Gaming and the liberal arts

Shell turns to sims to power its scenarios.

Nice sketch of a political simulation, plus good reason for teaching with sims.

"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?

Requires login?

Yeah. FP has gone semi-arsehole, requiring free sign-up and log-in to see their stuff. Even some of their own staff are complaining. I suspect it will go away at some point.

Yikes. Well, I logged in under my Facebook hat.

This is pretty great.

I can't tell whether this is a 'moment' or 'turn' in games criticism or a minor spat among more or less thoughtful people. But I like Cameron's direction here.

There's a lot going on there, once you follow the links. Feels like early 20th-century lit crit.

Lots of fun, once you get into the down & dirty politics.

Several educational games, role-playing, based on the perspective of being an investigative journalist. One concerns Palestinian-Israeli conflicts, the other Latin American politics.

"Atmosphir is a free video game for Mac, Windows, and Linux, where you can create your own 3D adventures to play and share online with your family and friends."

Game as prosthetic - stick your finger in to manipulate the virtual finger. See also discussion at http://schulzeandwebb.com/blog/2009/07/30/preparing-us-for-ar-the-value-of-illustrating-of-future-technologies/

That's a fine project, Ed. I like the combination of puzzles with soothing music, a minimalist exploration.

Nice catalogue of no-cost, accessible political activism games.

Wiki for the use of games in languages, includes background research and examples. I particularly like the idea of a class becoming a study abroad sim/ARG.

Game being created about Battle of Fallujah. Touches on comparison to documentary, and history of backlash against new media and portrayal of war.

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.