Can even ptui at running dogs some more! Good one!
<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width="100%" border=0><TBODY><TR>Sep 9, 2008
</TR><!-- headline one : start --><TR>Fun from 'political oppression' ? <!--10 min-->
</TR><!-- headline one : end --><!-- Author --><TR><TD class="padlrt8 georgia11 darkgrey bold" colSpan=2>By Chua Hian Hou
</TD></TR><!-- show image if available --></TBODY></TABLE>
<!-- START OF : div id="storytext"-->USE THE cheery pink power of bubblegum to convince your fellow citizens to join a popular revolt against a repressive government.
While doing so, you stop policemen by popping bubbles in their faces.
This is the premise of Gumbeat, a new video game developed as part of an annual joint collaboration between the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Singapore's digital media students.
How does it work?
Well, the heroine chews on candy and blows them into big pink bubbles beside unhappy citizens in the unnamed country in which the candy is banned.
This cheers them up enough to entice them to join the protagonist in a revolution, mustering enough angry citizenry to overthrow the oppressive government.
This is the aim of the game, said National University of Singapore undergraduate Sharon Chu, who presented her team's game to reporters earlier on Tuesday.
Throughout the revolution, you and your followers must evade or stun policemen trying to prevent your march on city hall by popping the bubbles in their faces.
The game was made to show that games with serious-themes like say, 'political oppression', can be fun, said Ms Chu.
Asked if the unnamed country in question was Singapore, she would only say that 'it is up to the player's interpretation'.
Gumbeat is one of seven games showcased to the media on Tuesday by the Gambit (Gamers, Aestherics, Mechanics, Business, Innovation, Technology) Game Lab, a joint MIT-Singapore Government digital media initiative.
Every year, selected Singapore students go to MIT for a nine-week internship to do game research and development.
This year, 45 students were picked from 11 institutions including the National University of Singapore and Nanyang Technological University.
They created seven games - two for the Facebook social networking site, two 3D games to be played on personal computers, two 2D games including Gumbeat, and one educational game for the Nintendo Dual Screen handheld game device.
Two of the projects - 3D game Phorm and Facebook application Picopoke - will be further developed by the Interactive Digital Media Research and Development Programme Office, possibly for commercial sale. The IDMPO has a warchest of $500 million to develop the Singapore digital media industry.
<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width="100%" border=0><TBODY><TR>Sep 9, 2008
</TR><!-- headline one : start --><TR>Fun from 'political oppression' ? <!--10 min-->
</TR><!-- headline one : end --><!-- Author --><TR><TD class="padlrt8 georgia11 darkgrey bold" colSpan=2>By Chua Hian Hou
</TD></TR><!-- show image if available --></TBODY></TABLE>
<!-- START OF : div id="storytext"-->USE THE cheery pink power of bubblegum to convince your fellow citizens to join a popular revolt against a repressive government.
While doing so, you stop policemen by popping bubbles in their faces.
This is the premise of Gumbeat, a new video game developed as part of an annual joint collaboration between the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Singapore's digital media students.
How does it work?
Well, the heroine chews on candy and blows them into big pink bubbles beside unhappy citizens in the unnamed country in which the candy is banned.
This cheers them up enough to entice them to join the protagonist in a revolution, mustering enough angry citizenry to overthrow the oppressive government.
This is the aim of the game, said National University of Singapore undergraduate Sharon Chu, who presented her team's game to reporters earlier on Tuesday.
Throughout the revolution, you and your followers must evade or stun policemen trying to prevent your march on city hall by popping the bubbles in their faces.
The game was made to show that games with serious-themes like say, 'political oppression', can be fun, said Ms Chu.
Asked if the unnamed country in question was Singapore, she would only say that 'it is up to the player's interpretation'.
Gumbeat is one of seven games showcased to the media on Tuesday by the Gambit (Gamers, Aestherics, Mechanics, Business, Innovation, Technology) Game Lab, a joint MIT-Singapore Government digital media initiative.
Every year, selected Singapore students go to MIT for a nine-week internship to do game research and development.
This year, 45 students were picked from 11 institutions including the National University of Singapore and Nanyang Technological University.
They created seven games - two for the Facebook social networking site, two 3D games to be played on personal computers, two 2D games including Gumbeat, and one educational game for the Nintendo Dual Screen handheld game device.
Two of the projects - 3D game Phorm and Facebook application Picopoke - will be further developed by the Interactive Digital Media Research and Development Programme Office, possibly for commercial sale. The IDMPO has a warchest of $500 million to develop the Singapore digital media industry.
