What’s Wrong with NPCs?—One of Numerous Questions Austin Walker Nails Perfectly
In most video games most of the time, non-player characters are the meat in the player character’s power fantasy sandwich. It might taste great and satisfyingly fire up the player’s neural tastebuds,...
View ArticleBrianna Wu Is Third Woman Since August to Be Driven From Home by Death and...
After attending the European Conference on Game-Based Learning in Berlin last week, I was looking forward to writing about exciting papers and newly-won friends (and a few scientific lemons, to be...
View ArticleThe “Actually, It’s About Ethics in Journalism!” Game
The game “Actually, It’s About Ethics in Journalism!” pitches the player against hordes of badly coded Turing bots set up to propagate a fictitious media conspiracy. The challenge is how long the...
View Article#GamerGate Isn’t Over But
#GamerGate isn’t over. Actually, GamerGate might never be over. Or at least won’t be for a very long time. And it can’t, because institutionalized misogyny—very much like its sibling institutionalized...
View Article“#GamerGate Isn’t Over But” Addendum
Brianna Wu: Something has to change. I have 3 games to get out the door–Revolution 60 PC, which is almost done, Cupcake Crisis and Project: Gogo. My team needs me leading them, not fighting Gamergate....
View Article#ECGBL2014: Welcome and Keynote
Last year’s ECGBL 2014 (8th European Conference for Game-Based Learning), October 9–10, in Berlin, which included the satellite conference SGDA 2014 (5th International Conference on Serious Games...
View Article#ECGBL 2014: The Pitfalls of Gamified Learning Design
The first #ECGBL2014 presentation I attended was “Experimenting on How to Create a Sustainable Gamified Learning Design That Supports Adult Students When Learning Through Designing Learning Games”...
View ArticleThing Is, Austin Walker Is Creating Great Video Game Criticism (And You Can...
Austin Walker, whose eye-opening article “Real Human Beings: Shadow of Mordor, Watch Dogs and the New NPC” I referenced in an earlier post, writes terrific video game criticism at New Statesman, Paste...
View ArticleBreaking Down Siloed Educational Subjects & Learning with Computer Games:...
Recently, I asked about the possible effects of “one-size-fits-all educational methodology with predetermined curricula and standardized testing” and, especially, “conditioned learning of siloed...
View ArticleOn Flow and Flow Control
The general principle to put players in control of their flow channels is to design the game’s challenge structure in a way that concurrently escalates risk, relief, and reward, and not just over time,...
View ArticleEntering Game Space: A Very Compact Primer
Passage is structure, not story. It’s not about challenges or plot points, it’s about rules and mood. As a passage, it should serve as an introduction when the game is played for the first time, and...
View ArticleBook Release: Ludotronics
Hot off the press: my book release Ludotronics: A Comprehensive Game Design Methodology From First Ideas to Spectacular Pitches and Proposals, 576 pages, 100+ illustrations. March, 2019. It’s a...
View ArticleLudotronics: On Lectures, Levels, and Learning Outcomes
For my very first set of university courses, to navigate monster schedules and sleep deprivation, I employed the time-honored strategy of putting everything that seemed remotely relevant on a load of...
View ArticleThe Thing on the Doorstep: Technology and the Classroom
In my lecture on media psychology/media didactics for game designers, reverse-questioning how school lessons and school curricula relate to technology and games counts among my favorite exercises. For...
View ArticleThe Other Thing on the Doorstep: Games and the Classroom
The second reverse question I love to discuss in my lecture on media psychology/media didactics for game designers is to ask, instead of what games can bring to the classroom, what the classroom brings...
View ArticleBoss Exam!, or: Grading in Games
Among the great advantages of game-based learning is, in well-designed games, that players are “tested” exclusively on skills, knowledge, understanding, or attitude that they have learned, or should...
View ArticleAcademic Paper: “Making Sense: Juxtaposing Visual, Auditory, and Kinesthetic...
As I wrote last year, I committed myself to generating one academic paper per year from the research I’m doing for my book on game design methodologies, Ludotronics. (The website ludotronics.net is up,...
View ArticleAcademic Paper: “Tuning Aristotle: An Applied Model of Emotions for...
Hooray, my third paper! As I wrote here two years ago, I committed myself to writing one paper each year while I’m researching and writing my book on game design methodologies. Which has a full title...
View ArticleAcademic Paper: “Learning to Play, Playing to Learn: An Integrated Design...
This is my fourth paper, certainly not my last, but the last paper I will prepublish before my book comes out. (For those of you who haven’t followed or forgotten all about it, three years ago I...
View ArticleNative Informants in Game-Based Learning: Gender
Game-based learning comes in many different shapes and styles that encompass everything from dedicated educational content in serious games to training simulations to communicating knowledge about...
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