Casey sat in the back of his neuroscience classroom, head in one hand while the other scratched out an approximation of the teacher’s lecture. This section of the textbook was old news to him, reviewed a night or two before, and Professor Duncan tended to keep the content of her lectures pretty close to what was in the book. The notes he took were sparse, only gaining detail when she mentioned something he didn't remember being in his textbook notes. The rest was left as a general outline that just directed him to the section of his chapter notes that held the relevant information.
As the class neared its end though, Professor Duncan closed her lecture slides and changed her tone, and Caset straightened up to pay more attention. The class was supposed to get a new project assignment today, and he didn’t want to miss anything that might come back to bite him later.
“Everyone here is familiar with the Total Feedback Virtual Reality System, or ‘Teever’” at this she held up her hands to give air quotes, telling us what she thought of the slang name “as people have taken to calling it. In the future we will have a unit dedicated to how these devices interact with the brain, but for now having experience with them is enough. At the beginning of the semester each of you was provided with a basic system if you didn’t have one of your own to use as a learning tool. If you have not yet calibrated your system for complex use, shame on you, we used those settings for our last group project” There were a few scattered laughs at this, coupled with one or two sheepish looks from the back of the room.
“In any case, you will want to do so as soon as possible, accuracy in your own movements will be integral to your next assignment. For this project you have two options. The first is to work with a partner over the VRNetwork and go through a few simple dissection and reconstruction courses to learn about brain structure and use, and write a 6 page paper about the different structures you observe and their functions.”
There were groans across the classroom at this, simulation models designed by education services were never great. The avatars tended to be unwieldy at best, making it difficult to do any sort of dextrous work quickly, no matter how good your Teever system or calibration settings were, and dissection programs had an annoying tendency to bug out pieces of the cadaver of you cut in an unexpected place, making corrections extraordinarily difficult. Professor Duncan let out a chuckle at this, she was quite familiar with the frustrations of an inadequately simulated environment, and if you caught her outside of class she was happy to share these frustrations with anyone who would hear, especially because with the integration of virtual reality into education no public schools and most private ones would no longer pay for actual dissection materials and used these simulations as an unfortunate substiture
“If you don’t like that option, the second should please you. Our university along with a number of others was recently approached by the game developer Jericho Interactive to help test the tutorial for a new game coming out of development. They want the tutorial in question to teach players about how the brain works, to give them a base understanding of how the technology that makes the TFVRS possible interacts with the brain, so that players are not blindly using technology they know nothing about. Jericho wants to understand how effective of a learning tool their tutorial is, so they have approached a few universities around the country hoping to conduct some preliminary studies. Your second option for this unit’s project is to take part in this study-”
The class erupted into chatter. Jericho was coming out with a new game, and we might get to play it while earning class credit? I’d never heard of anything like that happening before, and hadn’t even run into whispers of a new game, but just as I turned to the student next to me to ask if they had heard anything about this-
“AHEM!”
At this clearing of Professor Duncan’s throat the class quieted down again. “...thank you. Now as I was saying, your second option for this unit’s project is to take part in this study, playing through the tutorial over the next two weeks and writing the same paper as your peers. For those of you interested in taking this option, please log into this class’ site tonight between 7 and 9pm to go through a confidentiality lesson, get more details on what will be required of you, and sign the Non-Disclosure Agreement associated with the study. A personalized access code will be sent to your school email a few minutes after this class ends. If you can’t make that time frame, let me know after class and we will set up another time with the company.”
A buzzer in the hall loudly went off, interrupting what she was saying. “Any other questions you have will also have to be addressed then, as it seems we are out of time for today. Dismissed.”
As the class once again burst into a mess of conversations Casey just sat there, his mind whirling. There was no question what his choice would be, but I couldn’t quite wrap my head around the opportunity that had just been presented to them. Sure, the use of games to promote learning was a trend that had been growing since the mid-200’s, and took off when virtual reality really started making strides, but generally those games weren’t ever incorporated into actual classes, at least not at the university level.
I guess it’s not too far fetched that participating in a study would get us class credit, but I’m surprised that Jericho is involved. They haven’t shown any interest in making a break into the educational games market before, even though their virtual reality software is pretty much the best out there, and would be a huge improvement over anything used in public universities now. Well, whatever. I’m not one to look a gift horse in the mouth, I'll finally get to play one of their games! I wonder if Ben has heard anything about this?
