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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...

Trinitonian | March 23rd, 2012 - 8:44 am Senior's communications honors thesis pits students against each other with a $500 prize on the line by Maddie Rau Today marks the launch date of "Honor Bound," a Trinity campus game theory project created by senior Laura Schluckebier.

Love it! Glad to hear a student group could put together a project like this. Does anyone know someone at Trinity who was involved? I'd love to be introduced and talk to them a bit about pedagogical aspects.

Student blog - note seamlessness of experience between movie and game story lines.

Say more, Ed. Do you think that seamlessness is part of the global imaginary now?

I think it is becoming less remarkable to treat game worlds and storylines as similar to/comparable to/continuous with longer-established media such as movies, novels etc. I don't know whether it's generational, or just longevity of the medium. Maybe the technology has grown to allow more complex/complete world depictions.

I sense possibilities. Maybe it will be a little more user-friendy than Inform 7.

I've been playing around with it a little bit; had my students look at it briefly last week. It is *more* user friendly in that there are forms and boxes for you to input your story elements (ie, a little more visual than Inform). It is *less* useful in that the product is always in the Fallen London format, ie, cards/decks are "dealt" and story elements are uncovered in a point-based system. So if you're not looking for that particular format to deliver your story, I'm not sure it's as flexible as Inform is. But I think it's pretty neat that they've opened up their process to the public, and their wiki is CHOCK full of ideas, tips, hints, and other useful stuff for producing an engaging story of the Fallen London variety. And, they've got a new game to play in addition to FL called Cabinet Noir which is set in Richelieu/Musketeers France and is fun in a more historically accurate (maybe?) way than FL was/is. Kudos to Failbetter all around, if you're into IF. :)

Pretty usable. I quickly generated a French Revolution game/story. Would be fun to do that right.

"HabWorlds Beyond is a new type of online science course. What sets it apart from the current generation of online courses and MOOCs? Emphasizes learning by doing Students learn by doing as they create and destroy stars, hunt for planets, and search for signs of life."

Thinking about trying this out. Do you know anything more about it?

Very interesting meeting. Note the importance of student-generated games, hacking foreign games for local context, and physical (board, tabletop) games.