ENGL 680M: New Media

Wow, Bogost! I really like this book.

Here's what I was thinking from the beginning: how is Bogost's conception of procedurality in video games differ from an advanced board game? There are rules, and people act within them to explore the system of the game. Often the rules must be creatively navigated in order to succeed. Some card games function similarly. Why would Bogost need to "create" a whole new field?

In case you missed it, the second season of Boondocks has begun. It airs Mondays, 10:30 I believe.

And for all you new media fans, I recommend "The Real," an episode in which Riley signs up the family for Pimp My Ride and Extreme Makeover: Home Edition. It's brilliant!

Check out Everyvideogame.com

This site will let you play some of the old games that Bogost talks about in his book. 

So I've started reserving a Laptop with the DLC to run Secondlife. Even that is proving a bit difficult. But Reisert is particularly helpful--and he knows Second Life. I'm going into this blindly without any expectations, and I'm looking forward to exploring (not playing--word to Mark Pepper) Second Life as a pedagogical/playspace.

i joined second life. i have a second life avatar. but my computer can't run the software. something about the latest video cards. or whatever. i'm not sure what i'm supposed to do about that. anyone have any clue?

While searching YouTube for short documentaries, I came across the following video "Rock Paper Scissors" . I was fairly convinced that this was a mockumentary, but to be sure, I searched for the Rock Paper Scissors Society mentioned on the site. It's a relatively large website with quite a few posts, and as I went through the site, it seemed credible. Still, I wasn't convinced. You all know how many seemingly professional websites lack real credibility. More research was necessary.

I posted my schedule as well as the corresponding readings from compose, design, advocate that correspond to our unit calendar.

Let me know if you have any questions.

I've just finished (or decided to stop playing) 3 games:

1.) Half-Life 2: Episode 2
This game runs a fantastic story, with characters that could be strong and emotional moments that could be groundbreaking... if only the moment-to-moment script writing didn't TOTALLY SUCK.

You spend the majority of the game feeling as though you're in kingergarten. Every time you do anything, you get a "nice shot!" or a "great job, Freeman!" from one of the other characters. Annoying.

Christopher brought up an interesting point in the comments of the what you playin' post. How do we find time for/justify our play time (especially to those clueless wonders outside of our areas) and probably even more importantly to ourselves. With several articles, a slew of presentations, and a book in the works I still find it EXTREMELY difficult to justify my play time...even to myself. While I want to get past this I am pretty sure that I don't want gaming to start feeling like work (even though playing Oblivion -a game that I LOVED- now does seem like drudgery!).

Anybody else feeling like that at this point of the semester? Having difficulty with thinking of games as an academic (and necessary) endeavor?

The Carnegie Mellon library system has released (in beta) two games meant to get at using the library system. The first game, Within Range, is not the most interesting but it asks students to re-shelve books based on LoC subjects and the Dewey Decimal System. Useful for helping them find books in the brick and mortar library but not riveting gaming. The second game, I'll Get It, is a much like Diner Dash (only in a library). You have to look up the patron's topic and choose from 2 books or 2 internet sources what you will bring back to the patron based upon their research question. This one is a bit more interesting especially since it goes in waves and gets more harried as time passes.

How effective is this? Can we teach students how to use a virtual library and expect them to extrapolate that out to the real world? Or will they simply google the topic and go from there?

via Dennis Jerz