at a time, using only one paw. His departure has been widely celebrated.

Continue to Part 5 of this series.