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Anna Ho

What are the most treasured aspects of '90s adventure game design and how might these b... - 1 views

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    I came across this great question posted in Quora. One of the responders, Anne Halsall listed structured narratives, diverse hand- drawn animation, more difficult puzzles (less hints), and a single-player experience as hallmarks of 90s adventures games. The highlights of these adventure games are a stark contrast to the conditions, at least according to Gee, that make video games useful learning tools (e.g.,open-ended, immediate feedback, opportunities for socialization). This lead me to wonder, are the trends in contemporary game design driving engagement theory, or is the research driving game design?
Jackie Iger

Game-Based Learning - Without Video Games | MindShift - 2 views

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    An interesting article on game play in the classroom...students take on the role of a video game character and act the part during game performances!
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    If you look at it as 'play' instead of 'game' I think it opens a whole range of possibilities. Which is not surprising. As young children, we learned through play, often elaborate role-play.
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    Hi Jackie - this just reminded me to post a link below re: the CUNY (City University of New York) group that reflects on and develops all types of games in teaching. http://games.commons.gc.cuny.edu/
Jennifer Jocz

University World News - US: Women gain in science while video games hold back boys - 0 views

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  • Last year, Iowa State University researcher Douglas Gentile published a survey of American 8-to-18 year-olds which found 12% of boys were video-game addicted, having at least six symptoms out of 11, similar to a scale for gambling addiction. Yet only 3% of girls were video game addicts.
  • Robert Weis and Brittany C Cerankosky of Denison University measured a group of boys' academic baseline achievement and surveyed their parents and teachers as well. They then gave half the boys video-game units. Boys receiving the video-game stations experienced an academic nosedive. The control group of boys without video games continued with solid schoolwork.
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    Although this study is just correlative, it still poses some interesting questions about video games and academic achievement.
Uly Lalunio

Well-drawn, believable characters are now crucial to modern video games. - 0 views

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    "Heroes have always been the driving force behind video games, of course, with the industry producing such cultural icons as Mario and Lara Croft. However, as video game technology and storytelling have become more sophisticated, developers are embellishing their games with deeper characterisation than ever before. "
Stephanie Fitzgerald

GAMBIT: Do It Yourself Game Design - 1 views

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    Hear MIT GAMBIT Lab experts talk about engagement in practical terms--and get some hands-on experience designing a board or video game. The three-hour workshops are part of the Cambridge Science Festival; this event takes place on April 28 and requires a $5 preregistration. Though I'm sure EMF will be touched on one way or another in all of the workshops, I thought the Serious Games for Social Change workshop might be of particular interest to you all: "In this workshop, best practice examples of serious games for social change will be played, discussed and analyzed. Furthermore ideas and sketches for proto-types will be developed and ways of realizing them will be discussed! The workshop gives the participants hands-on experiences and insights into the potential and limits of video games designed for social change. No pre-experiences are needed!"
shendanxi

The Multiple Dimensions of Video Game Effects - 0 views

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    The paper suggests a multi-dimensional approach to analysing digital games. The good or bad criticism should be replaced by thinking about the games' effects in terms of (1) the amount of play, (2) the content of play, (3) the game context, (4) the game structure, and (5) the mechanics of game play. Considerations should be put into each of these 5 dimensions when a game is being designed.
Jennifer Jocz

Why Everything Is Becoming a Game - 1 views

  • Over the last year, he started grading two of his classes (both involved with game design) using a system based on “experience points,” or XP, similar to the way gamers in World of Warcraft and other massively multiplayer games award points for various tasks. Students started the year at level one, with zero XP, and then gained points — and higher grades — by completing “quests” and “crafting,” which corresponded to giving presentations and doing exams and quizzes. Students also formed “guilds” similar to the gaming groups that rule WoW and other multiplayer games. Sheldon says that his students seemed far more engaged than they had been before.
  • The bottom line is that good games take advantage of people’s innate desire to compete with each other, but balance that with their need to receive rewards, including the approval of their peers — rewards that in some cases can be used to modify their behavior in certain ways. T
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    Interesting article about how certain features of video games (gaining experience points, forming guilds, etc.) are being incorporated in unexpected ways in our lives.
Uly Lalunio

Big brains for video games - Cosmic Log - msnbc.com - 1 views

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    "Does playing video games improve your brain? Or do bigger brains make it easier to learn video games? Psychologists say they can predict how well you'll do on a video game by looking at the size of just three little structures inside your brain. If those structures are bigger, you'll probably catch on more quickly and do better."
Brandon Pousley

SimCity EDU for the Classroom - 0 views

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    This is a webinar chat that I sat in on today (A few questions I posed are featured in the Q&A at the end.) With the new SimCity release, they have also partnered with a company called GlassLab that has designed a teacher resource hub and also modified game that enables teachers to easily use the game in classrooms. There will be specific inquiry based challenges that allow students to interact in the game environment to investigate community issues (ranging from water shortages, power outages, labor disputes, earthquakes, budget concerns, etc.) and work with citizens and government to solve the issues. There is also an exciting multiplayer format where neighboring cities are controlled by other students and they must work together to solve problems. Glass Lab is partnering with EA Games, Gates Foundation, and ETS to build the teacher hub where educators can design and share best practices, lesson plans, etc. In addition, they will be doing a long term study to measure educational outcomes. It appears as though they are using this game as a pilot opportunity to build the framework for larger commercial game integration into the classroom.
Stephanie Fitzgerald

