Science: May 2007 Archive Page

Playing a game may teach the player that he can optimize the game only in certain ways (or that the game is impossible to win, like Global Thermonuclear War); but it's open to question whether the optimal game strategy corresponds to an optimal real-life strategy.

As we see more of this kind of thing (and I think we will), we as consumers of educational and editorial games, are going to need to stay alert and savvy, conscious of the way a game's rules can look like they emulate real life constraints without actually doing so. A case in point is the way Electrocity lets me participate in a fuel market without experiencing any repercussions at all from the fossil fuel burning by the people in the next town over. Would it be better all around if I just kept it in the ground? Maybe, maybe not -- but within the game there's no incentive to think about that. --Emily Short --Educational and Editorial Games (Emily Short's Interactive Fiction)

This activity is set in a research group that is developing an antivenom for spider bites. In the opening scene, Nelson Pogline, a talented graduate student, dies unexpectedly at a university reception. As a detective, you must use chemistry concepts to determine if this was murder and if so, solve the case. You can interview suspects using Quicktime movies, investigate the crime scene for clues with Quicktime Virtual Reality images, and analyze the evidence from the crime lab. --Mixed Reception (chemcollective.org)