(PC) Galactic Adventures

I haven’t been keeping track of this contest but I do recall posting about it…I believe back in January.  Well, the winners have been chosen and 3 of the winners used Spore Galactic Adventures for their projects.  MaxisCactus has more with the following press announcement:

Game Changers Winners Announced!

NINE GAME DEVELOPERS TO SHARE $250,000 FOR EDUCATIONAL GAMING EXPERIENCES USING LittleBigPlanet™ and Spore Galactic Adventures

May 24, 2010 (Games for Change Conference, New York City) U.S. Chief Technology Officer, Aneesh Chopra, will announce on Tuesday the nine winning game developers who will share $250,000 for new and educational gaming experiences on the commercial games LittleBigPlanet™ and Spore™ Galactic Adventures. These winners are part of the MacArthur Foundation’s Digital Media and Learning Competition, which is designed to support the most novel uses of new media for learning. This year, MacArthur teamed with Sony Computer Entertainment America (SCEA), Electronic Arts (EA), the Entertainment Software Association, and the Information Technology & Innovation Foundation to support new and creative user-generated levels and adventures to engage young people in learning in the two games. The intention of the competition is to promote “participatory” learning, which operates under the notion that individuals, specifically young ones, learn best through sharing and involvement. The competition is administered by the virtual network of learning institutions, HASTAC, and is part of the Obama Administration’s Educate to Innovate initiative. More information at www.dmlcompetition.net.

The three winning Spore™ Galactic Adventures projects include:

Creatures Classified! An exploration of cataloging creatures across the galaxy, $40,000
Mathew Powers, Indiana University, Indianapolis, IN
Best in Class: Creatures (Spore™ only)
In this Spore™ adventure, fifth and sixth graders, acting as “intergalactic speciologists,” learn how to collect and organize scientific data and employ the scientific method to classify living things. Armed with a science field journal, players must navigate progressively more complex and challenging planets, collecting data, and classifying the myriad species they encounter based on the evolutionary and physical characteristics of the creatures.

DIASTEM: Digitally Integrating the Academics of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math, $15,000
Patrick Keller, Albuquerque, NM
Leveraging Spore’s™ powerful ability to personalize gameplay, DIASTEM targets STEM-related content that applies directly to digital game development. Within the Spore™ interface, players will complete challenges—from simple math and logic puzzles to more complex physics and engineering construction projects—that are specifically developed and created to elicit player understanding of game design theory and application.

Mission: Evolution, $15,000
Jennifer Biedler, Blacksburg High School, Blacksburg, VA
In Mission: Evolution, high school students thoroughly analyze the evolutionary science driving the Spore™ game engine and investigate the scientific accuracy of the game. Working together to identify principles of evolutionary change that are absent from the off-the-shelf version of Spore™, students collaborate to introduce these principles into their own missions in Spore™ Galactic Adventures.

Want to have the chance at winning anywhere from $5,000 – $50,000 dollars?  There is a huge contest taking place that where you can use Spore Galactic Adventure to “create engaging game play experiences and incorporate and leverage principles of science, technology, engineering and math for learning.”

Game Changers awards, which range from $5,000-$50,000, are for creative levels designed with either LittleBigPlanet or Spore Galactic Adventures that offer young people engaging game play experiences and that incorporate and leverage principles of science, technology, engineering and math for learning.

“Video games from the Spore franchise innately embody the themes of learning, exploration and creation of scientific and educational curriculum,” said Lucy Bradshaw, Vice President and General Manager of Maxis. “Thousands of Spore players have already re-created stunning gameplay around real science such as protein synthesis and dinosaurs using the Adventure Creator Tool within Spore Galactic Adventures. We look forward to offering this Adventure Tool in the Game Changer competition to provide an entirely new group of young minds with a new way to embrace science and education, but through a familiar avenue like video games.”

Read on

Did you manage to create a fruitcake for last week’s Spore Holiday Giveaway?  If you have, check out the winners who will each get a copy of Spore Galactic Adventures!

Ten lucky Spore players have been chosen at random to receive gifts from Maxis! The following players will each receive a copy of Spore Galactic Adventures!

1 Hawk3y394
2 plopy2323445
3 mason0904
4 Maragoras
5 9090hudson
6 cavalier639
7 Tiana77
8 VikaB
9 cole01
10 greenie3

Not one of the lucky 10? You can always take part in the Spore Wild Pet challenge to try to earn a feature from Maxis.

-MC

Ugh!  Fruitcake…horrible.  Want a shot at winning more Spore goodies?  This week you can enter the Spore Holiday Mystery Giveaway #2 and create your very own fruitcake!  Sorry but I’m sitting this one out.  Good luck to those who enter!

Maxis is hosting a second Holiday Mystery Giveaway! If you weren’t one of the lucky thirteen in the first one, you still have a chance to receive a gift from Maxis just by making a little holiday fruitcake.

Just whip up a fruitcake in any editor you choose (other than the adventure creator) and publish it with the tag mcfruitcake. Post a pic of your delectable treat (or stale paper-weight of a pastry) and you’ll have a chance to be one of the ten randomly chosen lucky players to receive a holiday gift back from Maxis.

How to Post:
• Make a fruitcake creation and publish it with the tag mcfruitcakegift
• Post about it here on the forum and include an image and link to the creation.

Example creation:

Prizes
Glory – as always – and 10 lucky Sporumers will be chosen randomly to receive a free gift from Maxis!

Creation Requirements:
• Your creation should look like a fruitcake
• Your creation may be made in any editor (other than the adventure creator)
• There is no need to post more than once. Posting multiple times will not boost your chance of being chosen
• Recipients will be chosen at random, not based on creation quality
• All submissions must be in by 11:00 AM PST Friday (12/11/09)
• Your creation must not have any parent authored by a different creator.
• Your creation must not have any offensive material, links or references to other sites in the submission’s tags, name, or description