ABOUT DiGRA JAPAN

投稿日:2017年1月25日


On December 3rd and 4th, 2016, Fujikawa Lab- the Research Lab specialized in the Curriculum Instruction Development has conducted 2-days edutainment or e-learning game development hakathon at the headquarters of GREE, Inc. The hakathon focused on developing edutainment software for Social Studies and Home Studies for the 5th and the 6th graders.

2016-12-04-chibau-gree-1024x727

This is 4th event which held annually and those who are from Sophomore year undergraduate and graduate students specialized in media literacy education were eligible to attend this hakathon.   Overall 26 students gather at the headquarters of GREE, Inc. in Tokyo, together with engineers and developers from GREE, Inc. They spited into four groups and developed 4 edutainment software at the end.

Students mostly focused on conceiving game ideas suitable for the said subjects while engineers and developers from GREE were in charge of programing.  With collaborative efforts, they had successfully developed four games in two days !  The winning title was called “Show Time,” which was an edutainment game for Home Economic Studies.  The graduate students drew approximately 60 illustrations, contributing to enhancing the quality of the games. The winning title will be considered for the actual launch of the product with GREE, Inc. being the publisher.

Through these hackathons, the aspired students in education major will be able to apply what they have learned in their teaching efforts after becoming teachers.

DiGRA Japan Education SIG also held the 5th Serious Game Jam on December 10th and 11th, 2016, developing five serious games with 40 participants of both students and professionals from over 6 countries at the headquarters of Beside Co., Ltd, Tachikawa, Tokyo.  This Game Jam focused on developing games which aims to reach various kinds of social issues.

These efforts make us realize that digital game has the power to change the world.

Curriculum Instruction Development Lab, Department of Education, Chiba University http://dfujikawa.cocolog-nifty.com/jugyo/

2014 Educational Game Hackathon Report

http://pr.gree.jp/blog/2015/04/1249

Reported by Furuichi- Educational SIG Committee member and Aibara- Student member of the DiGRA PR Committee

投稿日:2016年10月10日


International Conference on Japanese video games- Replaying Japan 2016 was held in Leipzig, Germany from Aug 15 to Aug 17.  DiGRA Japan co-hosted the event. The theme of the conference was From Pac-Man to the present: Japanese Games between the local and global.  President of DiGRA Japan- Professor Toru Iwatani gave a keynote speech entitled The Secrets of the Interest for Playing PAC-MAN.  Other keynote speech done by DiGRA Japan member is  “The Making of 80’s Japanese Games- Create World – in case of “XEVIOUS” & “the Tower of DRUAGA” by Vice President of DiGRA Japan, Professor  Masanobu Endo.  There are many other members of DiGRA Japan made presentations during the events and over 100 people from Japan as well as Europe and North America had participated the conference and all of them were involved in active discussions on the latest issues about Japanese video games.

URL  Replaying JAPAN 2016 http://home.uni-leipzig.de/jgames/replayingjapan2016/

replayingjapan-digraj

投稿日:2016年5月30日


iwatani

We are excited to announce that Professor Toru Iwatani has been assuming the office of President for DiGRA Japan Chapter since April 1 2015.

He is known as the creator of Pac-Man, which took the world by storm and became one of the most iconic characters in the golden age of arcade video game. During his career, he has also been credited for numerous popular titles developed by Namco as a producer.  

Stay tuned for other exciting news coming from our chapter under new presidency. 


The report on The 2nd Open-Forum on Game Design Studies: “Encounter-Game and Historical Studies” which was held on Feb 7 2016 at Toyo Bunko Museum. is provided in the following link (In Japanese only)

http://digrajapan.org/?wpdmact=process&did=MzMuaG90bGluaw

 

The report is created by Ottojiro Machikane and  Mitsuhiro Okamoto

We really appreciate your contribution.