And The Winner Is ... Refuse of Space!

After a 2-day long judging period with Richard "Lord British" Garriott, Marc Prensky, educational game experts from the University of Texas Digital Media Collaboratory, 5 middle school teachers and 10 middle school students, everyone agreed that each of the finalist games was unique, innovative and fun in its own way. But when forced to make a decision, Refuse of Space rose to the top!

Refuse of Space, with its kitschy graphics, music and voiceovers and its tried-and-true addictively entertaining asteroids feel, uses real physics and aeronautics to help you steer a pirate ship through space. Just ask Morgan Hendry, the NASA scientist intern brought onto the team to ensure scientific accuracy. But how well did the game "stealthily" educate? Carolyn Bramble, an education major at the University of Wisconsin (arguably the nation's top school in technology-enabled education), was on point to confirm that Refuse of Space fulfilled its "Hidden Agenda." But nobody understood the goals better than Ethan Levy, the team's captain (a communications major/game developer from USC). Ethan was a Hidden Agenda finalist last year, when he learned that a game can be fun and it can be educational, but most importantly it must be both at the same time, with the learning "baked into" (and not separate from) the gameplay and entertainment.

The other 4 finalist teams, all of whom did a phenomenal job of embracing stealth education, each had incredible strengths and great future opportunitities. For example, every single teacher that judged Ben Swanson's "AlgebrArcade" has asked for (and will be granted) a copy of the game to use in their classrooms -- they all were shocked and impressed with how well Ben's Pac-Man like math game taught students about the *processes* behind algebra, whereas any methods they've used in the past to teach the subject have been more about memorization and less about the important steps in solving equations.

Both BioSaga (Cornell) and Gut Wars (Pomona) were successful in teaching students about the human body and how it gains strength and fights illness -- so much so that contest advisor Ben Sawyer (director of the Serious Games Initiative) has asked that they showcase these games at the next "Games for Health" Summit. BioSaga is a 3D RPG game that takes you through a kid's body, examining such concepts as nutrition, intracellular biology and viral infection. Built into the game are fast-paced minigames, adding variation of both game play and learning. Gut Wars allows you to scramble through a human body (pick brain, lungs, heart...) as either a virus, a bacteria or a white blood cell -- with different goals and effects depending on which role you are playing.

Jungle Jim's Nutty Puzzles, created by a team from the School of Communication Arts, was so polished and beautifully designed that you would've thought it was plucked from the shelves at a game store. A mousetrap-like flash game that has students guessing which physics-based jungle accessory (e.g. hammock, palm tree) would best get the coconut from top to bottom has already been highlighted at the SouthEastern Game Conference in Raleigh, NC and has a strong future ahead.

On behalf of the Liemandt Foundation, the judges and everyone who stands to benefit from these fine games in the future, I want to thank each entrant and especially each finalist for going above and beyond and truly moving forward the stealth education initiative!