making people play

This is just a quick update covering a couple of recent works that are slightly different from the stuff I usually do; they are two very different projects, but they have a few points in common: they are games, they have pretty much traditional interfaces (no computer vision here) and they were coded in as3 (which is VERY unusual for me).

The first one was a simple game used to support an event sponsored by Polisnet; we placed a touch screen based totem in the club and gave people the opportunity to win prizes trying their hand at 2 mini-games. First they had to solve a simple puzzle: if they completed the Polisnet logo in the given time they would qualify for the big Prize (an Xbox console), otherwise they still had the possibility to win some kind of gadget; after that they could play a slot machine, cross their fingers and receive a prize from the hostesses.

The second one was a much more complex project: my friend Alessandro Fontana contacted me and told me that he needed to develop a business game to support an upcoming new media training for the Oracle marketing guys. I immediatly accepted and, to make a long story short, we ended up creating an rpg-like browser game where every trainee would use the skills acquired during the training to make their in game character grow, conquer territories, gain badges and complete quests.
I’ts been an interesting adventure and ended up with the creation of a very peculiar teaching/learning tool; I’ll definetly make a more detailed post about it here and/or on my portfolio.

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