Deisgning games to teach maths? How about health and safety? Not exactly aiming for the top of the charts, are you? Well, math games have already busted through the charts on Nintendo’s DS, and now some folks in Michigan are bringing a similar sensibility to the PSP. But Health and Safety? Yeah. It’s happening. And […]
Read more "Games Teaching . . . Health and Safety?"People are reading less and less. They’re also watching less and less TV. The reason? They’re switching to interactive entertainment like the internet and video games.Here’s a piece of bricks-and-mortar support for that wild inference. Borders, one of the largest book retail chains in the UK, has started selling video games. This may seem like […]
Read more "Taking up Space"(Or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Play to Victory) Jane McGonigal delivered a really good presentation about game design at GDC this year. It’s called ‘Reality is Broken.’ Game designers pretty much have it all figured out. We’ve invented a medium that kicks every other medium’s ass. As game designers, we own more […]
Read more "How to Fix Reality"You think that headline is a joke? It may seem funny, but check out the best thing to come out of GDC this year: this rant by Jane McGonigal. Here are her slides. Watch it. Awesomeness. It has catalyzed a deep vein of enthusiasm in my mind, now pumping out with caffeine-accellerated energy. More coherent […]
Read more "Design Game, Save World"Just heard about a really intreresting project coming out of South London. It’s called Soul Control, and it’s about gangs and knife crime in the UK. Video just posted on YouTube: Another example of games tackling important current affairs issues.
Read more "Soul Control"Imagine a factual game on a console. Tough market? Sure. Prestige? You bet! The potential for impact is high. Releasing to console is a pipeline into 10 million homes, if you’re talking about Xbox. And I am – trouble is that releasing a game to console typically takes years and millions of dollars. Well, not […]
Read more "Journalism on Xbox"It had to happen. In a blog about video games and journalism, here’s a story about someone using video games to train journalists . . . Looks like they’ve modded the eminently moddable Neverwinter Nights, taking advantage of the adaptable conversation tree to make a journalism simulator. It’s all about the procedural learning . . […]
Read more "Using Video Games to Train Journalists"Remember when you were a kid? Think back. You’d get together with your friends and play. You’d burn for it. You’d be squirming in your seat at the lunch table on a weekend, dying to get away, so you could meet up with your best friend and carry one with the Lego or tree fort […]
Read more "Playing Together: It’s What We DO"IBM is starting up an educational MMO – this time, it’s about environmental issues. In PowerUp, teams of players have to work together to save a planet from ecological apocalypse. NASA is doing it, IBM’s all over it, and the number of people playing MMOs worldwide is soaring. my money is on massively multiplayer gaming […]
Read more "Massively Multiplayer Media"Interesting article in Gamasutra a couple of days ago. (I know, I know, I’m late with this – but I’ve been working on other stuff lately.) Jim Preston wades hip deep into the “Are video games art?” debate. Rather than concluding yes or no, he suggests (correctly, I’d say) that the point is moot: As […]
Read more "Games as Art? . . . Who cares?"
Philip Trippenbach 