2006.05.01: May 1, 2006: Headlines: Games: Role Playing: Training: Simulation: Conflict Resolution: Burlington Free Press: Ray Montgomery became involved with a company that was tapped by the Peace Corps to design and implement a full simulation game that would pit in-country volunteers against domestic Peace Corps staffers
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2006.05.01: May 1, 2006: Headlines: Games: Role Playing: Training: Simulation: Conflict Resolution: Burlington Free Press: Ray Montgomery became involved with a company that was tapped by the Peace Corps to design and implement a full simulation game that would pit in-country volunteers against domestic Peace Corps staffers
Ray Montgomery became involved with a company that was tapped by the Peace Corps to design and implement a full simulation game that would pit in-country volunteers against domestic Peace Corps staffers
Ray Montgomery, a Williams College grad, became involved with a company that was tapped by the Peace Corps to design and implement a full simulation game that would pit in-country volunteers against domestic Peace Corps staffers. In the mid-1970s, many Peace Corps volunteers felt at odds with their roles in American foreign policy and the game was designed to address conflicts before they happened and quell the mounting political tension within the Peace Corps. For the project, Montgomery, an affable fellow whose horn-rimmed glasses add to his professorial air, created whole scenarios in an imaginative country where volunteers and staffers played pre-prescribed roles. The project was time-phased and task-oriented that allowed volunteers and Washington staffers to work out scenarios before landing in their desginated countries. "The goal was to keep the Peace Corps working," Montgomery said.
Ray Montgomery became involved with a company that was tapped by the Peace Corps to design and implement a full simulation game that would pit in-country volunteers against domestic Peace Corps staffers
Choose Your Own Adventure
Published: Sunday, April 30, 2006
About the books
[Excerpt]
Caption: Shannon Gilligan and Ray Montgomery, seen at their Waitsfield offices, are the authors and publishers of the Choose Your Own Adventures book series. They are launching new editions of the books in the series, which were originally published in the 1980s.
Photo: Glenn Russell, Free Press
By Lauren Ober
Free Press Staff Writer
Choose Your Own Adventure books took off in 1980 as a joint venture between husband-and-wife team Ray Montgomery and Shannon Gilligan. The books incorporated reading skills and vocabulary building with interactive storylines and multiple endings. The series resurfaced this year after nearly a decadelong hiatus.
The books, which are written in second-person narrative, feature the reader as the main character. Throughout each book, the reader is given a series of choices, allowing him or her to determine the outcome of the story. The stories jump around throughout each book, depending on what path the reader chooses. Depending on the specific book, there could be more than 40 endings the reader can choose.
For example, in the book "Race Forever," the reader is a rally car driver racing through Africa. At the beginning of the story, the reader is given a choice: "If you choose the Subaru WRX, turn to page 18. If you choose the Audi TT, turn to page 12." Throughout the story, the reader may choose whether to be more conservative in the race or go flat out, whether to drive alone or with a German team, and whether to stop and help refugees or continue on with the race.
BEWARE and WARNING!
This story is different from other stories. You and YOU ALONE, fair reader, are in charge of what happens along the way. There are ups and downs, travails and triumphs and adventures abounding.
YOU must summon all your cosmic resources and make use of your breathtaking intelligence to work your way through this tale. The wrong decision won't end in disaster or death -- but almost. At anytime, YOU may go back, make another choice and alter the course of history forever. Or you can stop reading entirely.
Now enter the fantastical and wildly entertaining world of literary drama and publishing mayhem ... You may become famous; you might decide never to return to your desk job; or you may never get the chance to make that decision. Whatever happens, good luck and godspeed.
You are a young scholar named Ray Montgomery living in Cambridge, Mass., during the height of the Vietnam War. You're working on behavior simulation and game theory, a branch of applied mathematics. The work suits you, as it feeds your love of macroeconomics, geo-politics, history and role-playing ...
-- If you decide Ray should apply his game theory work to the Peace Corps in Africa, continue reading.
-- If you decide Ray should apply his skills to writing children's books with his wife, Shannon Gilligan, jump to the first headine.
Helping the Peace Corps
Ray Montgomery, a Williams College grad, became involved with a company that was tapped by the Peace Corps to design and implement a full simulation game that would pit in-country volunteers against domestic Peace Corps staffers. In the mid-1970s, many Peace Corps volunteers felt at odds with their roles in American foreign policy and the game was designed to address conflicts before they happened and quell the mounting political tension within the Peace Corps.
For the project, Montgomery, an affable fellow whose horn-rimmed glasses add to his professorial air, created whole scenarios in an imaginative country where volunteers and staffers played pre-prescribed roles. The project was time-phased and task-oriented that allowed volunteers and Washington staffers to work out scenarios before landing in their desginated countries.
"The goal was to keep the Peace Corps working," Montgomery said.
Montgomery's project was so successful that he ended up becoming a training officer for the Peace Corps and moved to West Africa to work with volunteers. Upon returning from Africa, Montgomery worked on other simulation projects, most notably with the Edison Electric Institute, an association of shareholder-owned electric companies in Washington D.C.
When this story was posted in May 2006, this was on the front page of PCOL:
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Story Source: Burlington Free Press
This story has been posted in the following forums: : Headlines; Games; Role Playing; Training; Simulation; Conflict Resolution
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