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Ed Webb

Could Minecraft be the next great engineering school? - Quartz - 4 views

qz.com/...-next-great-engineering-school

minecraft games education game simulation virtualworlds opinion engineering

shared by Ed Webb on 30 Nov 12 - No Cached
  • Brett Boessen on 01 Dec 12
     
    This is pretty great.
Brett Boessen

Playfic - 5 views

playfic.com

game webapp inform interactivefiction text

shared by Brett Boessen on 16 Feb 12 - No Cached
  • Brett Boessen on 16 Feb 12
     
    Someone took Inform 7 and made a webapp out of it!
  • ...1 more comment...
  • Ed Webb on 17 Feb 12
     
    Nice find!
  • Bryan Alexander on 17 Feb 12
     
    Yes indeed. I wonder if it's easier than author in than Inform.
  • Brett Boessen on 17 Feb 12
     
    Looks like its just a port of Inform to a web interface: same two-part backstage/frontstage formatting of the screen, same language engine running it. The difference, which is pretty awesome, seems to be that you can post your stories to their site so others can read and comment on them. (If I'm reading it correctly.)
Ed Webb

Google Develops a Facebook Rival - WSJ.com - 1 views

online.wsj.com/...3292704575393531040685308.html

google facebook casual social games gaming

shared by Ed Webb on 28 Jul 10 - Cached
  • A Facebook spokesman said the company wouldn't speculate about Google's initiative but said the company expected new social-networking efforts by others and "looks forward to seeing what others have to offer."
    • Ed Webb
      Ed Webb on 28 Jul 10
       
      Translation: "bring it!"
    • Bryan Alexander
      Bryan Alexander on 28 Jul 10
       
      Indeed. I note that Google is seeking gaming assistance in this quest.
  • Many users now rely on their friends on Facebook—not just Google—to discover content and products they can purchase on the Internet. And much of the content generated by users on Facebook is generally kept out of view of Google's search engine.
  • In an interview this week, Google Chief Executive Eric Schmidt declined to confirm the development of a social-networking service that would incorporate social games, rumored to be called "Google Me." When asked if Google's service might resemble Facebook's, Mr. Schmidt said "the world doesn't need a copy of the same thing."
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • For social-game developers, a successful Google offering would mean they wouldn't be so heavily dependent on Facebook, where the vast majority of users access the games. Consumers' appetite for social games is booming— Zynga's "Farmville" game has more than 60 million active monthly users—and that is attracting bigger players looking to tap new sources of growth. On Tuesday, Walt Disney Co. acquired Playdom for $563.2 million plus up to $200 million more if performance targets are reached. And retailer GameStop Corp. agreed to buy online game distributor Kongregate Inc. for an undisclosed amount.
  • Game developers pay Facebook 30% of the earnings from virtual-good purchases in their games. Google already has an online payment mechanism called Checkout that, in theory, it could use to collect payments for social games on its platform.
Ed Webb

Tom Bissell on Dead Island - Grantland - 2 views

www.grantland.com/...o-games-killed-video-game-star

games gamification opinion

shared by Ed Webb on 20 Sep 11 - No Cached
  • You leveled up and rolled the dice in Dungeons & Dragons because it was impossible to run such systems under the game's hood. You know why? Because there wasn't a hood. Video games not only have hoods but also engines, and all manner of delightfully invisible computation can be dealt with and handled there. So I ask: Why isn't it invisible more often? Why this useless Gamification of what are already games? Why do we tolerate it? What do we actually get out of it, other than some mouse-brain satisfaction of knowing exactly where we are in the maze?4
  • I recently asked a game-designer friend if one of the reasons these skill-tree and leveling-up systems actually show up in games is due to the fact that some poor bastard actually had to work for months and sometimes years refining them and planning them and gaming them out, so that everything made sense and demonstrably kept players from getting too powerful too quickly. He said, with a sigh, "Pretty much." Which means that one problem with game design today is the game designer's emotional inability to hide his or her hard work. Oh, the humanity.
  • Techland consulted some real geniuses of nomenclature in coming up with Dead Island's weapons' subclass names: We have the Flimsy Cleaver, the Tiring Knife, the Frightening Mace, the Spiteful Pistol. It all sounds like the work of two Poles with a big bag of weed and a thesaurus. What's next? I wrote in my notes. The Recalcitrant Hoe? Two minutes later, no joke, I found the Languid Pistol.
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • In a game about running from things that want to eat you, what is more important: the emotional experience of running from things that want to eat you, or knowing that the thing that wants to eat you is a Level 23 thing that wants to eat you? Knowing that the machete in your hand can take its head off, or knowing that the machete in your hand is capable of doing 320+ hit points of damage? On second thought, don't bother answering. That this game exists is answer enough.
Bryan Alexander

Special Issue of Syllabus: Teaching with and about Games - 1 views

www.syllabusjournal.org/...1168

gaming games pedagogy

shared by Bryan Alexander on 22 Feb 15 - No Cached
  • Bryan Alexander on 22 Feb 15
     
    TABLE OF CONTENTS EDITORIAL Special Issue: Teaching with and about Games Video Game Studies How to Play Games of Truth: An Introduction to Video Game Studies Novel Interfaces for Interactive Environments Educational and Serious Game Design: Case Study In Collaboration Introduction to Games Design Representing the Past: Video Games Challenge to the Historical Narrative Learning Through Making: Notes on Teaching Interactive Narrative Video Games as a New Form of Interactive Literature Writing In and Around Games Hints, Advice, and Maybe Cheat Codes: An English Topics Course About Computer Games Teaching Network Game Programming with the Dragonfly Game Engine Root of Play - Game Design for Digital Humanists Alternative Reality Games to Teach Game-Based Storytelling "Continue West and Ascend the Stairs": Game Walkthroughs in Professional and Technical Communication Annotated Bibliography for Game Studies: Modeling Scholarly Research in a Popular Culture Field
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