Math games have been around forever.

The first one I ever remember playing was good old Math Blaster. Math Blaster was a part of the first wave of computer games for learning. Many of these games took an approach that was pretty simple: Solve a problem or get the right answer, then get to do something cool (like blast something.) While some of these games sold pretty well, and even a few of them were fun, they certainly weren't the greatest tools for learning. In a lot of ways, Math Blaster was no more than a fancy flashcard game for learning math facts. The Blaster mechanic had absolutely nothing to do with the math learning objectives.

Last year, here at Muzzy, we developed a small math game prototype called Factor Madness. The game mechanics in Factor Madness are relatively simple. Players are given a target number which they need to identify all the factors of in as fast a time as possible. To do so, players will place "factor chips" on all of the correct factors of the target number. When they've all been placed, players hit the buzzer to check their answer. If they got them all, they'll advance to the next round. If not, the incorrect factors will be marked with an x, and those chips will be returned to the stack to be placed again.

Last week our friend economic historian Niall Ferguson wrote an impressive article in Newsweek, detailing the reasons behind the lack of achievement by Americans when it comes to learning history. Many are so deficient they would fail to pass the test required of immigrants seeking citizenship! According to Niall the fault lies less in the quality of the teachers than in the methods they are using, including textbooks, and more importantly what they represent.

We’ve heard much about the obesity problem in America over the past few years. Studies show nearly 1 in 5 American children are obese, with the numbers even higher in many minority and low income communities. It’s a problem important enough to the attention of the First Lady, whose Let’s Move campaign aims to reverse this trend.

On his HBO program Real Time the other night, comedian Bill Maher blamed video games as a major contributor to the obesity epidemic. There may be some truth to Maher’s rant. Certainly too much of anything (video games included) is a bad thing. Still, I think there are plenty of examples of games being a part of the solution as well. Fitness games for the Wii and Xbox Kinect have been decent sellers. I’ve certainly worked up a sweat playing “Rallyball” or Kinect Yoga in recent weeks.

Incorporating games or game-like elements as motivators for physical activity for kids has a lot of promise as well. At least, that’s the thinking behind a program like Zamzee (http://www.zamzee.com/). Zamzee is an online rewards program that incentivizes physical activity. In effect, it’s a technology aid that tries to “gamify” physical activity for teens.

The Serious Games Summit at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco featured a jam-packed two-day program. I wrote about the Day 1 program focusing on Health Games in last week's column. While Day 1 was fascinating, Day 2 offered more of a "hot button" issue focus. The topic du jour? Gamification.

Honestly, I didn't realize gamification was such a controversial topic. In fact, I'm not sure I had ever even heard the term, which refers to the application of game mechanics or "game-like" elements to non-game experiences. While the term itself is a relatively new one, (and now a key marketing buzz word), people have been gamifying things forever. Back when I was an elementary teacher, I gamified just about every subject I could, in an effort to increase the attention and interest of my students. So, I was all ears to hear from some of the thought-leaders in serious games on the current gamification trends.

Highlights from Gamification Day:

I had the opportunity to attend the Serious Games Summit at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco last week. It was my first time at the SGS, and I was extremely impressed with the quality of the program. This year, they decided to split the two-day summit up thematically. Monday’s sessions all revolved around games for health. Tuesday’s focused on the hot topic of gameification. As a game designer at Muzzy Lane, I often find myself down in the weeds, working on very specific details for a particular project. Conferences like these give me an opportunity to break from the trenches and get a better sense of all the interesting work going on in the serious games space. And wow, is there a lot going on in serious games!

On Thursday, March 10, 7-10 pm, Muzzy Lane will be a major participant in the "Made in MA" Event taking place on the eve of PAX East 2011. Over 1000 developers, media, government officials and investors will gather at the aptly named Microsoft NERD Center in Cambridge to celebrate the fact that Massachusetts has become a major center in the game industry, generating more than $2 Billion annually.

We will be showing off an array of games, from our series of classic Making History grand strategy games to some of our innovative educational games, such as the first in the “Practice” series of games developed with McGraw-Hill. Intended to be used at the university level, the game, “Practice Marketing” lets students truly put into practice the lessons learned from their studies.

I’m thrilled to be writing the first post for the new Muzzy Lane blog, which is part of our new revamped website. There is a lot of interesting work going on here these days, and we felt, frankly, that we were not doing a good enough job of sharing. This website (and blog) are part of our strategy to do better.

We’ll have room here to say more about our projects, including our own games and those we’re developing with partners. Where we can, we’ll add links to let you get in and play some of the games and prototypes – all of our games play in the browser, after all.