Game Theory

Very cool YouTube video on Tangential Learning in video games. Definitely something that can be shared with New Media or Computers in Language and Rhetoric course. There are a few others (by the same guy) that are interesting, like video games and sex. Definitely worth checking out.

Not that any of that might not be true, but I don't appreciate being told that by my game console! Yeah, I got a Wii Fit at launch because I had to have it. I was wondering how delicate it would be and it wasn't very delicate at all. When I entered my height and weight it shrank my mii and made my belly hang out of my workout clothes (this mind you NEVER happens).

In a society that is far too concerned with impossible beauty standards and children "dieting" in elementary and middle school for no good reason I worry about the additional damage of being called obese and having oneself represented as a dumpy avatar. Now I have to go and lie to my Wii and see if the process and outcome is any different if I make myself a pre-teen girl.

Just a brief announcement. Penny Arcade is sponsoring a scholarship for students interested in going into the games industry. It is not field specific, and I am really interested in seeing if they award it to someone in the humanities :-)

via GamingAngels

I have not fallen off the face of the earth. It has been a busy week. There were dissertation prospectus defenses and sockday parties and web 2.0 community meetups. I have been a busy beaver!

I did manage to stay up until 4:00 on Wednesday and finish Professor Layton. I was really excited to get to the extra puzzles that were based on how completely you have finished the game, but I was sorely disappointed. Not so much in the game as in myself. The puzzles were the same puzzles that you find in the game (and one might argue a bit more difficult), but I found myself almost totally disinterested in them when they were not connected to or advancing an ongoing narrative!

Wow, now that says a lot. I found the puzzles too easy in most cases, but I continued to play the game because I wanted to see what happened next in the simple (yet engaging) story. There is definitely a lot to be said for a good narrative.

Oh well, it's almost 5:30 so I guess I really should head off to bed. DST really sucks for me right now!

Don't you hate when you write a long post and it gets lost in the ether. Here's my attempt to recreate it before I go to bed.

So I've been playing a lot of Professor Layton and the Curious Village on my DS before I go to bed at night and I find it amusing that "Critical thinking is the key to success!" is one of the professor's key phrases. As a teacher, it would be great if all of my students thought that way, right?

Professor Layton is a lot like Brain Age with a narrative. You solve a series of puzzles to get clues from the villagers. The game offers an interesting cast of characters including the sloppy detective, the beautiful lady in distress, the flamboyant servant with purple lip(stick) to match his purple suit who interjects "Woo Hoo" in a Tourettes-esque manner during his speeches, matronly little old ladies, and an assortment of village idiots.

Oddly enough all of the villagers have puzzles that they want you to solve (and they can't solve them for themselves). You need the clues that they give you to solve a series of mysteries. There are disappearing artifacts, a murder, kidnappings, and more to come I am sure. I have finished 4 or 5 chapters of the game and the puzzles are starting to get a little challenging (either that or it's the cold medicine that I've been taking at bedtime). What is (so far) obviously absent from the game is word puzzles. Professor Layton 2 has already been released in Japan and a third is the works so hopefully the the developers at Level-5 will pull in some wordsmithy types to develop some word puzzles!

Additional game features?

In addition to the clues that you get from the villagers for solving the puzzles you can also earn money (picarats) that can be used to buy bonuses at the end of the game.

You can download new puzzles every week via the Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection.

While I spent far too much time touring the Expo at GDC I played a lot of games as well. Want to know what I played? Here's a quick list and my 5 word maximum first reactions!

Hellgate London- Really Liked It

Crysis- Liked It

Spore Creatures (DS-Pre-release)- It could grow on me

Wii Fit- Strangely addictive (and the Nintendo guy got me to hula hoop in public!)

Dishwasher: Dead Samurai (XNA community game for XBLA)- Definite Download

Little Gamers (XNA community game for XBLA)- Definite Download

Penumbra:Overture- Not for me

Warriors Orochi (Pre-release for the PSP)- A hack & slash feast. Gots to get me some of that!

Bionic Commando (watched a demo)- A Black, male, Lara Croft with dreads...not really my type of game this one.

Fez- A GDC Indie favorite...a cross between Echochrome and old school platformer

On Tuesday I went to sessions from both IGDA and the Serious Games Summits. You'll find those notes below the fold. :-)

So day one is over and here are my notes. You can find them below the fold. Now to find some food.

well the morning of day one is official in the bag! i made it through almost the whole morning before my body decided that food would be necessary to keep my blood sugar up and I had to sneak out before the last morning session, but 3 out of 4 ain't bad, right? I'm posting my notes from the a.m. below the break for those who are interested in what when on in the Serious Games Summit today.

Been waiting until it was late enough to go to be so that I don't wake up at 3 a.m. PST. I think that i should be able to go to bed in an hour or two so that I can get up and have breakfast and coffee before I head over for day 1 of GDC. I am prolly going to sneak back and forth between the Serious Games and IGDA Summits for the next couple of days. What I am really looking forward to is the Show EXPO!! I am counting the days until that kicks off on Wednesday.

Wish me luck!