[math4] FourthGradeMath Digest, Vol 2, Issue 17

[Stephen Jacobs]

Some follow up information after the first class at RIT...

1.  Students have been assigned this week to work with delicious to bookmark
information, examples and research of fourth grade math games for us all to
use as a resource.  This will be of benefit to all of us and especially
those who have asked for more information of this type.  I encourage all of
you to contribute once we disseminate the info.

2.  Tobi Saulnier, ceo of First Playable, Presented at RIT yesterday on
developing games for kids of different age ranges.  I'll be getting a copy
of the notes this week and I'll post the relevant info to the list and/or
the wiki.  I also hope to have my friend from Scholastic do the same in the
next few weeks.

3.  We do have a k-12 teacher working with us, not that we shouldn't have
more but I wanted to reassure folks of that point.

4. We need to recognize that we are also developing for other cultures, not
just a specific age group.  Developing for other countries includes more
than just language translation of written content. Projects like the Pokemon
style card game and the dungeon game may not be appropriate at several
levels...

They might require too much reading (we are focusing on Math here). Ideally
we should get an understanding from folks involved at OLPC regarding levels
of literacy in any language of the kids that we are creating for.  Do the
students in other countries have the same level of literacy in their native
languages, and/or English, that they have in the States?  Better? Worse?

Strongly Catholic (or other ) cultures might object to the magic, demons,
etc that are staples of dungeon games.  There might be taboos against
mostors or mutations at many levels.  At the end of this I'm pasting one of
my favorite localization stories from the Oddworld games as a case in point.

We obviously need to be using the metric system in our math examples for
some, if not all of the OLPC countries.

Rewriting games like the venerable "Lemonade/Hot Dog Stand" simple business
math games requires that the kids know what lemonade and hot dogs are :-).
"Fish Market" might work better.

Etc, Etc, Etc.

To help us address these I'll also see if I can get my friend who runs the
game localization SIG of the IGDA to talk to us.

5.  When I signed the class on to this I was told that the next 6 months (of
which the class will participate for under three) was primarily a planning
and design effort and that there'd be a second, longer development stage.
Is my understanding correct???  My plan is still to have the students in
research and design mode the first 5 weeks or so and then in prototype mode
the second half of the course.  These prototypes will vary as far as levels
of written language, learning styles, drill ware vs flash cards vs dungeons
etc.


And now, the localization story of Game Character vs Japanese Taboo...

Source: http://www.oddworld.com/firsttenyears/ow_ask.shtml

"Q: In the game I noticed that in the first game Abe and Mudokons have 4
fingers then in Abe's Exoddus they have only 3 fingers. What happened with
the 4th finger?

A: Well, it's a long story that needs to be told. So here it is... Japan has
a strict discriminating policy against any simulated characters entering
their country with four fingers. Historically, Japan has had a subclass of
meat packing workers that were typically looked down upon in their society.
In later days, the blatant displaying of a four fingered hand gesture,
intentionally directed at another, came to mean that you were calling them a
member of the meat packing sub class. Which, we understand, was not at all a
compliment.

It appears that the four finger connection with the meat packing class was
due to work related accidents, but was so frequent that it came to
symbolically represent the sub class. It seems as though this is a part of
the Japanese history that some groups within Japan would like to see
forgotten. Therefore, it is at great risk that you publish four fingered
characters in Japan, as you may very likely end up in legal battles with a
vociferous pressure group. This group claims that this type of
representation is equivalent to and as degrading as the yellow star forced
to be worn on Jews by the Nazi's during the Second World War.That is, it's
offensive and degrading unless they can extort enough money out of you. Then
it's all okay. Case in point: We were told that the Walt Disney Corporation
is charged five million dollars a year by this group so that Mickey Mouse
may live in Japan and retain his original four fingered design. Otherwise,
old Mickey would need to see a surgeon and have something done about that
insulting forth finger.

The moral of this story is... if you want to pay, then it's ok. If you don't
want to pay, then it's a horrible insult to our culture. In other parts of
the world we have a word for these types of two-faced tactics. We call it
extortion. If it is truly offensive and degrading, then don't allow it at
all. But to allow it for a price... is to belittle the case altogether. It
suggests that the real truth behind these groups is that they are using the
darker moments in their own cultures' history as an excuse to coerce money
out of content providers.

Well, being that this is Oddworld, we felt that this seemed like a perfect
addition to the Abe story. We thought it was ironically perfect that he was
being discriminated against for being who he was. As the message came from
Japan, "They don't like his kind here, with the sincere suggestion," Just
chop off one of his fingers cause you don't have the money to pay up..."
caused us to feel that we indeed needed to allow Abe to go through the
suffering that goes along with being a poor slob at the bottom of the Food
chain. Yup, we chopped off his finger so that the Japanese wouldn't get
offended (or paid). He didn't like it one bit, but due to the fact that
their ain't much he can do about it... we decided that he could donate his
finger rather than us donating five million dollars. Such is life in Japan
when you're a four-fingered meat packing worker.
And that is how Abe lost his finger in Japan. He's still pretty pissed off
about it, but we convinced him that with the amount of games sold in Japan,
he still might be able to get his message through to their culture someday.
As a true believer in his cause, he felt that the sacrifice of a finger was
but a small price to pay in hoping to shed some light on discriminations and
injustices the world over. "