Group items tagged

Bold claims, but 1+2 are really good.

Short little interactive fiction and/or game thing imagining one possible scenario for a military drone pilot.

Fascinating. Found myself playing it through several times. Has Bioware-style dialog gone casual?

...and "serious"? ...and "persuasive"? Lots to like with this. I'll definitely be using it as a complex example in a games course in the Fall.

Nicely done. I wonder about fan fiction as a writing form for liberal arts education. Potential to engage reluctant writers?

New home of Inform 7 interactive fiction platform

Very different presentation. Thanks, Ed.

Just launched, with plenty of downloads.

Uses real historic artifacts but creates fictional dystopian future.

"Dr. Keller: I designed the simulation with two main goals in mind. First, it had to be an effective teaching tool. I wanted to take abstract concepts and theories that my students often had difficulty grasping, and make these vivid and clearly understandable. I wanted students to personally experience the challenges and complexities of world politics-to get off the sidelines and become players. Although the countries, domestic factions, and global issues in Statecraft are fictional, they have been carefully designed to provide maximum insight into parallel real-world dilemmas: as students grapple with the Orion slavery issue, the threat posed by the melting Ice Mountain, and the temptation to seize Sapphire Island's vast resources they come to understand the security dilemma, the collective action problem, two-level games, the challenges of cooperation under anarchy, and many other constructs not as theoretical concepts but as visceral truths that permeate their conversations with classmates, friends, and parents, and may even keep them up at night."

I like the concept of Statecraft, and took an early look at them. But boy, I wish they would stop spamming up my inbox with invitations to lunch etc. Quite pushy.

That's weird. Are they aggressively courting players for other purposes, or pushing ads?

Found this game after reading about Slavoj Zizek Makes a Game (posted to the Diigo group by Ed Webb).

Want.

Spin is designed to promote student reflection on the power of words and images by creating and altering meaning in a fictional narrative. This fast-paced, small group storytelling game provides students the experience of "spinning" a story in different directions to convey diverse storylines or viewpoints-much like it occurs in print, broadcast, and digital media today.

Computer games have a broad appeal that transcends gender, culture, age and socioeconomic status. Now, computer scientists think that creating computer games, rather than just playing them could boost students' critical and creative thinking skills as well as broaden their participation in computing." id="metasummary

I totally agree. But from my experience having students write interactive fiction in a senior seminar, this is a very time- and resource-intensive way to impart those skills. Not sure it is doable as part of a broader course. Perhaps a full course in game design is yet another thing to add to the stack of basic literacies in the general curriculum...

Perhaps thinner and/or lighter projects would work better. Thinner: spread the work even further across a class. Individual projects ->groups, groups ->whole class. Lighter: even easier to use tools. Inform is pretty easy, though...

Persuasive game about, er, persuasion

Neat! I like the way she worked in anti-gamification.

I can't get the page to load. :(

Just worked for me. Try a different browser? Or want me to email you a file?

Working now. Thanks, though!

Chris Fee's talk about teaching with Inform.