Designing engagement: The secret of Game Dev Story - 0 views

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    Here's another perspective on engagement: how to make games more addictive (or compulsive?) by creating "smarter game loops" with fewer exit points. The example discussed is "Game Dev Story," a management simulation for a game development studio.
Jennifer Jocz

Seeking Philanthropy in MMOs and Online Gaming :: ZAM - 1 views

  • This Wednesday, McGonigal is launching Urgent Evoke, a new MMO-ARG (Alternate Reality Game) hybrid that she hopes will "help empower young people all over the world, and especially young people in Africa, to come up with creative solutions to our most urgent social problems," according to the official blog. The upcoming game offers players the chance to earn tangible rewards—scholarships and venture capital, for example—by performing real-world "quests" like volunteer work and career-building tasks. The concept might not seem that enticing to conventional gamers, but it's an early, real-world application of what McGonigal believes social gaming can help achieve.
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    Can video games help change the world?
Yang Jiang

Do Video Games Cause Depression in Teenagers? - NYTimes.com - 0 views

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    There's been a lot of buzz about whether video games are habit-forming, and whether parents are exaggerating when they say their teenagers are "addicted" to game playing. Now new research on children who are heavy gamers suggests parents may have something else to worry about: depression.
Parisa Rouhani

Virtually addicted: Weaning Koreans off their wired world - CNN.com - 1 views

  • Cheong is down to playing two or three hours on "Starcraft" and "World of Warcraft" three times a week,
  • The South Korean government estimates that the country has 2 million citizens addicted to the Internet
  • Earlier this month a three-month-old baby girl succumbed to malnutrition while her parents spent 12-hour stretches in an Internet café playing the role-playing game Prius Online
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  • 22-year-old man returned to an Internet cafe to continue playing immediately after he murdered his mother, who had complained about his gaming habits. Physical exhaustion after long computer sessions has also caused deaths.
  • Internet addicts will also be offered free software with a timer that shuts down their computers or a "fatigue system" that bores players by making games slower and more difficult
  • Some of the suggested new measures to curb Internet addiction could collide with a gaming market that is expected to be worth $5.5 billion this year with a 17 percent growth rate
  • The companies make their money selling add-ons such as weapons, outfits and special abilities for the online characters.
  • Another novel idea to curb addiction is to punish excessive playing by confiscating gamers' virtual wealth.
  • We are examining various technological directions to prevent excessively continuous game play even for adults, and we are also discussing a special system that will allow children and teenagers to learn a healthy gaming habit,
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    This is an interesting article that speaks to the result of over-engagement. I wonder if this problem is specific to Korea and less so in other countries (if so, what is it about that environment that makes video games so addictive) or if it's only been studied in Korea but could be a similar problem in other parts of the world.
Jennifer Jocz

GAME THEORY - Page 1 - News - New York - Village Voice - 0 views

  • "Sports for the Mind" teacher Al Doyle says his class helps students learn "systems thinking," understanding the relationships of parts to wholes.
  • When the students design their own games, they must incorporate the components of a system: goals, rules, and stakes. Eventually, says Doyle, students will learn the more complex aspects of a system, such as choice and balance, and build those into their games
  • The premise of using video games to engage students in advanced thinking is drawing more advocates.
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    One school using video game design to engage students.
Ryan Brown

The Modern Parent's Guide to Kids and Video Games - 0 views

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    "The Modern Parent's Guide to Kids and Video Games" is a recent publication from "Play It Safe" which highlights the benefits of playing video game, including educational benefits.
Lauren Farrar

The Most Dangerous Gamer - 1 views

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    Hey Guys, this is an Atlantic article a friend sent me awhile ago and I thought some of you might think it's interesting. It's about Jonathan Blow a video game designer with a unique taste. He's in the process of creating The Witness a game that is more artistic, contemplative, and zen-like than FPS type games. This is a long article and to be honest I didn't read all of it, but if you're interested there's a video half way down that gives you an idea of what The Witness will look like. He says users will really have to observe, pay attention and think in order to play the game. Seems interesting to me!
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    Lauren, this is really an awesome article! Thanks for sharing.
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    Really cool!
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    I agree! It really makes me want to play Braid and keep an eye out for The Witness (which rings a bell--I wonder where else I heard about it...). This article paints a vivid picture of the game designer and the type of art he makes. Thanks for sharing!
Kiran Patwardhan

Hands Up! It's game on in the classroom - 1 views

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    Hands Up! It's game on in the classroom Digital New Zealand report finds 7 out of 10 parents use computer and video games as an educational tool Auckland, 30 April 2012 - New Zealand parents are increasingly embracing computer and video games as an educational tool, according to the latest research commissioned by the Interactive Games & Entertainment Association (iGEA).
Jerald Cole

36 Learning Principles from "What Video Games Have to Teach Us" - 4 views

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    "In his book, What Video Games Have to Teach Us about Learning and Literacy, James Paul Gee derives a set of learning principles from his study of the complex, self-directed learning each game player undertakes as s/he encounters and masters a new game. He suggests that adherence to these principles could transform learning in schools, colleges and universities, both for teachers and faculty and, most importantly, for students."
Ryan Brown

The new iPad: A video-game changer? - 0 views

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    "This new device actually has more memory and higher screen resolution than an Xbox 360 or Playstation 3," said Mike Capps, CEO of Epic Games. "So, these guys [Apple] are redefining mobile gaming again."
Soomi Hong

Apple's iPad could revolutionize video games - USATODAY.com - 1 views

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    "The iPad has the potential to become a major gaming platform, according to experts from the video game industry."
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