In recent years, gamers have really begun to play video games. Games like Dance Dance Revolution, where players dance on an electronic pad until they sweat, are forcing gamers off the couch.
In recent years, gamers have really begun to play video games. Games like Dance Dance Revolution, where players dance on an electronic pad until they sweat, are forcing gamers off the couch.
But if research by Bill Tomlinson, a professor at UC Irvine, evolves into a commercial product, games will become even more physical as multiple players compete to restore a rainforest.
The biologist and animator created a game based on the work of UCI professor Lynn Carpenter, an ecologist.
Carpenter had studied hummingbirds in Costa Rica for years when she noticed that their rainforest habitats were disappearing. Locals were clearing trees in order to farm the land. But farming depleted the soil of nutrients and after a few years, nothing would grow. Through a series of experiments, Carpenter learned how to restore the rainforest.
With an $80,000 grant from the Nicholas Foundation Prize for Cross-Disciplinary Research, Tomlinson turned Carpenter's research into a game called EcoRaft.
The prototype is done. Tomlinson hopes to find a home for the project at the Discovery Science Center in Santa Ana, which attracts his target audience: 8- to 10-year-olds. The move would be expensive, so he's looking for a cheaper alternative to $2,000 computers, possibly Palm organizers or a rolling computer cart.
Eventually, EcoRaft may become a home computer game, with players visiting a museum to "capture" plant species for a homegrown rainforest.
Researchers could use it to help reintroduce wolves to Yellowstone National Park. Or office workers could use the software to digitally interact with one another via computers, cell phones or other digital devices.
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Source: Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News
