Let me be a Noob !!!

Let me be a Noob !!!
 
Many good games are coming our way, like a Santa bug of presents, we know that they are coming, and we are exited. But one of the game I’m most exited about is not just a game - its a learning experience, and it is called “Rock Smith”.
 

Rocksmith lets you hock up a real electric guitar to your PS3 or XBox360, and just play. The game play is much like Rock Band or Guitar Hero, but it really focused about teaching you to play a guitar. For example, one of the difficulty level, is going to be totally dynamic, you will start at easy, and the level will go up as you improve. If you will be having a hard time with part of a song, the game will let you repeat it until you nail it.  Now that gets me exited.



Its not the first time a music game got me exited. I enjoyed all the band-rock-hero-guitar game. Me and some of my gamer friends still meet and play them. But what I really like about them, is how much joy they gave me, by giving joy to my wife. My wife just love Guitar-Hero Metalica.



I bought her this game before going to Metalica show, but we didn’t really got into it until after. Today I know almost all the songs by heart, because of all the time my wife spent on this game (she is much much better than me). It made us pack our bags and go to Sonisphere festival in England this year just to see them (and Megadeath). Because of that game I bought my wife an electric guitar, and a set of electronic drums for myself.



Now I have to admit, me and my wife are still very far from being  rock stars. But Rock Smith makes me optimistic. But What I’m here to talk about, is not how great it is that I have a game that might teach me to play the guitar, but how wonderful it is from a game designer prospective.

What is so wonderful about games, is they let us shine. They give us imaginary missions, in imaginary world, where we can succeed, be a hero, and get prises for it. We can compete with others as equal, we can show and use our talents, that sometimes don’t get appriciated in the real world, and we never get roughly  punished for not doing so well, we can always try again. That is why games makes us lead armies, match diamonds,  grow vegetables, fight zombies
and much more, and we go for the chalange. The music games gave us the opportunity to feel like a rock star, to enjoy music in a whole new way, and even learn about new music. All we needed is a console, video game, and some plastic tools.



And now a potentially something strange might happened. A game is trying to take us back from our super star experience in music games, and bring us almost back to the real life clumsiness, and make us fill like a Noob about music all over again. And we like it, and we are interested, and we think its an improvement.

Here is the thing, we want to succeed in the real world. Playing one simple song with a real guitar, is much more magical for us than 1000 songs on plastic buttons. We know there is no way that this game gonna make all of us rock stars, but we don’t care. we want the real deal.
Now whats really good about it - it still has the advantages of games. It will give us the information as we play, it will show us hove we can improve, and give us points, and sounds and bright particles. But we can actually learn something that would be fun and use full after we leave the game.  You know what f&%k that - I want to be able to go to all those people that think that gaming is a waste of time, and that thing that it is just for kids, and just tell them “You know what f%$k you - this game just thought me to play a guitar”. Wouldn’t that be great :)



...Now seriously, I would just love to learn to play a song in a game environment with all the help and feedback it can give. And from a game designer and developer experience, if it will work, it would be a big step forward in games development. It is not the same as educational games, or gamification, which are ways to make us do things ,that most of the time we don’t really want to do. This is the game that looks you in the eye and say “I know you have a dream, I know you think it is out of reach, but I will do my best to help you get it” . (Basically saying - “Yes, we can!” and go for the white house).



You know, we have seen it before. All those sport programs games, on the WII, PS3 and XBox360. The Kinect is sure trying. But nothing yet we can really say is a greate success. I have to say I loved Dance central, I think it awesome, but I could dance preaty good before, and I don’t know if there are people who learned to dance from it.

So I’m optimistic. My 80$ are waiting and ready - and I’m ready to go Noob again.

Shefy

BTW - I would love to hear about game that have made a positive different in your real life, games that taught you something that was useful, that made you smile when you realized you
actually learned something useful.