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Jericho games were the best out there, at least when it came to virtual reality. For the last two years, their competitors hadn’t been able to even get close to the level of precision and interactivity that they built into their software. Unfortunately, this quality meant that the games were prohibitively expensive, and Casey had never had a chance to own one, though he had played a an older copy of Bladed Battle that Ben, his freshman year roommate and best friend, had managed to get somewhere. It was their first game and not much more than a hack-and slash RPG, but even so it was one of the best-crafted virtual reality games he had ever played.
Casey continued thinking about what the new game might entail and what it would be like to really play a Jericho game while he gathered his notes and pencils. As he left the classroom though someone crashed into his side and knocked him to the ground, scattering the loose papers in his notebook and causing him to land heavily on his left arm, sending a tingling spike of pain from his funny bone.
“Gah! What the hell?! Ouch, who-”
From the ground next to him Ben looked over with wild eyes and an enormous grin on his face. “There you are!Sorry about that man. Have you heard the news? It’s all over the internet!”
Man, I can’t even be mad when he looks that excited. I bet this is about the new game, he’s gonna blow a gasket when I tell him about the class ‘project!’ ...oof, that’s gonna be a nasty bruise later.
“Jeez, you’ve got to be more careful though, if I had been anyone else coming out of that door I would be pi-i-issed. Damn, my funny bone, ow. What news? I’ve been in class all afternoon, so I haven’t seen anything. Something good happen?”
“Jericho Interactive is coming out with a new game, and they’re providing a free pre-release of the tutorial to uni students who participate in a study! We’ve got to figure out how to get in on this!”
As he got back to his feet and collected his papers, Casey gave his friend one of the biggest fish-eating grins to have ever graced his face, rolled his eyes and started making his way down the hall to get out of the building.
"Oh? What’s this? Do I know MORE about something related to Jericho Interactive than the illustrious Ben Graham? Oh man, mark the day!”
“WHAT?! How?! No! Dammit that’s our bet, isn’t it? Fine, prove it and I’ll hand over the twenty bucks.”
“Oh, and give away this delicious opportunity so quickly? No way. Come on, you’re treating me to lunch, and if the food’s good enough then maybe I’ll tell you what I know.”
“Aw come on man, that’s a low blow, you know I’d tell you the minute I knew something.”
Casey rolled his eyes. “Sure, and then you’d lord the fact you knew it before me over my head for the next week! Can’t help it if I actually possess the intelligence to think ahead and exploit you before giving away my only leverage.”
“Fiiine, we’ll go to Bernie’s. I know you love the burgers there. Plus they’re close.”
“Yeeees! Mushroom burger supreme here I come! Plus a milkshake, of course.” Casey pumped his fist in happy victory. Bernie’s had opened in town a couple years ago and while it was certainly a stereotypical greasy spoon, it was well known among the students at Grandview University as the best burger for a reasonable price within twenty miles, plus it had the added bonus of only being a block and a half from campus.
As they made their way down the street toward the burger joint and Ben continued his incessant begging for information, Casey contemplated how to break the news of what he knew to his friend. He wished the teacher had talked about any opportunities for other students to join the study, as far as he knew it was limited to the classes that had been told, which sucked for his friend, but he wanted to break the news for him in as dramatic a way as possible. Luckily as they ordered their food and sat down a buzz from his phone rescued him from his dilemma. Just in time too, as while he was looking at the screen Ben grabbed his shoulders and spun him to stare with a slightly manic look into his eyes.
“Nuh-uh! We are not waiting for the food! Tell me now, or I swear to RNG that you aren’t playing any of my games for a month!”
Casey just grinned and shook his head “Take a look for yourself. Read it and weep bub.” and interposed his phone screen between their faces, swiping a finger to expand the notification he’d just received and present a full view of the message:
[JERICHO INTERACTIVE: Thank you and Congratulations! As a member of class [PSY334] at [Grandview University] you have been invited to participate in a study involving the pre-release of Jericho Interactive’s newest TFVR game, Gamorra. Please log into your TFVR system at your earliest convenience for identity verification and further information]
[JERICHO INTERACTIVE: Thank you and Congratulations! As a member of class [PSY334] at [Grandview University] you have been invited to participate in a study involving the pre-release of Jericho Interactive’s newest TFVR game, Gamorra. Please log into your TFVR system at your earliest convenience for identity verification and further information]
“WHAAAAT?!?!”