ahuttoftea

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Posts posted by ahuttoftea


  1. These are all great ideas and I am mulling over a number of them.

    I don't teach and it isn't free, but I would think 80 Days would be perfect.

     

    I think 80 Days is published by Inkle Studios and they seem to have an interest in getting teachers to use their interactive fiction platform, so it might be worth sending them an email to see if they offer some sort of educational license.

     

    Being a massive 80 Days fan this would be suuuuper cool.


  2. What a great discussion! I thought the discussion of gender was particularly interesting as it shows how such a small change can make so many more people included and feel comfortable.

    Did something indicate it was Mass Effect? I would have assumed it's the next Dragon Age, since I imagine you'd want a writer to be involved in the early stages of a game.

    I think it depends on their role; presumably he wouldn't be a story supervisor but he might be a scene writer in which case it probably doesn't matter too much when he jumped on board.


  3. So I'm a high school English teacher and I've been thinking a lot recently about how Video Games can be incorporated into the classroom. Obviously there are lots of ways but I'm thinking in particular about picking games that could be analysed for themes/representations of particular ideologies (gender/politics/whatever), or in terms of their narrative. I once went to a PD where I saw a school that used a Video Game as a pretext for a creative writing unit (essentially they got students to write fanfic of the game, but used moments from the game as writing prompts) and they found it was highly effective.

    So, long story short, I'm trying to think of game recommendations that could be used in a classroom environment and was wondering if people might help me crowd-source some ideas. My criteria (or rather, the criteria for the people I will inevitably have to convince at the school) for a reasonable game would probably be as follows:

    - Cheap/Free (lol schools have no money and buying a class set of a game is hecka expensive). Alternatively, one expensive game that would be suitable for showing/playing as a class might work.

    - Platform (my school has Macbooks and some iPads, but I'm happy to take Windows/Android suggestions)

    - Not too long (I figure it takes the 'average' kids 5-10 hours to read a book prescribed by their teacher, so I think anything much longer than that would be stretching good will).

    - Narratively driven (has to have a plot of some sort, even if it's a bit esoteric like Journey)

    - Age appropriate (this will vary, but no massive terrible gore-fests)

    - Not too difficult (some kids will never have played a game before; this is one of the reasons things like 'Walking Simulators' or Adventure games kind of appeal to me for this task - if a kid gets stuck it's not dependant on their gaming talent for them to be able to progress and they can always look up a guide).

    Thoughts/suggestions/feedback are always welcome and appreciated! Perhaps I'm coming at this from entirely the wrong angle... If you have any experiences of games in the classroom (what worked/didn't) I'd also be super curious to hear how that went.


  4. Hey all!  So we (by which I mostly mean our wonderful programmer Lewcart) finished the game!  We didn't get everything done (sadly the Let's Player's voiceover was not meant to be), but pretty much everything else made it through in some form or another.


    The itch.io page can be found here

     

    And because we know most of you don't have a Vive, a gameplay video can be found

    .

     

    Below are some photos:

    post-35870-0-69635300-1463816060.png

    post-35870-0-93156600-1463816062.png

    post-35870-0-86359900-1463816066.png

    post-35870-0-85163400-1463816064.png


  5. Hey so I've been listening to the Podcast for about six months now and when it was announced that a new Wizard Jam was coming up I decided to rope someone who can program into making a game with me. That would be my friend Lewis (username: Lewcart) who will also post in this thread. Another friend of ours, who I don't think has a forum account is going to help us with some art assets.

    Title: Now You're Let's Playing With Power

    Genre: First Person Shooterish?

    Platform: THE VIVE (because we don't actually want anyone to play the game)

    Description: You play as a valiant Let's Player attempting to make his way through a series of classic Dintendo ("The Big D") games remade for virtual reality. Each mini game is, essentially, a mini first person shooter with aesthetic nods and gameplay references to classic Nintendo games.

    Your guide in this world is the handy JOB the JOBOT, who guides you from level to level with a bedside manner that can only be described as GLaDOS-esque. Will the AI's wit be a match for you, the Let's Player, and your engaging and definitely not scripted content?

    The four mini-games featured within Now You're Let's Playing With Power are:

    • Shot The Duck Up (Duck Hunt)
    • The Maria Sisters (Mario Bros)
    • Mootroid (Metroids)
    • The Legendary Zoldo (Legend of Zelda)

    The idea we are hopefully going for is that actions in the game will trigger commentary by our 'Lets Player' who will provide amusing quips about what's going on at the time. We'll see how that goes.

    Update 21/5/16:

    It's complete!

    Hey all! So we (by which I mostly mean our wonderful programmer Lewcart) finished the game! We didn't get everything done (sadly the Let's Player's voiceover was not meant to be), but pretty much everything else made it through in some form or another.

    The itch.io page can be found here.

    And because we know most of you don't have a Vive, a gameplay video can be found

    .