Peter Jamieson, Miami University Lindsay Grace, American University Naoki Mizuno; Chris Bell; Darrell Davis, Miami University

1. A Simple Multi-player Video
Game Framework for
Experimenting and Teaching
Cultural Understanding
Lindsay Grace
Lindsay D. Grace
Associate Professor – Film and Media Arts
School of Communication
Founding Director: American University Game Lab
Grace@American.edu
http://www.American.edu/GameLab
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4. Lindsay D. Grace
Associate Professor – Film and Media Arts
School of Communication
Founding Director:
American University Game Lab & Studio
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6. “Culture is always a collective phenomenon,
because it is at least partly shared with people
who live or lived within the same social
environment, which is where it was learned. It is
the collective programming of the mind which
distinguishes the members of one group or
category of people from another. “
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Hofstede’s 1991

7. Cross-cultural communication:
Sociopragmatics
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8. Cultural rules around
appropriate behavior
(e.g. social distance, eye
contact, etc)
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9. “Project Perdido”
M. Treanor, J.McCoy, et al.
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10. Cross-cultural communication:
Sociolinguistics
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11. T. Jackson, L.Grace, et al.
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12. Cross-cultural communication:
Cultural empathy
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13. Empathy toward advantage and disadvantage
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interactioninstitute.org

15. Design a framework to facilitate experiments
and teaching related to cultural advantages and
disadvantages.
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17. “Provide an experiential event in which players
are embedded in a cultural phenomena of not
knowing the rules, but having to play the
game”
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18. Scale
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19. Distribution
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20. Synthetic Cultures
3 hours+ to play
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21. Paige’s 10 identified cultural differences
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 ethnocentrism
 language
 cultural immersion
 cultural isolation
 prior intercultural experience
 expectations
 visibility/invisibility
 status
 power
 control

22. “Culture Code”
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23. Our Goals
• Create a game as simple as the Barnga
framework
• Make this game scalable to a minimum of 50
players
• Create an online game playable online
• Build a rule set to elicit culture disadvantage for
specific players
• Release the game as open source software
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25. • Client Side: JavaScript
• Server Side: Java
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27. Goal: Move your avatar to collect points
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28. Player
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29. Player
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Team Scores

30. Each Team is limited in:
• What they can see
• How they see it
• Who can collect certain points.
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31. Each Team is limited in:
• What they can see
• How they see it
• Who can collect certain points.
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32. In Diagram:
Green will see the red team
as red, blue team will appear
as green;
making it difficult to
understand who is on your
team.
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33. Configurable:
1. How many teams there are in the game?
2. How big the world is?
3. How many points start in the world?
4. Is the end game triggered by all points collected or a
set goal?
5. How people are assigned to teams, which includes a
biased assignment?
6. Do new points appear as points are captured?
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34. Configurable:
7. How many points your team gets per capture?
8. How teams see each other?
9. How teams see points?
10.What points teams can capture?
11.How fast are the avatars on your team?
12.Can you see the global score?
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35. 6. Do new points appear as points are captured?
Allows a biased assignment of teams,
some teams have more players and can collect
items faster.
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36. Allow the designers to give different players
physical (sense and movement) advantages
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7. How teams see points?
8. What points teams can capture?
9. What points teams can capture?

37. Discriminate by behavior, not appearance
Lindsay Grace | American University
Gaming Initiative

38. Pilot Study
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39. 2 teams of equal size:
One team represents the players who know about the
rules of the game - they can see all types of points as
unique to a team, can see all types of players as unique to
their respective teams, and can collect any type of point.
The other team represents the players who can’t
understand the rules - they see everything as looking the
same as them, but can only collect their type of points.
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40. Team 1: players who know about the rules of
the game - they can see all types of points as
unique to a team, can see all types of players as
unique to their respective teams, and can collect
any type of point.
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41. Team 2:
The other team represents the players who can’t
understand the rules - they see everything as
looking the same as them, but can only collect
their type of points.
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42. Educational Psychology, and the game will be
played by 25 classroom participants
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44. Thank You
Lindsay Grace
Lindsay D. Grace
Associate Professor
Director, Game Lab and Studio
American University
School of Communication
Film and Media Art
Grace@American.edu
http://www.ProfessorGrace.com
Twitter:
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